**Cassian**
Jealousy wasn’t an emotion I was used to. In fact, I despised it. It was for the weak, for those too fragile to handle power slipping through their fingers. But here I was, feeling the bitter edge of it as I watched Lucian and Peniel together.
It was absurd. I didn’t want her—not in the way Lucian seemed to, anyway. Peniel wasn’t someone to love, someone to cherish. She was a weapon, one I intended to wield, to twist to my will. The attraction I felt toward her wasn’t like the pathetic longing I saw in Lucian’s eyes every time he looked at her. No, what I felt was hunger. Peniel was power. And power was all I needed.
But every time I saw them together, that hunger twisted into something uglier, darker. I hated the way Lucian looked at her, as if she were the missing piece of
