Lamb To The Slaughter

She was a creature of the cage-a half-breed lamb sold for scraps, destined to rot in a dusty pet shop. He was a lord of ancient power and colder cruelty, a being who collected rare things and bent them to his will.

Valerius did not buy Alyse for kindness. He bought her for curiosity. For the trembling in her hands. For the way she bit when cornered and ran when frightened and still, somehow, stayed.

But the cage was not so easily escaped. And the shepherd, for all his control, did not expect to find himself caught.

A story of ownership and surrender, of punishment and tenderness, of a man who does not know how to be gentle and a woman who does not know how to stop hoping.