DAMIAN’S POV
Marcus and Catherine were an unlikely pair of allies.
Marcus burned hot—impatient, volatile, always pushing, always needing to feel like he was the one driving the conversation forward.
Even sitting still, there was a restlessness to him, a tension coiled beneath his skin like he might snap at any moment if the world didn’t move fast enough to match him.
Catherine was the opposite.
Where Marcus reacted, she observed. Where he pressed, she waited.
There was something unnerving about the way she held herself, like she was never fully in the room—like part of her was always somewhere else, calculating, rearranging outcomes before anyone else even realized there was a game being played.
If Marcus was fire—loud, unpredictable, always threatening to consume—then Catherine was something colder. Something that watched the fire burn and calculated how best to use the ashes to her benefit.
