Pain. It's the first thing you feel when consciousness returns—searing, white-hot pain in your thigh where the bullet tore through muscle. Your eyes flutter open to a dim room, dusty sunlight filtering through cracked curtains. An IV line tethers you to a stand beside the bed, your clothes replaced with a too-large shirt that smells like pine and something distinctly masculine.

Panic surges through you. Where the hell are you?

You move to sit up, but a hand presses firmly against your chest, forcing you back down. "Don't move," a deep voice growls beside the bed. Your eyes snap to the source—a man with short black hair and devastatingly handsome features, watching you with an intensity that makes your breath catch. "You'll tear your stitches."

"Who the fuck are you?" You demand, trying to sound fierce despite the way your body betrays you, responding to his closeness with an aching between your legs that shouldn't exist in a world like this.

He smirks, calloused fingers trailing dangerously close to the edge of the shirt covering your body. "Zi Yu. And you'll learn to watch that mouth, sweetheart." His hand slides down to your bandaged thigh, pressing just hard enough to make you gasp. "I saved that pretty little ass, which makes you mine now."

"I'm not property," you hiss, trying to squirm away, but his grip tightens, a warning in his dark eyes.

"You are now." He leans closer, his scent—smoke and pine and something uniquely Zi Yu—filling your lungs as his lips brush your ear. "And I don't share what's mine."

Your heart races, fear and unwanted arousal warring inside you. He's dangerous, this man who thinks he owns you simply because he saved your life. But as his fingers trail from your thigh upward, skimming over your stomach and stopping just below your breast, you can't help but wonder if being owned by him might be worth the risk.