Leon never thought silence could be so loud.
The echoes of that sanctum clung to his ears like a curse. The guttural rhythm, the wet slap of flesh against stone, Saluki's hoarse laughter through pain… it all played over and over in his head like a broken phonograph. He had seen gore, he had seen carnage, he had seen death. But this? This was devotion stripped raw — lust for chains, hunger for pain, worship twisted into something that no word in any of his sixty languages could capture.
He sat on the edge of the cot in their quarters, elbows on his knees, head in his hands. Wolfe leaned against the wall across from him, arms crossed, watching him with those dark eyes that saw too much and said too little.
"You look like you swallowed the whole sanctum," Wolfe finally said. His voice was steady, but the corner of his mouth twitched in the way it always did when he was masking something.
