XAVIER'S POV
The mansion was a monument to excess. I stepped into a living room that breathed wealth: floors of book-matched colored marble and a central fountain that hummed beneath three sweeping grand staircases. Black velvet couches anchored the space against towering ebony curtains and a fireplace large enough to incinerate a man standing. Her taste was a sharp departure from her father's; he had spent his life huddled on soft Japanese pillows, but she preferred the cold, hard edges of power.
I glanced up at a golden glass chandelier that hung like a frozen explosion halfway to the floor. Surrounding us, the severed heads of bears, wolves, and Bengal tigers stared down with glass eyes.
"Those were my father's," Mei Li said, her gaze drifting to the tiger head mounted above the mantle. "He kept them in crates for you know..fear of thieves. But hidden predators don't really command a room, do they?"
