The village air was thick with the scent of rain and scandal. The haveli’s gates had been left open, and the boundary between family and outsiders had completely dissolved. Savita, the fair-skinned matriarch, sat on the mahogany swing in the veranda, her hourglass frame trembling with a terminal, white-hot velocity.

Standing before her was Rohan, her grandson-in-law—a man of massive, fair-skinned muscularity who had just arrived from the city. He didn't offer a traditional greeting. He looked at Savita with a dark, predatory hunger, his eyes tracing the marks Jagat had left on her neck.