KAIA
“Are you sure she’s going to be okay?”
Ashby.
Her voice drips through the dark, tinged with panic.
Another voice follows. This one is low and rough, familiar enough to make my heart twitch.
That's Caius.
“She has to be.”
He sounds like someone praying with their teeth clenched.
“I think we should wake Princess and ask her if she… you know… saw something else on her TV.”
“You dare not.” Caius snarls at him.
Maddox.
Their words roll over me, one after the other, like waves on a shore I can’t reach. I’m floating somewhere deep and somewhere so dark I can't feel. My body is like a distant thing; no weight, no warmth, no movement. But those three feelings—oh, I feel those.
Caius’ frustration is a hot pulse. Maddox’s fear is a trembling undercurrent. And Ronan’s self-loathing a
