Cassandra's POV
Living in the same house as someone you know is dangerous is a specific kind of awful.
It is not the loud kind of fear. It does not announce itself. It sits behind your sternum and runs a low current through every ordinary moment, so that breakfast in the kitchen is breakfast in the kitchen but it is also something else entirely, and walking down a corridor is walking down a corridor but you are aware at all times of every doorway and every shadow and where the exits are.
Kael smiled at me at breakfast the morning after the woods.
You stayed, he said, with just enough warmth to be perfectly normal.
The Alpha asked me to, I said.
Of course. He poured his coffee. I am glad. The house suits you.
I smiled back. I had practised that smile in the bathroom mirror at six in
