~EMBER
My fingers were still wrapped tightly around the sleeve of Gray’s jacket, my knuckles practically white because a deep, irrational part of my mind was entirely convinced he would dissolve into smoke if I let go.
Ten years.
Ten long, agonizing years of staring at the empty spaces in the family portraits and whispering his name into the quiet corners of the estate, and now he was standing right next to me on the polished travertine tiles of the grand reception hall. He was no longer the fragile, defensive teenager the High Council had dragged across the perimeter lines, he was a mountain of an alpha, his presence so heavy and grounded it felt like the very foundation of the house was stabilizing beneath his boots.
The heavy oak double doors leading to the private residential wing
