EMBER'S POV
The council antechamber is our impending guillotine.
I'm still riding the high of Knox's public declaration on the terrace, still feeling the subtle warmth of his arm around my waist as he announced to half the Summit that I'm his fated mate.
Well, it’s a lie. But it’s one that lights up my insides and releases a flutter of butterfly in my lower belly.
The whispers haven't stopped since we left the Christmas games.
People are looking at me differently now—with curiosity, with envy, with the kind of calculating interest that comes from realizing the nobody omega just became someone worth knowing.
Then we walk into the antechamber, and my blood turns to ice.
My mother is here.
She's draped on the arm of a silver-haired man like she was born there, her designer dress catch
