Diana’s POV
I didn’t cry right away.
I wanted to.
But the ache in my chest was too sharp, like someone had stitched my lungs with wire. My thoughts roared like a storm trapped in a bottle. Breathing felt like dragging air through soaked wool.
Eva’s hand hovered near my shoulder, warm and uncertain, but I flinched away before it could touch me.
I didn’t mean to be cruel.
But right now, even kindness felt like a splinter.
I turned away and folded in on myself, arms wrapped tight around my knees, forehead pressed to my thighs, like I was trying to hold the world still just by being small enough.
Everything I ever believed, stories I once thought were fiction—werewolves, matriarch witches, vampire councils, They weren’t stories anymore.
They were real.
And I was trapped inside the pa
