Mira's POV
I woke up alone, and the empty room felt strangely disappointing.
For a second, I just lay there, staring at the ceiling, trying to figure out why that bothered me so much. Rowan hadn't promised to stay. He hadn't even really explained why he'd shown up outside my door in the first place, chest bare under that half-buttoned shirt, looking like a man who'd talked himself into a bad decision and then walked all the way here to make it anyway.
I told myself I didn't care that he was gone.
I was lying, and I knew it which somehow made it worse.
The howling from last night still echoed faintly in my memory, along with the way the mark on my wrist had pulsed once, bright enough to light up the room for half a second before fading again. I lifted my arm and studied it in the pale
