Kieran's Perspective
The remainder of the dinner passed in a haze of barely controlled agony. Every laugh from Venus, every smile she directed at Derek, every moment of their easy conversation felt like a knife twisting in my chest. The mate bond, which I'd been successfully suppressing, now blazed through my system with relentless intensity, making it nearly impossible to focus on anything else.
"This is what you chose," Dominion said with cold fury, his mental voice cutting through my attempts at diplomatic conversation. "This pain, this loss—all of it could have been avoided if you had simply acknowledged what the Moon Goddess gave us."
I managed to nod at something Alpha Sebastian was saying about territorial agreements, but my attention was entirely focused on the table where Venus
