The air still felt strange around me. It had been two days since that night. Two days since I stood frozen in front of Lucian’s door and watched him twist into something that should not exist. Something I wasn’t even sure I had truly seen, because no part of my mind could process it properly. And yet the memory was sharp. The sound of his bones snapping, the gray glow in his eyes, the guttural growl that rumbled in the pit of my stomach. It all played on repeat whenever I closed my eyes.
I hadn’t dared leave my room since then. Food arrived in silence, always left outside my door, the scent strong enough to make me eat despite my stubbornness. But I didn’t see anyone. Not the butler, not Leah, not Lucian. I was cocooned in isolation, and every time my mind wandered I told myself it had to
