Amelia’s POV
The sharp knock tore through my sleep like a knife. My eyes fluttered open, and the room was still drowned in shadows. Midnight. The palace was silent, the kind of silence that feels alive, watching you.
I sat up slowly, my pulse already uneasy. For a moment, I thought it might be the King… but no. The King never knocks. He comes and goes like the air, here one second, gone the next.
I slipped out of bed, the cold floor biting at my bare feet, and reached for the door.
It swung open before I could touch it.
Klaus.
His frame filled the doorway, and the stench hit me before the sight of his face fully registered, alcohol, bitter and sour, clinging to his clothes and skin like rot. His eyes were red, unfocused, but burning with something far more dangerous than drunkenness.
