Power did not return to Victoria Grey like a storm or a sudden surge of adrenaline. It didn't arrive with a fanfare or a declaration. It came back like breath—slow, deliberate, and taken only when she decided it was finally time to fill her lungs.
She noticed the shift first in the quiet, blue hours of the morning. For weeks, waking up had been a tactical exercise in checking for threats. But today, she woke without the jagged flinch that usually accompanied Charles moving beside her. Her body no longer tensed at the distant sound of the house staff starting their day or the heavy thud of the oak doors in the foyer. She could sit in the silence of their master suite and not feel as though the walls were closing in to swallow her.
And then—one morning—the healing transformed. It returned
