KIERAN’S POV
I lingered in the sitting room a while longer after everyone filed out.
After what Sera revealed tonight—what had been done to her, hidden inside her, almost erased—I needed to process.
Psychic. Sealed.
The words still refused to settle into something manageable. Every memory I had of her rewrote itself under their weight—every moment I’d dismissed her silence as compliance, her restraint as weakness.
Every time I thought I’d reached the bottom of my guilt, it turned out there was more ground beneath me. The ache in my chest deepened, an insistent reminder of how much I’d failed her.
And then there was the issue of Lucian Reed.
For the first time since I met him, I regarded him as what he was—not a rival, but a threat. One I couldn’t cleanly identify or categorize.
And that pissed me off like nothing else. Frustration surged in my chest, tightening my muscles and setting my teeth on edge.
