The moon was a sharp, silver scythe in the sky when Amara retreated to her room. She had spent the last hour pacing her new suite, the silence of the mansion feeling like a heavy wool blanket. She had tried to read, tried to distract herself with the quarterly reports on her tablet, but the words were just meaningless symbols.
Her skin felt tight, her pulse humming with an agitated electricity she couldn't ground. It was the bond. It was Darien. He was somewhere in the house, his restlessness bleeding into her own, a dark, rhythmic thrumming that demanded her attention.
When the door to her bedroom slid open, she didn't even startle. She knew the weight of his footsteps, the specific way the air changed when he entered a room.
