A WEEK LATER
…
I sat on the edge of the brocade settee, my hands folded so tightly in my lap that my knuckles looked like bleached bone. My left cheek still felt a ghost of a throb that flared whenever Gideon walked into the room.
Seven days had passed since the world had gone upside down in our bedroom. Seven days of silence, seven days of shadows, and two more accidents that had left my ribs aching and a yellowing bruise on my shoulder that Nyla had thankfully healed.
He's just under so much pressure, I whispered to myself, a mantra I'd been repeating until it tasted like ash. I pushed him. I ran out like a madwoman. I embarrassed the pack. I've been so wrapped up in my own black hole of grief that I forgot he's standing in the dark, too.
