Kira's pov
I watched from the shadows, the flickering candlelight casting jagged silhouettes across the walls of the great hall. The air was thick with whispers,soft, reverent, fearful. Eira's name slipped through the lips of Draven's men like a spell. Not a curse. Not an insult. No, it was awe. It was fear. It was respect. And it burned me alive.
Draven barely glanced in my direction anymore. Once, his eyes burned with the fierce hunger of a man who claimed me as his own. Now? They flickered past me like I was a ghost, a memory he was trying to forget.
I clenched my fists, nails digging into my palms. I could still feel the ghost of his lips,the way he kissed me like the world would burn if he didn't, like I was the only thing anchoring him to the storm raging inside his heart. But that was before Eira. Before the chains. Before the whispered threats that came with the girl who had been dragged into our world, shackled and defiant.
