Seren
My nerves were just starting to settle after having lunch with Duncan and seeing with my own eyes that he was, in fact, okay. The tight coil of panic in my chest had loosened, but it hadn’t disappeared—not really. It still pulsed faintly with every heartbeat, like my body was waiting for the other shoe to drop. The fear that had ripped through me when his pain had surged across our mate bond had been raw and blinding, every bit as brutal as the worst moments I’d endured during my years under attack at Blood Moon. My hands had shaken then the same way they had shaken now, my lungs forgetting how to pull in air until I forced them to obey. That helplessness had been the worst part. Feeling him hurt and being utterly unable to reach him, to shield him, to take it onto myself instead. I
