(Kieran POV)
I filled that doorway like wrath itself, though I kept my face carved from stone. Professional. Controlled. The mask I'd perfected over decades of absolute authority suddenly felt fragile as tissue paper.
Catherine sat among my servants like she belonged there. Like she was one of them.
The rage that swept through me had teeth. Not the clean anger of challenged authority—I'd dealt with that plenty over the years. This was something uglier, more primitive. The wolf snarling at seeing its mate consorting with the pack while rejecting the alpha's attention.
She looked... radiant. That was the word that cut deepest. Catherine Montgomery, who'd been pale and careful during our formal encounters, was flushed with laughter in Mary's kitchen. Her dark hair had escaped its pins, cu
