(Catherine POV)
I woke to the absence of pain I hadn't realized I'd been expecting. For weeks now, mornings had carried the weight of whatever supernatural tension governed life in Kieran's domain—the careful awareness of pack dynamics, the hypervigilance that came from living among creatures whose nature I was still learning to understand. But this morning felt different, lighter somehow, as if the very air had shed some burden it had been carrying.
Kieran was already awake beside me, his golden eyes tracking my face with attention that held wonder rather than the desperate intensity I'd grown accustomed to seeing there. The wounds from yesterday's battle were nearly gone—faint silver lines against skin that should have taken weeks to heal properly, evidence of supernatural recovery tha
