SERAPHINA'S POV
I'd been wrong.
When I clawed my way back to consciousness, the space beside my bed was empty. No brooding alpha. No Kieran.
Just Ethan and Celeste hovering like vultures over a kill.
What the fuck? My tongue felt oddly weightless, but the bitterness in my chest was lead-heavy.
"Oh, Sera—" Celeste lunged for my hand with performative sympathy. I yanked back before she could touch me.
Ethan's throat worked as he studied everything in the room—the IV snaking into my arm, the EKG's steady blips, the starch-white pillows—anything but my face. "How are you feeling?"
"Like I've been fucking shot," I rasped.
A muscle ticked in his jaw. "We're sorry this happened to you."
The sarcasm burned on my tongue—Oh, are you? Sorry enough to finally acknowledge I exist?—but the raw guilt in his eyes choked it back. "Thanks," I muttered instead.
Then, like a masochist, I asked, "Where's Kieran?"