The moment Damien’s footsteps faded from the hall, the house seemed to exhale—walls trembling with a silence thick enough to drown in. Evelyn stood unmoving, her pulse still hammering from the confrontation. She could still feel the echo of his presence, the scent of his cologne clinging to the air like poison.

The past and present had collided in that single room. The man who had once been her mate—the one who had shattered her—was no longer just a ghost in her memory. He was flesh ...