Chapter 80 What It Takes

• Kieran P.O.V.
• I don’t like the way it’s reacting to her. It isn’t aggression or an attack, and that alone puts me on edge more than anything else. If it were, I’d already be moving, already putting myself between Amelia and whatever that thing is, already tearing into it before it could get close enough to touch her. But this isn’t that. This is controlled. Focused. Intentional. And worst of all, it knows exactly what it’s reaching for.
• Amelia doesn’t pull away. That’s what sets something off in me faster than anything else around us. Every instinct I have is telling me to get her out of here, to put distance between her and the center, to break whatever connection is forming before it locks into something we can’t undo. But she stays where she is, standing in the middle of it as if she understands something I don’t, as if stepping back would make things worse instead of better. And the longer she stands there, the clearer it becomes that she might be right.