“Sera, I’m tired. I’m starving. It has been the day from hell and I would very much like to eat without arguing.” His tone was clipped. He was unable to mask the edge leeching out from his over-stimulated thoughts.
The scrape of her chair echoed through the room as she pushed backward. “Fine. Eat your disgusting cake—which isn’t even cake, by the way, it’s not sweet and it’s crunchy—and get yourself flagged as Wraith’s enemy and see if I lose any sleep over it.”
He swallowed another bite. “I didn’t name it, and it’s supposed to crunch.”
She threw her hands in the air, voice rising. “You’re infuriating.”
“And you are yelling.”
“Fine,” she said through her teeth. She pointedly dusted her hands and then set her dishes into the sink before turning on her heel. “Goodnight.” She stormed into the cellar, chin in the air.
Kieran counted to five before she turned around, cheeks red, and proceeded toward the actual exit.
If there was a door to the kitchen, he suspected she would have slammed it.
He listened to the stomp of her footsteps retreating down the hall, he couldn’t get the words out, not until the sound of her disappeared and a soft ‘goodnight, Seraphina’ followed.
Chapter Six
SleepeludedKieran.
He tossed and turned, but there was nothing for it, he could not settle his thoughts. If he wasn’t thinking about his problems at work, then he was musing over this growing attraction—notattachment—to Sera, and if he managed to will both thoughts away, memories of his siblings threatened to drown him in the last shreds of his sanity.
He threw on a shirt, hasty with the buttons—not so hasty as to miss one—but left the waistcoat. The upper floors of his home were stripped of family portraits. Kieran had them all moved to the ground level. He had no wish to forget his family, or remove them from history, but upstairs was his retreat from the world and that meant removing the triggering reminders.
Walking to process his thoughts was not a rare occurrence. He often suffered insomnia in moments of distress. Usually, he ended up at the library, gathering books on various topics—he did not even know what his own preferences for bookswere anymore, his mind always preoccupied with work—but ultimately leaving them unread.
The upstairs of his home was divided into wings. The family wing, where the master bedchamber was located as well as rooms for immediate family. All empty now, of course. This house had not been full of relations in close to thirty years. And the guest wing, where Sera and her friend currently lived.
Kieran’s normal routine brought him straight to the main hall so he could descend to the lower floors, but tonight he wandered. He set his hands behind his back, strolling and focusing on the patterns in the carpet until something caught his attention. He knew these halls from memory, every detail, and one of the decorative tables positioned under a mirror was not as he remembered.
This table had always been lopsided. Some incident in his father’s youth had damaged the legs, but now it stood oddly straight. Kieran set his hand on it and pressed, expecting the normal wobble, but the surface was solid, unmovable. The servants had commented about Sera’s wandering hands and interest in broken objects. Was this her work? He recalled how she referred to herself as ‘stupid.’ The look in her eyes, always so full of fire and spark, grew withdrawn and detached in a way that did not suit her. Whatever had caused her to view herself as unintelligent was entirely misguided and—
Movement caught his eye and pulled him from his thoughts. He looked down at his hands briefly, shaking away clenched fists as he returned to the present. A fleeting figure, their form obscured by heavy in the darkness, moved in the hallway opposite to the one he occupied. In the guest wing of the house. That led to the guest rooms.
To Sera’s room.
All the servants would have left for the night, those who remained would not be moving at this hour. The figure’s headshifted as if making sure they were alone. He couldn’t tell the figure's proximity to Sera's room from such a distance. The chance of an assassin breaking into his home with the added security measures was slight, but not impossible.
Kieran pursued.
How many times did he need to save this woman in one day? If Death was so fixated on her, maybe he was fighting a losing battle trying to keep her alive.
Kieran reached Sera’s door and tested the handle. She normally kept it locked and he froze when it opened. Controlling his breathing, he eased it open enough to check inside. No figures or assailants. He listened, but he heard nothing save the occasional breath of sleep. He closed the door, questioning his own eyes. Was he tired enough to see shadows that didn’t exist?
Erring on caution, Kieran continued until he reached the far end of the hallway. There were two paths, but the ripple of moonlight over a retreating form on his left chose for him. He followed as swiftly as he dared to not make a sound, crossing from the guest wing and back to where the family suites were located.
He followed the direction of the movement until he noted a door ajar that should have remained closed. Hesitation stopped him from turning the handle. The room had once belonged to his younger brother. No one had entered it in all the years since Kaul had passed. Tentatively, he set his fingers on the handle.
Whispers inside prompted him to enter. He braced for a fight and the punch of memories, but what he found shattered what remained of his considerable, finely-honed composure.
Standing in the middle of the room and tracing the layout with a finger in the air, was Sera.
Kieran shut the door behind him with a resounding click. Sera whirled around, eyes wide and words dying on her lips.
“Kieran! I…”
He was angry. Hot, boiling fury pumped through his veins.
