The pain wouldn't stop.
Selene lay in her bunk as dawn light filtered through the small window, her body wracked with agony from the mate bond's protest. Every muscle ached. Every nerve burned. The fever made her skin feel too tight, too hot, like she was being cooked alive from the inside.
And with the pain came memories. Flooding back with brutal clarity. Triggered by the bond. By the connection to Damian that was trying to override eight years of carefully constructed hatred.
She closed her eyes against the physical torment, but that only made the mental torment worse.
The memories came whether she wanted them or not.
The Moonlight Feast. Selene at ten years old, wearing her best dress—pale blue silk that her mother had commissioned specially for the occasion. Her father laughing at something Lord Brennan had said. Her mother's hand gentle on Selene's shoulder.
