At midnight, long after Declan and Kai had finally retired, Derek stood alone by the window of his study, a whiskey bottle in one hand and a glass in the other.
He poured a splash of the amber liquid into the glass and downed it in one go. He didn't even blink. He poured again. And again. The burn of it barely registered anymore.
Kira, where on earth are you? he thought.
Inside him, Leo had gone quiet. The beast had stopped its endless snarling and pacing, and what had replaced it was worse, a kind of hollow withdrawal, a creature curling in on itself in grief. Derek could feel it, that absence, like a missing tooth his tongue kept finding.
He could barely think straight. He had not slept properly in two days, and the exhaustion had soaked into his bones and into the spaces behind his eyes.
