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I felt no fear from him as he lifted his hands, piercing the thrumming aura of power around me without hesitation. What bloomed in the back of my throat, easing the burn building there, was soft and sweet. The eather slipped over his hands and crawled up his forearms as his palms pressed against my cheeks—against the ragged scar along my left one.

His hands…they trembled. “What you’re feeling is you, but what you want to do isn’t. It’s her. It’s something the Blood Queen would do. It’s something she’d want you to do. But you are not her.”

I wasn’t anything like her.

I wasn’t cruel or abusive. I didn’t take pleasure in others’ pain. I didn’t lash out in anger…

Actually, I did tend to lash out with sharp objects when angry, but I wasn’t spiteful. I wouldn’t have done what she had, taking all the pain and hurt she felt after the loss of Malec and their son, all that hatred toward the former Queen of Atlantia, and turning it on not just Eloana’s sons but also an entire kingdom—an entire realm.

And that would be exactly what I’d be doing. I’d leave nothing but haunting graveyards behind. And I wouldn’t be like my mother.

I would be something far worse.

Kieran’s hands shook. His entire body rattled as if the ground were shaking, but it was him.

Concern rose, beating back the brutal tide of emotions. “W-why are you shaking? Am I hurting you?”

“No. It’s the…it’s the notam,” he bit out. “It’s making me want to shift. I’m fighting it.”

My gaze searched the taut lines of his face. “Why is it making you want to do that?”

A strained chuckle left him. “Do you think that’s an important question right now?” He gave me a short shake of his head. “Because I can protect you better in that form. And, yes, I know you don’t need our protection, but the notam recognizes the kind of emotion you feel as a—a call of alarm. I…I don’t think I can fight it much longer.”

My attention darted over his shoulder to where I saw the forms of many wolven among the weeds. There was no way all of them could’ve already been in their wolven forms. They had been compelled to do that.

I’d forced them, and that made my stomach hurt.

Ice drenched my skin, and the chill quelled the fire. I squeezed my eyes shut. Control. I needed control. There was no threat to me. The one at risk was in Carsodonia. Losing it did absolutely nothing to help him, and Kieran was right. I repeated that over and over. I hadn’t spent the past weeks planning for how to keep people safe only to turn around and be the cause of thousands, if not millions of deaths.

That wasn’t me.

That wasn’t who I ever wanted to become.

Another shudder rocked me as the vibrations in my chest eased and the hum receded from my skin. The rage was still there, as was the guilt and agony, but the wrath and the hunger for vengeance was banked, returning to those cold, empty places inside me where I feared it may fester.

“It’s okay,” Kieran said, and I was slow to realize that he wasn’t speaking to me. “Just give us some time, all right?” There was a pause, and then he moved close as he guided my head down to his chest. I didn’t fight it, welcoming the warmth and the familiar, earthy scent. He spoke about the box, about what was in it. He cleared his throat. “Don’t tell anyone about it. No…no one needs to know.”

Someone neared us, and Kieran’s hand slid to the back of my head as the other left my cheek. “Thank you,” he said.

In the quiet that followed, a rush of wings brought a gust of lavender-scented air. A few moments later, something brushed against my legs. Delano. I kept my eyes closed tightly against the sting. I wanted to tell him that I was sorry if I’d worried or scared him, but I couldn’t get the words past the knot in my throat. Kieran’s chin lowered, resting on the top of my head. The quiet went on for some time.

And then Kieran said in a low voice, “You scared me a little, Poppy.”

Pressure clamped down on my chest. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to.”

“I know you didn’t.” His chest rose against mine. “I wasn’t scared of you. I was afraid for you,” he added. “I…I’ve never seen that before. The shadows in the eather. And your voice? It was different. Like it was when you spoke to Duke Silvan.”

“I don’t know what any of that was.” I swallowed thickly.

“Your abilities are still changing. Growing,” he said, making me think of what Reaver had shared.

Was this—the shadows in the eather—a new manifestation due to me still going through the Culling? I didn’t know. And at the moment, I couldn’t spare the energy required to dwell on it.