SERAPHINA’S POV
When Christian told us Daniel was with Leona, he conveniently forgot to ntion that there was a third occupant of the safe house—Celeste.
The instant I heard that, my exhaustion was obliterated by a piercing jolt of anxiety.
It wasn’t a logical reaction. I knew my son was safe, that Christian would never have allowed him to be moved carelessly, that every precaution would have been taken.
I knew, rationally, that if Daniel had been the one to call for Celeste to be placed with him, then he must have had a reason.
And yet, the anxiety didn’t ease.
The car ride felt too long, every passing second stretching thin as my mind ran ahead of , filling the silence with possibilities I didn’t want to entertain.
I kept seeing the way Celeste charged at Maris; my mind kept running through all her irrational outbursts.
Celeste was as volatile as they co, and I couldn’t bear the thought of her being in such close proximity to my baby.
Kieran’s hand brushed against my back as we stepped out of the car, grounding just enough to keep my thoughts from spiraling further.
“He’s fine,” he said quietly, as if he could hear every unspoken fear. “We would have felt it if he weren’t.”
I nodded, but the anxiety clawed at my chest, refusing to let go.
We moved inside quickly, the guards parting without question as soon as they saw us. The safe house felt different from the outside—sealed, contained, every exit controlled, every movent watched.
I hurried to the room Daniel was in, nearly tearing the door from its hinges.
For a split second, everything stilled.
Daniel was standing near the center of the room.
Whole. Unhard.
A relieved breath left in a rush.
“Baby!”
I threw myself across the room, dropped to his level, and enfolded him into a fierce embrace. He stiffened for the briefest mont, as if surprised by the force of it, and then relaxed into .
“I’m okay,” he whispered.
“I know,” I murmured, though my arms tightened around him anyway. “I know.”
I pulled back to look at him, hands framing his face as I searched for any sign sothing had gone wrong.
Thankfully, there was none.
My gaze flicked up—and that was when I saw her.
Celeste stood a few steps away, her posture tense, her expression caught sowhere between uncertainty and sothing I couldn’t quite na.
For a mont, neither of us spoke.
There were too many things between us. Too much history. Too many words left unsaid, and too many that had been said when they never should have been.
She shifted slightly, as if she were about to step forward.
“Sera—”
The door opened again.
“Celeste!”
Ethan’s voice carried across the room before he fully stepped inside.
He crossed the distance in seconds and pulled her into a tight embrace, his arms wrapping around her with a force that spoke of restrained fear finally breaking loose.
Her body went still, her hands hovered uncertainly at her sides like she didn’t know what to do with them.
And then, slowly, she returned the hug.
Ethan’s voice was rough when he spoke. “Do you have any idea how worried—”
He cut himself off, pulling back just enough to look at her, his expression hard but his eyes betraying sothing deeper.
“I thought Catherine had you,” he said with a sigh.
Celeste blinked, sothing like surprise flickering across her face.
“I’m fine,” she said, though it ca out softer than usual.
Ethan let out a sharp breath, running a hand through his hair.
“I was going half out of my mind, until Elara called and said you’d been moved to Nightfang because—”
He glanced toward Daniel. “Because of him.”
Every head in the room turned toward my son, small in stature but sohow commanding attention in a way that made the air feel charged.
“I had her brought here so she would be safe,” he explained, voice calm. “She wasn’t safe in Frostbane.”
Ethan raised a brow. “And you know that how?”
“I saw it.” He looked up at . “I had a dream, Mom.”
My pulse skipped.
“What did you see, baby?” I asked, my voice slightly trembling.
Steadily, carefully, Daniel described what he had seen with a clarity that didn’t belong to imagination, but to mory—like sothing he had stood inside, not sothing he had dread.
The room stayed still as he spoke, every word settling into the air, shaping sothing heavy.
By the ti he finished, the silence was so absolute, a pin drop would have been deafening.
Ethan’s expression had gone from confusion to sothing far more serious, his gaze flicking once toward Celeste before returning to Daniel.
Kieran had gone completely still beside .
And ...
I felt cold.
I thought of my dream of Celeste in that dark room. I thought of my vision of Kieran in ash and blood.
The structure of it. The certainty. The way Daniel’s dream had co not as a possibility, but as...awareness.
Just as mine had.
Daniel took a small breath. “She shouldn’t go back.”
Ethan’s jaw tightened. “Daniel—”
“She’s not safe in Frostbane,” he insisted, his voice firm and steady despite being the smallest in the room.
Ethan exhaled, tension visible in the set of his shoulders. “You’re asking to leave her here.”
Daniel nodded. “Yes.”
He shook his head. “We’re basing this decision on a dream.”
“It wasn’t just a dream,” I said quietly.
He looked at , and I t his gaze without wavering.
Kieran shifted beside , his presence a silent reinforcent.
Ethan glanced between us, sothing conflicted moving across his expression.
For a mont, it seed like he might argue.
Then he looked at Celeste.
She hadn’t said a word through all of this, but the color had drained out of her face—likely an effect of hearing Daniel’s dream.
“Fine,” Ethan conceded. “She can stay here, but I want increased security around her.”
Plans shifted imdiately, the room buzzing as strategies adjusted and orders went out.
But my attention stayed on Daniel.
He stood still, listening, watching, absorbing it all with an intense focus beyond his years.
And all I could think of was how terrified I was of his new gift.
***
It was past midnight by the ti Daniel and I stepped into his room.
I turned on the bedside lamp and the soft glow cast warm light across the room, catching on the edges of the furniture, the small things that marked it as his—books stacked neatly, training clothes slung over the small couch in the corner.
He sat on the bed without protest, unusually quiet as I pulled the covers back and guided him beneath them.
“Try and get so rest,” I murmured, smoothing the blanket over him, my hands lingering for a mont longer than necessary. “It’s been quite a day.”
I reached to brush his hair back from his forehead, a familiar gesture, grounding in its simplicity.
“Mom?”
“Yes, baby?”
His expression was soft, the earlier intensity of today easing into sothing more vulnerable, sothing that reminded , painfully, that he was still a child.
“We’ll be okay.”
The conviction in his voice was so strong that I actually felt a soothing sense of relief wash over .
“How do you know?” I asked, perching on the edge of his bed.
He held my gaze. “Because we’re together.”
He reached out and took my hand in his. His palm was almost as big as mine now. When did that happen?
“As long as we stay together,” he continued, “we can get through anything.”
I searched his face, taking in every detail, every trace of the boy I knew, layered with sothing new I was only just beginning to understand.
And despite the epic clusterfuck of a day, sothing in my chest stirred—small and fragile but unmistakable.
Hope.
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