Chapter 108

HAZEL

We’d just eaten at a steakhouse in town and I was so full that even my breaths were tipping the scale to nausea. Gabe was on his phone half the ride back to the palace and the other half was spent discussing Kiera and how they planned to make the adjustment as painless as possible for her. It quickly dawned on me that they didn’t have a plan, I don’t think they’ve ever done anything the painless way—inflicting as much pain as possible with little to no remorse was their chosen way to do things so they would need to rewire their brains for this one.

We drove up to the palace and even though I’d been gone for nearly four hours and the sun was setting over the roofs and casting a shadow over the fields, I dreaded walking back in.

I needed someone to tell me how to act because I was in escape mode—run away and never look back. This whole ‘figuring everything out’ and ‘inner-healing’ bit was bringing me more dread than anything else. Darian would be in there, hope