Damien's POV
As the light faded, and I felt the earth beneath my feet again, I wasn't sure whether I was fully myself anymore. Or whether I was fully Neimad. Both and neither, somehow, a new version of me. I could feel it, of course, humming power beneath my skin, the control I'd never had.
Serafine stood beside me, wide-eyed in her face-a mix of relief and something else. Something I couldn't place. A second passed, and I struggled to breathe. She had done it. She'd faced the beast that haunted me all these years and somehow managed to bring me back from the brink. No one ever had. No one had ever been able to soothe the storm that was Neimad.
But now, I wasn't sure how much of him or me, was still intact.
I took a broken breath, my hand reaching for her. She was so warm beneath the b
