The hospital corridor smelled of antiseptic and fear, and Seraphina walked through it faster than her legs seemed capable of carrying her, Damon's presence a solid, silent weight just behind her shoulder the entire way.Her mother stood outside a set of double doors, mascara streaked down her face, hands pressed together so tightly her knuckles had gone white. She caught sight of Seraphina and rushed forward, pulling her into an embrace that shook with barely restrained sobs."They won't tell me anything," her mother said, voice breaking. "He collapsed in his study. One of the staff found him. They took him back there twenty minutes ago and no one will say a word."Seraphina held her mother tightly, her own heart hammering so hard it hurt, though a cold, clinical part of her mind, the part that had learned to survive by thinking instead of feeling, was already cataloguing details. Twenty minutes. The study. No warning, no prior illness, nothing that should have caused a healthy man in
Last Updated : 2026-08-17 Read more