Iris's POV

My father dropped the news at dinner like it was nothing.

“I’ll be gone Thursday through Saturday,” he said, scrolling through something on his tablet. “Territory liaison meetings up north. It's overnight stays, so you’ll have the house to yourself.”

I kept my eyes on my dinner so he wouldn’t see the way my pulse jumped. The restless heat under my skin had been climbing since Chloe’s visit. The three suppressants were now two. Every hour the symptoms felt less like background noise and more like a countdown.

“Okay,” I said, voice carefully neutral. “I’ll be fine. I’ve got class and then I’ll just stay in.”

He nodded,...