Mira's POV

I don’t know what possessed me to go into their room. Mum’s room. Alistair’s room. Neither of them were home. Mum was on another one of her long business trips, the kind that lasted weeks. And Alistair… he was still at work. He always came home around eleven, sometimes later if the meetings ran over. It was only eight. The house felt too quiet, too empty, and something hot and restless had been crawling under my skin all day.

I stood outside the door for a long minute, heart beating so loud I could hear it in my ears. This is wrong, I told myself. You shouldn’t even...