The guest bedroom at Ashford manor had been decorated with the kind of expensive care that money could buy but couldn't make feel like home. Medical equipment hummed quietly in the corner, monitoring the vital signs of the man who lay unconscious in the hospital-grade bed that had been installed just for this evening.
Tessa sat in a chair beside her grandfather; her gaze fixed on his pale face with the intensity of someone trying to will life back into a fading flame. At eighteen, she carried herself with the kind of grace that came from Immortal Tier power, but tonight she looked like nothing more than a frightened girl watching the only person who'd ever truly understood her slip away.
