QUOTE : You’ve got the new barriers I developed in place, right? I want you to feel safe.”<br /><br />Safe. The word held no subjective meaning for Nika. She’d never sought its peaceful embrace, and it had certainly never sought hers. <br /><br />She recognized that he was going out of his way to assuage her concerns, but it wasn’t working. What she felt was on edge. Frayed, as if too much power flowed through her veins. For the last five years, her mind had been sacrosanct. Fractured and lacking crucial pieces as it might be, it was the only thing she could cling to in order to prove that she was, that she existed as an independent, living soul.