At some point, I must have fallen asleep once again. Or maybe I’d just passed out. The difference didn’t matter. When I opened my eyes again, the world was the same shade of black, but the air felt… different. Warmer somehow. Heavier. Like the darkness itself had a pulse. For a moment, I thought it was a dream. It had to be. Because there, standing right in front of me — half-shadow, half-light — was Kael.
He wasn’t even supposed to be here. He couldn’t be here. I blinked hard, trying to make sense of what I was seeing. My heart stuttered, then surged so fast it hurt.
“Kael…?”
The word scraped out of me like a breath I hadn’t known I was holding. He didn’t answer right away, so I thought it was the fever that was making me see things. His eyes moved over me, sharp and quick — not the wa
