The world was gray, misty at the edges, as though Ariana floated somewhere between waking and sleep. Her body was leaden, every limb too heavy to move, every breath a struggle she wasn’t certain she wanted to win. Yet a tether remained—warm, strong, and pulsing with relentless intensity.
Kael.
Even in this haze, she felt him. His scent lingered in the room—pine and smoke, leather and iron. It was everywhere: on her sheets, on the pillow cradling her head, and most potently, in the air just above her, as though he refused to leave her side.
A weak flutter of awareness rippled through her. She remembered the battle—the clash of fangs and steel, the sickening sound of Kael’s body hitting the ground when Lucien’s ally had torn into him. She remembered the blood, her panic, the uncontrollabl
