Cierra:
We lay like that until long after the sun faded into bruising purples across the sky.
The world outside the cabin had gone hushed, the woods alive only with the hum of insects, the occasional cry of an owl, the sigh of the wind slipping through the trees. Inside, though, there was only him. Dominic’s warmth anchored me, his steady heartbeat beneath my cheek proof that he was real, alive, mine. After everything — the circle, the blade, the elders — we were still here. Together.
Dinner had been quiet, nothing more than dried meat and water, but it felt like a feast, because I was eating beside him. We’d sat shoulder to shoulder, listening to the woods, letting silence heal us in ways words couldn’t. Somewhere after that, I found myself tracing the mark I had given him.
Deep indig
