**ADAM**
Exhaustion does not arrive all at once, because if it did I would have noticed and prepared for it, but instead it seeps in through the cracks, settling behind my eyes and into my bones until standing upright feels like an act of will rather than habit. I have not slept properly in days, not since Sasha’s heat began tearing through her system in violent waves that demanded constant attention, constant vigilance, and absolute control on my part, because one lapse would have cost us both something we could never get back.
I am on the couch in my office when it finally catches up with me, stretched out fully clothed with my boots kicked off beside the desk, the lights dimmed low enough to take the edge off the pounding behind my eyes. I left my room hours ago, long before dawn, bec
