The warmth of Caleb’s body enveloped mine, his bare chest rising and falling beneath my cheek as I rested against him, our legs tangled in the rumpled sheets. Sunlight filtered through the curtains, painting golden stripes across his ebony skin, a beautiful contrast to my pale skin that still trembled with the echoes of the pleasure we had shared. The scent of his body—soap mixed with something wild, like the forest after rain—filled my senses, anchoring me to this moment, to this bed, to Silver Creek. Clarisa was silent, exhausted but satisfied, her presence a warm murmur in my mind. But even in this calm, my head was a whirlwind of thoughts, a chaos of memories and decisions I could not ignore.
The previous night replayed in my mind like a fever dream: the transformation, the searing pa
