The hospital room smelled sterile, antiseptic clinging to every surface, but it couldn’t mask the tension that had been building for weeks. I sat on the edge of the bed, fingers tangled in the sheets, stomach hollow from grief. The twins were gone. Just like that, everything I had carried, the hope, the warmth, the future, was gone. And yet… I was alive. Damian never left my side. He hovered, older, protective, obsessed, every movement a silent claim. His hand rested constantly on my arm, his gaze scanning me as if I might shatter if he looked away. And in some ways, I had. My body ached, not just from losing the babies, but from the raw, unrestrained hunger I still felt for him. Desire hadn’t left me; if anything, it had grown sharper, more desperate, more feral. Chloe’s absence in the ro
