The heat did not break.
It settled.
Not gone. Not eased. Just… deeper.
It coiled low in my body, a slow, constant burn instead of the wild inferno that had consumed me earlier. My limbs felt heavy, loose against the furs. Every nerve still too aware. Every breath too warm. The scent in the den clung thick to the air. Them. Me. Mixed until there was no separating it.
I lay on my side, facing the hearth. The fire had burned lower now. Soft orange light flickered across the stone walls, across the scattered furs, across my skin.
I could still feel them.
Not physically. Not fully.
But the memory of it lingered inside me. A phantom fullness. A pulse that came and went in slow waves. My body had not forgotten. It would not forget.
My thighs shifted slightly.
A mistake.
A sharp spark of
