DAPHNE
"Wait, don't leave yet." I reach out, but my fingers only meet empty air. The darkness swallow him whole. He's already gone.
A hoarse voice cuts through the silence, low and a little too familiar. "Daphne."
I jolt awake with a strangled gasp. The room tilts, disorienting me for a moment until I get myself. I'm not in the forest anymore. I'm not suffocated by the dark, bone-chilling cold, or the Aetherborn's shadowy form.
I'm in my bed.
Ezekiel leans over me, his large, calloused hand cradling the side of my face with surprising gentleness. His sharp grey eyes scan me with a quiet intensity that makes my heart pound even harder. He's close, too close, and yet that closeness grounds me. His scent, woodsy and threaded with bergamot, wraps around me like a tether, yanking me from
