Chapter 20
Waking with You Still Here Rhea woke to light. Soft and filtered, brushing through sheer curtains like a secret it wasn’t meant to keep. Morning had tiptoed in without permission, casting golden lines across the white sheets and the warm, tangled gravity of limbs that weren’t hers alone. She blinked. Groggy. Disoriented. Floating somewhere between memory and magic. And then— She felt it. A weight behind her. Steady breath at her shoulder. Warmth that hadn’t belonged to sleep in a very long time. Lucian. Her body registered him before her mind found language for it. His arm was slung across her waist, heavy and instinctive. His chest curved against her back—solid, familiar. One of his hands lay curled at her stomach, as if even in sleep, he hadn’t quite let go. She didn’t move.
- Writer
