Roxie's POV
The first thing I felt when I woke was a hand holding mine.
I did not open my eyes right away. I just lay there in the gray morning light and felt the rough warmth of his fingers wrapped around my fingers, and I let myself pretend, for one small breath, that the world was a gentle place. Then I opened my eyes, and I saw Raptor.
He was asleep in a hard wooden chair pulled up to my bed. A man like that should never have looked soft, but he did. His head had fallen back against the wall, his jaw slack, the endless scars on his chest rising and falling with each slow breath. He had not let go of my hand. Not all night. Even in sleep, his thumb moved across my knuckles, slow and steady, as if some part of him needed to keep checking that I was still there. And the bond between u
