The month that followed blurred into something dreamlike, days of quiet warmth and nights that felt too good to be real.
For the first time since… forever, Lilith felt like her life had edges that weren’t all steel and silver. She and Zane built a rhythm, a world that existed between reality and escape. Days filled with her relentless training and the academy’s grueling drills; nights stolen in the corners of the city, in the glow of streetlights, in the back of Zane’s garage with his hands tangled in hers and that small, knowing smile that always made her forget the weight of her bloodline.
Sometimes he’d show up at the café near the pier just as she was finishing her run, two cups of coffee in hand, one just how she liked it, too bitter for anyone else’s taste. Sometimes she’d sneak ou
