Valemount City – Royce Hotel, 6:58 A.M.
Selene woke to the sound of a notification buzzing against her pillow. For a breath, she lay still, tangled in silk sheets, her eyes fluttering open to a wash of pale morning light that poured in through the floor-to-ceiling windows. The city glittered outside, high and cold and endless.
And for one weightless second, she forgot where she was.
Not in the cramped twin bed of her old apartment with peeling paint on the ceiling.
Not in the sterile white glare of the burn unit where dreams went to die.
Not in some fever dream of what could have been.
No reality returned like a tide, heavy and relentless: the penthouse suite, the impossible softness of the bed beneath her, and the ache in her chest that hadn’t left since she saw him again.
Cassien.
