Wren slept badly because Caelum had stood outside her door and chosen not to knock.
That was the fact beneath everything else.
Not the unfamiliar bed. Not the older stone walls of the Alpha wing holding the cold differently from the east residential block. Not even the bond, though the bond had been closer overnight than it had ever been before, precise in a way that made sleep feel less like rest and more like lying still beside an open door.
Caelum had been on the other side of her door for three seconds.
Then he had walked away.
She had listened to those footsteps disappear and told herself nothing about it. Not disappointment. Not relief. Not the sharp, unreasonable tension that had gone through her when the silence outside the door became a choice.
By morning, denial had not mad
