“After the fire, there’s always the smoke. And smoke hides more than it reveals.”
I woke to the taste of silver in my mouth.
The forest was quiet again, but the moss beneath me was damp, the air heavy with the scent of s*x and moonfire. My body ached in every place he’d touched me—my breasts tender, my thighs sore, my core pulsing with the memory of him.
But the heat… hadn’t gone.
It simmered lower now, like embers waiting to be stoked. Every brush of air on my skin made me shiver. Every heartbeat sent a pulse straight between my legs.
I pushed myself up on shaking arms, the gossamer shift draped over me again somehow, the runes on my skin dim but still there. “Where…?” My voice cracked. He was gone. No footsteps, no sound, no scent—like he’d never been here at all.
Except for what h
