The dawn came bleeding through the trees, pink and jagged like a wound torn open too soon. Aelira lay tangled with Astren beneath a rough woolen blanket, their bodies slick with sweat and something darker—something raw and unspoken.
She could still feel the echo of him inside her, the way his breath hitched whenever her skin brushed against his. But there was a weight pressing down on her chest now, heavier than the afterglow. It was fear. The kind that gnawed at the edges of pleasure until it cracked open.
Astren’s fingers traced lazy patterns along her arm, as if trying to ground them both in something solid. His voice was low, husky with something like awe. “You’re… different.”
She laughed, a bitter, shaky sound. “Yeah, well. Different doesn’t always mean better.”
He didn’t answer.
