Chapter Thirty-One
I wake up alone in the bed, blinking into the darkness. Shadows tell me it’s early morning, before I would normally expect breakfast. My body hums pleasantly from the bath the night before. The bed smells like Gabriel, but he’s not here. The sheets on either side of me are cool beneath my fingertips.
For a moment I wonder in silence—and then I remember.
My mouth works. I swallow. “Gabriel?”
The sound is scratchy and halting, so I try again, stronger this time.
No one answers. Maybe he went to a different bedroom. Or to his office. There are a hundred places he could be in this house, a thousand valid reasons for him to be absent from his bed. Why did I wake up? Did I hear something? Did the house shift?
A sense of urgency propels me to sit up. I need to find him.
