ANNABEL
The antiseptic smell hit me first, then the beeping of machines. Nothing could have prepared me for seeing Damon like this—bandages wrapped around his forehead, his usually commanding presence reduced to someone who looked... fragile.
The word felt foreign even thinking about him.
I froze in the doorway, my breath catching in my throat.
This was Damon—the man who commanded rooms with just his presence, who made grown men tremble with a single look.
Now he was lying there, connected to wires and monitors, looking so human it scared me.
"Cupcake."
His voice was barely a whisper, hoarse and broken, but it was enough to snap me out of my shock. Those grey eyes I'd missed so desperately were looking at me, filled with something I'd never seen before—thiis vulnerability.
I cou
