POV: Kael
I couldn’t sleep.
The moonlight filtered through the wooden slats of the cabin, casting long shadows across the floor like fingers reaching for the truth I refused to face.
Aria’s touch still burned on my skin.
Not in a painful way—not exactly. But it left something behind. A residue. A presence. As if her very essence had etched itself into me, lingering just beneath the surface, waiting for me to stop resisting.
And gods, I had resisted.
From the moment our eyes first met in the clearing, I had felt the stirrings of something ancient and raw deep within me. Not just attraction. Not even the usual flicker of interest that sometimes came and went with women I barely noticed.
This was primal. Irrefutable. Familiar in a way that made no sense.
But then, like every other tim
