Lucien didn’t sleep.
He didn’t even pretend to.
He sat in the chair beside the bed, elbows on his knees, eyes fixed on the door like he expected it to explode inward at any moment. The dim lamp cast shadows across his face, sharpening the angles of his jaw, the cut of his cheekbones, the storm still simmering behind his eyes.
I lay under the blanket, watching him.
He knew I was awake.
He didn’t look at me.
He didn’t need to.
His voice broke the silence. “You should rest.”
I swallowed. “So should you.”
He didn’t respond.
Outside the room, I heard Rhett’s quiet footsteps as he patrolled the hallway. Jax’s occasional muttering drifted through the air — something about “creepy mannequins” and “next time I’m bringing a flamethrower.” Cole’s keyboard clicked steadily from the end of th
