We cleaned up in silence.
The storage room still reeked of s*x and dominance and the sharp spike of adrenaline that had not fully faded. My scent was saturated with his. Anyone with a functioning nose within fifty paces would know exactly what had happened against those mats. I pulled my clothes back into place with steady hands and refused to look at Rhys while I did it. The bond hummed between us—raw, open, no longer interested in pretending this was still simple.
Thalia waited in the corridor with her arms crossed and her expression carefully blank. Her gaze flicked over both of us once, lingering on the fresh bruise forming at my hip and the residual gold still burning in Rhys’s eyes. She said nothing about the scent.
“Talk,” Rhys said.
“Not here.” Thalia’s voice was low. “The wall
