Ivy's POV
My blood ran cold. That voice—a voice I hadn't heard in weeks but knew as intimately as my own heartbeat.
"Leo," I whispered, my voice trembling against his palm.
He released me slowly, and in the faint moonlight streaming through the window, I could see him. He looked... different. His frame was leaner, his face sharper, as though the weight of the world had been pressing down on him. But his eyes—they burned with the same intensity as before, smoldering with something between anger and longing.
For a moment, neither of us moved. The tension in the room was suffocating, like the calm before a storm. I clutched the towel tighter around me, my damp hair clinging to my shoulders.
"Where have you been?" I asked, my voice breaking as a mixture of relief, anger, and heart
