Sasha’s POV
The forest glowed with the fading kiss of twilight.
Golden light spilled through the pine canopy above us, falling in delicate ribbons that danced across the moss-softened floor. It painted the undergrowth in honey and fire, catching on the edges of dew-slicked leaves and the silver threads of spiderwebs. Every pine needle shimmered. Every stone seemed to breathe. The world was holding its breath—and, for once, it wasn’t screaming.
For once… I wasn’t.
Alex and I walked in silence, our steps slow, unhurried. Our shoulders brushed with quiet familiarity, our hands grazing with the kind of reverence only earned by surviving too many nights full of blood and ghosts. It wasn’t the silence of fear. It was sacred. Stolen.
His hand found mine—unthinking, certain. No grand gesture.
