I woke to the distant crash of waves against the cliffs far below and the slow, deliberate motion of Adrian’s fingers tracing circles along the curve of my hip, like he was reminding himself I was still there, still real, still his.
The room was silent, save for the muted breath of sea wind filtering through the shattered windows and the occasional creak of a beam somewhere deep within the bones of the ruined villa. One wing had collapsed entirely, leaving the walls blackened with soot and peeling like dead skin, the scent of gunpowder still lingering beneath layers of salt, stone, and blood that had dried days ago.
But in the fragile stillness of this room, wrapped in Adrian’s arms, that chaos felt like it had passed, like we were suspended in the eye of something violent and unending—b
