[Emma's POV]
The oppressive grandeur of the Blackwood master bedroom, a room meant for rest and intimacy, had become a cage for a brewing storm. Emma lay cocooned in silk and cashmere, yet she was freezing, a deep, internal cold that no blanket could touch. It was a chill that emanated from her very bones, a residual echo of the petrified wood throne and Damon’s nullifying magic. Jaxon was a statue in the velvet-upholstered chair he had dragged to her bedside, his posture a rigid line of unwavering vigilance. He had not changed his clothes, the scent of battle—ozone, blood, and torn earth—still clinging to him like a shroud. His knuckles were scraped raw, and a dark bruise bloomed along his jaw, but his entire focus was on the woman trembling in the bed.
The initial, soul-deep relief of
