Valan woke first. The cabin was bathed in the soft, bruised light of dawn, the violet-sap windows turning the morning into a shifting masterpiece of lavender and grey. The air was cool, but he felt nothing but heat. Serena was anchored in his arms, her head resting in the hollow of his shoulder. Her silver hair, usually so meticulously kept, was a magnificent, messy cascade that spilled over his chest and pooled on the Hush-Bear furs.
He stayed motionless, his breath held, simply watching her. As the light shifted, the silver strands parted, revealing the marks he had left on the pale curve of her shoulder, dark, blooming statements of the passion they had shared. They were marks of claim, a silent declaration that in the dark of the Veilmark, she was his and he was hers.
She was sleepin
