|Gryphon's POV|
The morning crawls in slow and golden, dragging its light across the office windows like a secret it's not sure it should tell.
I haven't moved.
Not for hours.
She's still curled against me—smaller than I remembered, fragile in the way porcelain might feel if it had learned how to breathe. My arm's numb, shoulder stiff, but I won't shift. Not when she finally slept. Not after the weight she unspooled into the air last night like a wound unraveling—quiet and raw and shattering in its simplicity.
I watched her fall asleep. Not in the way men do when they're proud of the naked woman in their bed, but in the way a soldier might watch the horizon after war, hoping the light means peace and not the next fight. There was something holy in the way she curled her fingers near h
