SERAPHINA’S POV
I realized the decision had already been made long before I named it.
It settled quietly, not as fear or excitement, but as clarity, the kind that comes when you stop asking whether something is safe and start asking whether it is true. I woke that morning with the certainty resting in my chest, steady and undeniable.
I was no longer standing at the edge of Alessio’s world.
I was inside it.
The house was quiet, the kind of quiet that felt earned rather than tense. Sunlight slipped through the curtains, touching the floor in soft lines. For a moment I lay there, listening to the sound of him breathing beside me, slow and even, his presence grounding in a way that had become dangerously familiar.
I used to think comfort meant softness.
Now I understood it could also m
