Malia woke with a start. She gasped for breath as the darkness of sleep released her. She could have sworn she had heard that whisper brush against her mind just before she had lost consciousness. She turned to tell Mason about what she had heard but where she would have expected to see him was now empty. The sheets were rumpled on that side from where sleep had claimed him in the night as well.
Malia pulled the covers closer to her chest as uncertainty filled her. She was at once consumed with thoughts of shame and hurt. Did he just leave this morning without telling her? Did he not want to wake with her? All the thoughts of the girls back home who had rushed into things too quickly with their boyfriends rushed through her head in an instant as she
