MAILAH WOKE to sunlight streaming through the windows and the distinct absence of a brooding demon beside her.
She sat up slowly, her hand automatically reaching for the space where Grayson had been. The sheets were cool—he'd been gone for a while then. She tried not to feel disappointed. He'd stayed through the worst of the night, watching over her while she slept, and that was more than she'd expected from someone who'd spent centuries avoiding exactly this kind of intimacy.
Still, waking alone after such a vulnerable night felt... incomplete somehow.
She showered quickly, letting the hot water chase away the last remnants of exhaustion and the lingering unease from the burnt ward crystal. Her mind kept circling back to that shadow in the final moments before sleep—had she dreamed it? Or had there been something in the room with them, watching from the darkness?
Stop it, she told herself firmly. You're being paranoid. Lucien checked the entire estate. There's nothing there.
