Morning hit cold and unforgiving, like it had no patience for the night's ghosts.
I woke to find Ronan already gone from the den. His absence wasn't accidental—it was the kind of space a man puts between himself and something too hot to hold. The furs where he'd slept still bore the shape of his body, but the warmth was long gone.
My throat ached from screaming.
Kaela moved through the main room like someone trying not to wake a sleeping wolf. She set a bowl of porridge by the fire without meeting my eyes, then slipped outside with the quiet ease of someone who knows when to disappear.
I sat up slowly, testing the weight of last night. The nightmare clung to me like smoke—Jasper's ash-dry fingers, his dying question, the flames that felt more real than the furs I'd woken in. But worse than the dream was the memory of Ronan's face when I'd screamed—the fierce hiss: You still dream of him?
That question landed like a slap.
Like a betrayal.
