Warmth floods me—deep, glowing warmth. “I like that,” I whisper.
“I know,” he replies softly.
He pulls me back against him, my leg sliding over his thigh, my hand resting against his ribs. His body curves protectively around mine, and any lingering cold in the air disappears instantly.
My eyes drift closed.
I can’t remember the last time I fell asleep to anything but work, plans, or loneliness. Tonight, it’s the steady, powerful heartbeat of someone I never expected to find.
Someone I’m falling for, and who, right now, is holding me like I’m precious.
Someone who rumbles, just before sleep claims me: “Mine.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
BOONE
I wake wrong.
That’s the first, immediate thought—sharp and disorienting, like surfacing too fast from deep water. For a moment, I don’t know where I am, or when, or why my body feels… heavy. Warm. Anchored.
Then sensation floods in.
Heat at my chest. Weight along my side. A familiar, maddeningly specific scent curled right under my chin.
Elias.
He’s pressed against me, half draped across my torso, one leg thrown over my thigh like he belongs there. His hair is soft against my throat. His breath ghosts over my skin in soft, steady bursts that tighten the ache deep in my chest.
I freeze. Not because I don’t want this, because I do. Too much.
The second realization hits harder: I amnotin human form.
At some point in the night—without intending to, without waking—I shifted back.
That should not happen.
Itdoes nothappen.
I haven’t slept deeply enough for that in… decades. I don’t need to. My body doesn’t demand it the way humans’ do. Rest, yes. Trance. Awareness threaded through everything. But this—this full, heavy sleep, this unguarded lapse? It rattles me to my core.
Panic spikes, sharp and electric. I should pull away. I should move. I should fix this—shift back, create distance, restore control.
I don’t. Because Elias stirs.
Just a little. A soft sound leaves him, low and unguarded, and his hips shift instinctively—pressing, rocking once, then again, slow and thoughtless.
Against me.
My breath punches out of my lungs in a strangled sound I can’t stop.
Oh. Oh no.
My body reacts immediately, traitorous and hungry andawakein a way that obliterates any hope of calm. Need coils low. It’s powerful and insistent, and I know—I know—that I’m losing control of instincts I normally keep locked away without effort.
I squeeze my eyes shut, every muscle going taut.
Do not move. Do not react. Do not?—
