SOREN
I was in an exceptionally good mood.
The kind of mood that came from having every strategic objective met, every calculated risk pay off exactly as intended, and the added bonus of watching the woman I wanted fall apart beneath my hands with such beautiful desperation that the memory alone made me want to turn around and carry her right back to that forest.
I was replaying particularly vivid details... the sound she'd made when I'd finally let her come, the way her body had trembled, the taste of her still on my tongue... when I reached my chambers and stopped cold.
Someone was inside.
My magic alerted me before conscious thought caught up, that prickling awareness of another presence in a space that should have been empty. The temperature near my door had dropped several degrees, and not from my own power.
I knew exactly who it was.
The good mood evaporated like frost under sunlight.
