I woke slowly, the velvet weight of the Nevarian night pressing against the windowpanes.
Awareness returned in a dull, thrumming ache. It was dark outside, that deep indigo that suggests the hour is late but the world hasn't quite surrendered to midnight. I could hear the muffled activity of the palace beyond the heavy oak doors.
I shifted beneath the heavy furs, and a sharp, familiar discomfort flared through my lower body.
I felt full, absurdly, uncomfortably full. Soren's evidence was a warm, sticky weight still settling inside me, a visceral reminder of the frantic, almost desperate hunger he had displayed earlier.
I was tender in places I hadn't known existed, my entire life force exhausted, from the sheer, unrelenting force of him.
I looked beside me. Soren was sleeping soundly, his chest rising and falling in a slow, rhythmic cadence.
