Iris's POV

I woke up worse.

Not the sharp, desperate burn of heat but something heavier. My stomach sat wrong the second I opened my eyes, a low oily roll that made saliva pool under my tongue. The ceiling above my childhood bed looked the same as always, but everything underneath my skin felt shifted. I lay still and tried to talk myself down the way I had the morning before.

It was the heat aftermath, that was all.

My body had been used hard for days, knotted, stretched, marked, kept full until the fever finally broke. Of course I was exhausted. Of course food smelled off. Of course my...