EMBER’S POV

I wake, reaching for him.

My hand goes out across the sheets before my eyes are even open, the way it’s been doing since Alaska, since some animal part of me decided that the first thing it needs to confirm every morning is that Knox Volkov is still where I left him.

The sheets are cold.

The dent in the pillow is there, but the warmth in it is gone, long gone, hours gone, and for one ugly second my whole chest seizes up and the bad thoughts come fast and stupid.

He’s gone, something happened, Rafael, the council, they came in the night, and I slept through...