Aria POV

Sleep was a joke tonight. No matter how many times I rolled from one side of the bed to the other, the heaviness in my chest wouldn’t lift. Kael’s warmth lingered on the sheets where he’d sat earlier, his scent still clinging like stubborn smoke. It should have calmed me. It didn’t.

My wolf prowled restlessly under my skin, uneasy in a way I couldn’t put into words. Every shift of the curtains against the window made me twitch. Every creak of the old wood floors beneath the house settled into my bones like a warning.

I huffed and threw the blanket aside. Lying here pretending to rest...