Aria
I closed the bedroom door with a soft click and exhaled. Not relief exactly… more like exhaustion's quieter cousin. The kind that sits behind your ribs and weighs down your shoulders.
Kael was finally in bed. Not passed out across a desk reeking of whiskey. Not slumped in a black suit beside a coffin, looking like death itself. Just… in bed. Warm. Breathing. Present.
And of course, he had to look good while doing it.
His lashes were too dark, too long—curled just enough to make me irrationally annoyed. His hair had fallen over his forehead in soft waves, messy and damp from the shower, framing a jawline that could cut through steel. The bruise on his cheekbone from god-knows-where had already begun to fade, but it only made him look more rugged. More real.
And then, as I tucked the blanket around him, like I wasn't half a second from losing my mind, he had the audacity to smirk.
Smirk.
