CONNOR POV
I didn’t know how long I lay there, breathing like I’d run through fire, staring at the ceiling as if the whole world had tilted on its axis.
My body was shaking.
My mind was a storm.
And my mate, my very marked, very naked, impossibly perfect mate, lay curled against my side, her cheek resting on my chest like she’d always belonged there.
I could still feel the echo of her heartbeat, the phantom warmth where her body had been wrapped around mine minutes before. Her scent clung to my skin, my mouth, my lungs, like something permanent.
Goddess.
I wasn’t sure my heart would ever beat normally again.
I turned my head, slow, disbelieving, terrified that if I moved too fast she’d vanish like a hallucination conjured by a madman.
But she was still there.
Grace. My mate. My b
