I do not sleep properly after everything that happened with Lucian, because even when my eyes close my mind keeps replaying the way Axel’s blade sank into him and the way he kept talking through the blood like pain was just another inconvenience, and when morning finally drags itself across the horizon I am already awake, staring at the ceiling and listening to the house breathe around me.
Atticus shifts beside me, his arm heavy over my waist, and I can feel the tension still sitting in his muscles like he expects to be called downstairs at any second, so I slide carefully out of bed and head into the bathroom before either of them wake, turning on the shower and letting the water run hotter than usual because I need something solid to focus on.
The steam fogs the mirror and the tiles gr
