Ashwin stepped in quietly.
There was no need for him to look around at first. The air told him everything, thick with pheromones and power, steeped in heat and the unmistakable imprint of possession. The kind that left a room changed, marked like stone after lightning.
Then he saw the bed.
Elias lay curled under the covers, hair damp, skin flushed, one arm thrown across the pillow as if too tired to pull it back. The faint shimmer of red ether clung to him like mist, clinging to his throat, to his chest, Victor's ether. His bond. And yet… not a completed one.
Ashwin looked to Victor, expression unreadable. "You didn't do it," he said finally.
Victor didn't rise. He looked utterly at ease in the chair, one ankle resting on the opposite knee, eyes hooded but sharp.
"No," he replied. "Not yet."
