Eliza woke up slowly, with the strange sensation of having been torn from a dream that felt too real.
Her first impulse was to stretch her hand to the side.
The mattress was cold.
She frowned, still trapped between wakefulness and memory, wondering if everything had been a fantasy born from desire, from exhaustion, from the tension accumulated over days. The sun began to filter through the curtains, bathing the room in a delicious, warm light.
"Lucian...?" she murmured, her voice hoarse, waiting for an answer that never came.
She sat up slowly, letting the sheets slide over her skin... and that was when her body spoke first.
A deep, latent sensation, delicious and painful at the same time, ran through her belly. It wasn't a dream. It couldn't be. Every muscle, every heartbeat, every shiver betrayed her with a clarity impossible to ignore.
Eliza looked down... and her breathing stopped.
The room was in chaos.
