Xavier woke up to warm sunlight sliding through the blinds, the sheets tangled around his legs and Angel's arm thrown lazily across his stomach. Her hair was all over his chest, her bare skin pressed against him like she'd melted there sometime in the night. He brushed a strand off her face, slid out of bed without waking her, grabbed his shorts from the floor, and headed out toward the kitchen.
He was thinking about cooking something stupidly sweet for her just to mess with her mood when he stepped into the living room and saw Lyra and Lilia already awake. They were sitting stiffly on the couch, not watching anything, not talking either—just sitting there like they'd been waiting for him.
Xavier stopped halfway. "What happened? Why do you both look like someone died?"
Lyra shot upright immediately, tail tense, ears raised, eyes wide like she'd been holding something in for hours. She opened her mouth to speak, but Lilia cut in before a single sound escaped.
