Ashen set her down on the bed, although it felt less like placing and more like releasing a storm he had been holding in his arms.
His anger throbbed beneath his skin, controlled with the kind of restraint only a man who had learned to survive on patience could manage.
Even so, anyone who knew him would have seen the tension in his jaw and the thin line of his lips.
The moment his hands left her, Lumina reached for him. Her fingers curled desperately at the hem of his shirt as though she feared he might vanish if she blinked. Tears slid down her cheeks, warm and unsteady. The thought of her father reaching out to her, whom he never liked, still couldn't be digested.
"Ashen… do not leave," she whispered, voice trembling like a candle under a restless wind.
