The morning sun didn't care about the sins of the night.
It shone across the obsidian floors of the royal suite with warmth, illuminating the wreckage of the previous few hours.
It caught the shimmer of the discarded emerald vest crumpled on the rug and the messy tangle of silk sheets that still held the lingering scent of peach-blossom nectar and woodsmoke.
Kyle woke with a gasp, his body feeling heavy, like lead.
His mind was a fractured mosaic of sensations.
He remembered the ballroom... the pink drink... Ezekiel's beautiful yellow eyes... and then, a terrifying, heat that had threatened to consume him from the inside out.
He remembered Alex's voice, steady and low in the chaos, and the sensation of hands—firm, grounding, and desperate—bringing him back from the edge of a cliff.
He sat up immediately, the room spinning for a moment.
He was in Alex's bed.
