Odette's POV
I thought my chest would tear from the inside out, the pressure building like a storm trapped in my ribs.
"You're changing rooms," he'd said—three words that felt like a verdict, cold and unyielding—and I hadn't known whether to laugh or to vomit. My mouth tasted of bile and bath soap, sharp on my tongue. My hands were still braced against the rough wood of the headboard, knuckles raw from whatever small war I'd been fighting inside my own body, fingers aching from the grip.
"What?" I managed, the word small and ridiculous in my throat, barely escaping past the lump that formed there. I couldn't see him. I could feel him, though—thick and present as the earth beneath my feet, his heat radiating like a forge. The space between us shifted. He closed it without a sound—slow, certain, like the tide sneaking in to claim what was already his.
