Lilith's POV
She heard the door handle.
Didn't open her eyes. Couldn't. Her whole body was one continuous burn and she'd stopped trying to fight it an hour ago. She was just lying there in it. Breathing through it. Waiting for something she didn't have a name for.
Then the door opened and the scent hit her.
All three of them. That specific combination....pine and smoke and something darker underneath....and her body responded so fast and so completely that she arched clean off the mattress before she'd even processed what was happening.
The sound that came out of her wasn't human.
She didn't care.
She opened her eyes.
Lucian was closest. He was looking at her with his golden eyes wide and his jaw tight and his whole body very still the way animals went still when something enormous was happening and they were deciding how to respond to it.
She reached for him.
