The morning did not arrive with the clinical harshness of a laboratory light, nor with the terrifying flare of a forest fire. It arrived as a soft, amber wash of light that bled through the gaps in the shredded silk hangings of the Master Suite. Outside, the ocean was a sheet of hammered gold under the rising sun, indifferent to the wreckage of the room it illuminated.
I woke up slowly, my head resting on the steady, powerful rhythm of Kaelen's chest. The agonizing, biological yearning was gone, replaced by a deep, hollow exhaustion. My mind was sharp; the edges of my thoughts were no longer blurred by the violet fog of the Reset. I felt every ache in my muscles, the sting of the IV puncture on my arm, and the dried, copper-scented residue on my lips.
