CHAPTER 179
KATYA POV
I woke up sideways.
That was the first thing my brain registered. My body wasn't aligned the way it should be. My cheek pressed into something cool and firm, not my mattress.
Darkness wrapped around me, thick and unfamiliar. Not the gentle shadows I was used to, but a deeper kind, heavy and still.
My head throbbed, pulsing deeply with an ache that made my thoughts scatter before they could fully form.
I squeezed my eyes shut, then opened them again slowly, as if that might make the world rearrange itself into something that made sense.
It didn't. The air smelled wrong.
Not wrong exactly—just not mine. A dark, expensive cologne lingered in the room, subtle but unmistakable.
Masculine. Controlled. It wrapped around me the way the darkness did, unfamiliar and inescapable. Panic stirred low in my chest.
This isn't my room.
I tried to move, and my body protested immediately. A dull pain flared across my back, like something was holding me together.
