CLINK. CLINK. SWIPE.
Mailah blinked, her mind foggy with the heavy remnants of sleep and the lingering heat of the night.
For a moment, she didn't know where she was. The floor beneath her was soft and deep, smelling of woodsmoke and expensive fur. Then, she saw the embers in the hearth—tiny, glowing orange eyes in a bed of ash.
She sat up, the heavy wool blanket sliding down her shoulders.
Across the room, a woman in a crisp black-and-white uniform was moving quietly around the dining table. It was one of the senior housekeepers, her face a mask of professional boredom as she gathered the abandoned forks and moved the disarrayed chairs.
She didn't look toward the fireplace, but the way she kept her back turned was too deliberate to be accidental.
Mailah felt the blood rush to her cheeks, a hot, prickling wave of shame. She was naked under a throw rug on the floor of the formal dining room, surrounded by the evidence of a very long, very loud night.
