Arik woke with a sharp inhale.
Darkness closed around him first.
For one violent second, his body did not understand where it was. His hand flexed against the sheets, searching for rings that were not there, for ether lines that did not hum beneath imperial marble, and for the old weight of a body that had once carried an empire like a second skeleton.
Then Liam shifted against him.
The present returned in pieces.
The guest suite in the diplomatic palace of Wrohan with rain whispering against the windows and the faint amber lamp left burning near the far wall.
Liam was asleep in his arms, warm and heavy with exhaustion, wearing Arik's dark pajamas as if he had been placed there by some cruelly generous god. His brown hair brushed Arik's shoulder, and one hand was caught loosely in the front of Arik's shirt, fingers curled there with the unconscious determination of someone who had no intention of letting him go.
