Gavriel Sterling couldn't sleep, and he blamed the cheese.
Not that he'd eaten cheese. But something had to be responsible for the fact that he'd been staring at the canopy above his bed for the better part of two hours, wide awake, mind running laps like a wolf with nowhere to hunt.
If it wasn't cheese, it was probably the universe being personally vindictive towards him. Which tracked.
He'd tried everything. Counting sheep. Counting kills. Counting the number of women in the Western territories who would weep if they knew he was alone in bed right now. That last one had almost worked, but then he'd lost count somewhere around forty and had to start over, and by then the moment was ruined.
So he did what any reasonable person would do at an unreasonable hour.
He went for a walk.
