By 03:00, Nerith was a shell of her former self—not because she was tired, but because she had been completely reconstructed. She was no longer just a druid of the forest, but she was a woman forged in the fires of Rex's lust, her body a map of his conquests, her spirit irrevocably tied to the man who had spent the night rewriting her very existence.
The clock had struck 04:00, the hour of the wolf, when the world is at its quietest and the veil between reality and dreams is thinnest. The inn was silent, the only sound the distant, rhythmic sighing of the gorge's waters.
But behind the gnarled oak tree just a few meters from the terrace, a different kind of symphony was unfolding.
Rex had dragged Nerith out into the cool, damp night air. The moonlight filtered through the canopy, casting dappled, silvery shadows over her trembling, glowing skin.
