POV: EVE
She woke before Dimitri for the first time.
It was early....barely six, the city outside still grey and undecided about the day, she lay still for a moment just noticing it. The unfamiliar novelty of being the one awake first. Of watching him sleep instead of being watched.
He slept differently than she would have expected. No iron control, no careful stillness. Just a man, deeply asleep, one arm thrown across the space where she'd been lying, his face unguarded in a way it almost never was during daylight hours. The scar along his ribs rose and fell with his breathing. His hair was disordered. He looked younger. Almost approachable.
She studied him for longer than she meant to.
