Consort couldn't remember the last time anything had cracked her composure wide enough to force a genuine, unguarded smile—not the practiced half-moon she deployed but something raw, almost painful in its sharpness.
Watching Phei sneak out of Elena's room felt like witnessing a private confession she had no right to see, and yet she couldn't look away.
He paused at the threshold, as the fading moonlight sliced across his bare shoulders, and bent to kiss Elena's sleeping lips—one soft, lingering peck that carried the weight of everything they'd just shared: the fairy-tale confessions, the laughter that had shaken their bodies together, the hours of naked skin pressed so close that breathing had become a shared rhythm.
The kiss wasn't hungry. It was tender as it was reverent. The goodbye that already hurt even in Elena's sleep.
