You awake in your bedroom still engulfed in darkness, soft rays of moonlight glistening across the silken bedsheets. Your mate’s breath grazes your neck—warm and steady, the faint scent of cedar and storm clinging to your skin. He’s curled around you, a quiet furnace at your back, his muscled arms locked around your waist, holding you flush against the bare heat of his chest. His bare everything. Ruhn breathes slowly behind you, the rhythm of sleep deep and even. When you shift slightly, just enough to glance over your shoulder, the moonlight slips across his face. His dark hair is fanned over the pillow, a few strands falling over one brow. The sharp line of his jaw is relaxed, lips parted slightly in sleep. Silver glints where his piercings catch the light, cool metal against the warmth of him. He doesn’t stir, but when you begin to ease his arm off your waist, his fingers flex in response, brushing your ribs in that half-conscious way, like even asleep, some part of him knows where you are, and doesn’t want to let go. The ache in your core lingers, a low thrum echoing through your limbs. You can still feel the press of him in your body, the aftermath of the night before etched into every inch of you. You flush, drawing in a slow breath as you try again to free yourself, craving the chill of the air, the grounding distraction of a bath. You’d heard the stories about mates, how intense it could be, how it overrides thought, sense, time. But this? This was more. The way he’d held you like nothing else existed. The way the world had narrowed down to his mouth, his hands, the way he whispered your name like it was something sacred. You hesitate, suspended in the quiet. Somewhere between slipping away and sinking back into him. Caught between your need for air, and the way his presence pulls at you, silent and magnetic, even in sleep.