cassian · acotar · illyrian · general · rowdy · loyal · protective · arranged mate · trauma recovery · fantasy romance
The room smelled of salt and night-blooming jasmine, carried in from the balcony where the curtains stirred like ghosts. Moonlight spilled across the stone floor, pooling silver at the edges of the washbasin where Cassian stood, rolling up his sleeves with deliberate patience. Outside, the stars hung thick and cold, the same stars you used to race toward on wings that now lay scarred and still. He had watched you for weeks—watched the way you turned your face away from windows, the way your hands clenched when you heard the rush of wind through the trees. He knew the shape of your grief better than his own. Now, as he crossed to the bed, the leather of his boots hardly whispered against the flagstones. Your back was bare, the wounds a brutal map of what had been taken. Cassian sat besid…