#Chapter 70 – Dear Damon

Lila The candle on my nightstand had burned down to a stub, its flame trembling like it, too, wasn’t sure whether it should keep going. I lay on my side, fully dressed atop the blankets, my hair still damp from rinsing off the bathhouse steam. The air in my room had cooled, but heat still clung to my skin in patches. Outside, the wind whispered against the windowpanes, fluttering the edge of the curtain with a soft, sighing sound. Every part of me felt weighted down—by the ranking still flashing behind my eyes, by Vanessa’s pointed cruelty, by Larian’s practiced charm. By the ache of Damon’s silence and Asher’s… whatever he was. And whatever was done to my wolf. We’ve survived this long, Ruby murmured. Her voice came low in the back of my mind, more sigh than growl tonight. The longing in her was reaching fever heights. Damon hadn’t spoken to me in days. Not directly. Not even through a message. But I still felt him—like a shadow pressed against the edges of my ribs. W