(BLUE'S POV)
The room was dark, but I didn't need light to hear him.
It started as the faintest sound—a hesitant shuffle of bare feet across the floorboards in the guest room down the hall. My ears, attuned to every whisper of the world around me, picked up the rhythm immediately: uneven, frantic, racing toward me. And then there it was—Mason's heartbeat, a rapid drum in the quiet, as though the sound itself were trying to claw its way out of his chest. My body reacted before my mind could catch up, muscles coiling instinctively as I sat up, my back pressing hard against the headboard. Eyes wide. I felt that same old, invisible pull again—the one that had told me he was mine before I even laid eyes on him.
The door pushed open.
"Blue…"
His voice broke around my name like shards of glass, frayed and trembling.
