It was hours later, and the pre-dawn light that strained through the great windows of the Starveil Royal Suite was weak.

I lay tangled in the massive four-poster bed, covered by a linen sheet that was now scorched and ripped down the middle. Cassie was a heavy, warm, utterly depleted weight against my side, her breath a steady, even rhythm against the hollow of my throat. Even in exhaustion she was an anchor—cool, solid, something my body still reached for.

The first moment of true consciousness was the sudden, dizzying sense of me snapping back into place. For hours, there had been no "I," only the ferocious reality of we. Now, the link was gone, and the separation felt like a dizzying loss of pressure.

My eyes catalogued the damage in slow, obsessive detail; my mind refused to rest until every inch was accounted for. The room was not just messy; it was a scene of magical warfare. Every floating Veil-candle was bent, smoking, and sputtering. The deep crimson velvet of the Couch Ensemble was scorched black in large, irregular patches. An ugly scrape marked the marble floor where the couch had slid. Against the far wall, where the small, antique armoire had once stood, was nothing but a neat, pathetic pile of ash dusted across the marble—the wood incinerated, the metal melted.

I moved my hand, tracing the curve of Cassie’s hip—a reflexive, possessive gesture. The movement felt immediately, entirely mine. Then the recognition hit—the feeling was muted, filtered, as if the night’s connection had left silk between us.

My internal mind, however, still carried the echoes. I tried to focus on my exhaustion, but a faint, deep ache persisted in my knuckles—an ache that was not mine, but the residual strain of her human hands gripping the bedpost during the final stretch of the feral night.

I breathed in, and the scent confirmed the change. No longer the sharp, aggressive contrast of my caramelized marshmallow and her chilled vanilla musk, it had settled, permanently, into something new—warm citrus and emberwood, a smell that belonged only to us.

Cassie stirred, pressing a soft kiss to my collarbone, her lips cool.

“Hey,” she murmured, her voice thick with sleep and exhaustion, raw against the silence.

“Hey,” I replied.

She shifted, pulling back slightly to look at me, her icy blue eyes heavy but steady. Her gaze dropped, taking in the state of the room, then landing on the pile of ash where the armoire had been.

“Mira... what the actual fuck was that?”

I blinked. My mind, exhausted but defiant, defaulted to its natural state.

“Define ‘that.’”

“Define that?” I repeated, adjusting the pillow beneath my head. My voice came out flatter than I intended, like it had been sandpapered by smoke. “The incinerated furniture? The scorched floor? Or the fact that my shirt is currently a molten polymer smear halfway down the hallway?”

Cassie didn’t laugh. Not even a twitch. Her humor had gone cold, replaced by that sharp, calculating stillness she gets before a fight.

“The fusion, Mira,” she said slowly. “The hours of fusion. I couldn’t feel where I ended and you began, and my body was—” She swallowed. “It was moving without me. Tell me, historian, what doctrine covers temporary soul-sharing via catastrophic horniness?”

“None that I’ve read,” I admitted, the words tasting bitter as they left my tongue. “And if we’re talking about lack of control—my body was just as—”

The sentence cracked apart, replaced by the memory slamming into me like a cold wave.

We were on the pool table—the felt rough and burning against my bare hips—but at the same time, I was the one pressed against the cool wood, my spine arched into its resistance. Two sensations, one impossible body. My Fae magic surged, hot and wild; her breath caught, a beautiful, shuddering sound that thrilled my chest. I felt the desperate, muscular tension in her hamstrings as she strained, her body a perfect, human weapon.

You think you can win, Duchess? Her thought cut through the haze, sharp and cocky.

My chest filled with my own answer before I could form words: I don’t think. I know.

But the hands that executed the pivot—that perfect, ruthless counter that demanded my complete submission—were hers. The triumph was mine. The immediate, bruising throb in my ribs? I felt that through her nerves, an exquisite, shared pain.

The memory vanished as fast as it came, leaving a breathless ache in its wake.

I gasped, lungs searing, and Cassie did too—perfect echo. My hip throbbed where nothing had touched me.

“That wasn’t my memory,” she whispered, voice raw enough to make my skin prickle. “That was ours. I felt the felt tear, but I also felt the rush of your heat when you finally let go on my waist. That speed wasn't mine.”

“But the resistance,” I said quietly, brushing my hair back from my sweat-stuck forehead, “the counter-force—that was you. We didn’t have separate thoughts, Cass. Not one. I tried to find a moment that was just me—there isn’t one. It was all we.”

She glanced toward the ash pile that used to be the armoire. “I remember that,” she said softly. “We were right there. The magic didn’t burst—it just kept flowing. A constant, suffocating current of want.”

“It did.” I swallowed. “I tried to pull back, to shield, but then I felt your will push against mine—commanding, focused, utterly erotic. You directed it. It wasn’t mine anymore; it was ours.”

Another memory hit like a strike of lightning—this one wet and blinding.

We were by the jacuzzi, the tile cold under our feet. I’d tried to stop, terrified of how unstable the energy felt, but her hands—steady, relentless, pulling me into the fire—had forced me closer. The water had hissed to steam, tiles cracking beneath us, and the sound that tore from our throats had been one voice—feral, exultant, the sound of the suite breaking in half because we were finally, perfectly aligned.

The flash burned out, leaving my skin prickling with phantom heat. Cassie pressed a hand over her heart, her breathing jagged.

“It’s gone now,” she murmured. “The connection. I can feel my own body again. But it feels… wrong. Like I left something behind.”

I rolled onto my side, pulling her closer until her breath warmed my neck.

“I know,” I said softly. “I feel it too. Like there’s a piece of me that’s still out there, still humming in your chest.”

Her head lifted, eyes meeting mine—blue rimmed with exhaustion and something dangerously tender.

“Does it come back?”

“Maybe,” I whispered. “But not on its own. That kind of we—it needs a reason. A choice.”

For a heartbeat, neither of us moved. The only sound was the faint tick of the cooling marble. My brain was already cataloging everything—the Veillight fluctuations, the char residue, the burn patterns—but beneath all the logic, something quieter thrummed.

I pressed a kiss to her wrist, over the faint blue pulse still echoing under her skin. “We may not be fused anymore,” I murmured, voice gentler than I meant it to be, “but whatever we were—it left its fingerprints. You’ve got part of me now, Cass. And I’m not entirely sure I want it back.”

A sudden flash from the digital clock on the bedside table caught my eye: 1:47 A.M.

“Shit,” I muttered. “Althaea will be here in less than three hours to make sure we don’t miss first class.”

Cassie groaned and pressed her face into my neck. “Three hours. And the suite looks like a rogue spell hit it.”

“It was confusing,” she whispered after a moment, her forehead resting against mine. “Terrifying, even. But… it was the most real thing that’s ever happened to me. The most incredible.”

My heart swelled, the usual chaotic hum inside me softening to a warm, steady thrum. “For me too, Cass. The greatest moment of my life.”

The full fusion was gone, but the quiet, permanent awareness of her inside me felt like revelation—like being whole, and somehow more.

She found my lips again, a kiss soft and reverent, a gentle apology for the night’s shared violence.

I drew back just enough to meet her gaze. “Even though it’s over, I can still feel your piece in me,” I murmured, voice low. “I’m happy to have it.”

She nodded, contentment smoothing the exhaustion from her face.

I lifted her hand and pressed a kiss to her wrist.

“I love you, Firefly,” she whispered against my mouth.

“I love you too, Firebreak,” I said, the words rough with lingering emotion.

She settled back down, tucking her face into my hair, her arm heavy across my ribs. The silence that followed was deep and easy, broken only by the slow rhythm of our shared breathing.

“Sweet dreams, Firefly,” Cassie murmured as sleep finally took me.