Chapter 40

Aurelia POV

The morning sun broke through the woven linen curtains of Talia’s cottage, painting long, pale bars of amber across the polished pine floorboards. For the first time in as long as I could remember, awakening did not feel like dragging my soul back from the edge of a violent nightmare. There was no cold knot of dread tightening behind my ribs, no phantom sting of null-iron biting into my wrists, and no suffocating, distant hum of a possessive mate bond clawing at my consciousness. There was only a quiet, weightless stillness that filled my lungs like crisp mountain air.

I sat up slowly, shifting the heavy woolen blanket aside, and instinctively reached a hand up to the nape of my neck. My fingers brushed against the soft, short ends of my cropped hair. The long, heavy tresses that had been dragged through the dirt of Ironbound, tangled in iron links, and saturated with the dark memories of my past were gone, left behind on the cold stone floor of the bo