Page 144 of Maksym

Right now, the coil had loosened. I breathed in.

The sheets smelled faintly of cedar, smoke, clean linen, and Maksym. That last one entered me with such private force that I closed my eyes again.

He was not in the bed.

I knew it before I turned my head. The space beside me had cooled, though not completely. His pillow bore the faint impression of where he had rested. Rested, I thought, because sleep seemed too human a word for him and yet not entirely wrong.

At some point before dusk, he must have risen.

For one breath, old instinct reached for panic. Then I saw the folded note on the bedside table, weighted beneath the stem of an empty glass.

Grace,

I am nearby. I gave you privacy to wake and dress. Call and I will come.

M.

Not gone. Not vanished. Nearby.

I stared at the note longer than its contents required. The handwriting was precise, dark, slightly old-fashioned in its slant, every letter disciplined without being ornate. It looked like him. Controlled. Direct. A little severe. Tenderness smuggled in under formal structure because apparently Kozlov men could command armies, govern territories, manipulate shadows, and still treat plain emotional expression like a suspicious package.

I smiled before I could stop myself.

Then I sat up.

The movement came easily. Too easily, almost. My muscles answered without complaint. My back did not seize. My head did not swim. When my bare feet touched the rug, I waited for weakness out of habit and received only the dense, startling reality of my own strength.

My own. The word mattered.

I stood and crossed to the bathroom where I splashed cool water over my face.

The shock grounded me. I washed carefully, not because I needed to scrub anything away, but because I needed the ordinary ritual of an ordinary woman.

When I lifted my head, the mirror gave me back someone I almost recognized.

I had avoided mirrors for two years whenever possible. In Lucian’s house, reflection had been another instrument of humiliation. Proof of what he had made of me. Cheekbones too sharp. Eyes too large. Neck bruised. Mouth bloodless. A body reduced to something barely alive.

Now my face had fullness again. Not the exact face from before. I did not expect resurrection to be that polite. My skin remained pale, but not corpse-pale. My eyes looked darker, clearer, unnervingly bright when the light caught them. My lips held color.

Then I lowered my gaze to breasts and hips and a stomach restored to softness after starvation had tried to make me vanish. My body had been a crime scene. Then a battlefield. Last night, for the first time in longer than I could bear to count, it had been returned to its rightful owner.

Mine.

The closet had been prepared with the same unsettling competence as everything in this house. Far more clothing than I’d arrived with filled the closet. I did not know whether Tilden had sourced the wardrobe, Maksym had arranged it, or the estate itself had conjured designer pieces. I only knew that when I opened the doors, my hands found the soft gray Max Mara trousers without hesitation.

I drew them from the hanger and held them against me.

They were beautiful in the restrained way expensive things often are. The wool was smooth beneath my fingers, structured enough to remember their fit, soft enough not to punish the body wearing it. I stepped into them slowly, fastening the waist with a satisfaction so sharp it almost felt like defiance.

Next came the sweater.

Butter-soft cashmere in a pale cream that warmed my skin rather than draining it. It slid over my arms and settled against me without restriction. No stiff collar. No sharp seams. Nothing to bind my throat, or trap my wrists, or pretend discomfort was professionalism.

I stood before the mirror again.

There she was.

Not the federal prosecutor exactly. Not the woman who had walked into a Phoenix parking garage with a case file and a key fob that would not work. Not the captive. Not merely the newly turned vampire. Something assembled from all of them.