Amara POV

For a long moment, all I could hear was the pulse in my ears. He said it like it was a fact, not a plea. A truth he barely had strength to voice. “The only way… is through intimacy.”

His words hung in the air, too heavy to ignore. I froze. “What?” I breathed, heart crashing against my ribs.

Cassian’s face was flushed, his skin still burning with fever, but his gaze had cleared slightly as though the fire inside him was overtaking the drug’s haze. There was ...