Chapter seventy nine

Elma’s POV

Morning came slow.

The storm had passed, but its echo lingered … in the dripping of the trees, the heavy scent of wet earth, the faint chill that clung to my skin long after I’d dried off.

I hadn’t slept.

Every time I closed my eyes, I saw him … Roshan, standing in the rain, shoulders soaked, eyes dark and unreadable. His hand around my wrist. His thumb brushing my face.

Too gentle for a man built from steel and command.

Too dangerous for me to forget.

I should have pulled away sooner. Should have reminded myself who I was … what I came here for.

But for a moment, in that tent, I hadn’t been the girl with blood on her hands and vengeance in her heart.

I’d just been Elma.

And he had looked at me like that was enough.

The morning air slipped through the half-open flap of my tent, cool and sharp. I sat on my cot, gloves back on, boots laced, trying to steady the rhythm of my breath. My body was here, but my thoughts… they were somewhere between his eyes and his touch.

It shoul