Page 169 of Sage Haven
Me.
But my gut twisted with something sharp and ugly.
Not tonight.
Not yet.
There was still too much to unravel.
Later, Castor and I moved toward the sunroom. The door was cracked open, warm light spilling into the hall. Laughter drifted out—soft, familiar, painfully normal.
Sam and Sage.
Their voices tangled together, light and easy, like the sound of something innocent.
Something that hadn’t existed in this house for years.
I leaned in the doorway and watched.
And all I could think about was how Sage looked.
The way she smiled with Sam, laughing without restraint. The way she tilted her head, her hair falling over her shoulder like she didn’t know the effect it had on me.
The way the light caught in her eyes, softening them, filling them with something close to hope.
For a second, I forgot to breathe.
She glowed.
Not like a woman who had been through hell.
Not like a prisoner in a house ruled by men like Castor and me.
But like someone free.
Someone on the edge of something new.
And it was intoxicating.
“You know what we need to do?” Sam said suddenly, her voice bright, as if the solution was obvious all along. She gestured between the four of us with a grin that felt more dangerous than it should have. “We need to go out.”
Castor chuckled. But his eyes flicked toward me with caution.
He was still waiting for my approval.
They all were.
And then Sage turned her gaze on me.
She wasn’t asking for permission.
But she was waiting.
And in that moment, I felt it.
The undeniable pull.
Like I was the center of her world.
