Chapter 77

• Chapter 77: The First Night of Devotion
• The garden still smelled of lemons and smoke. The night air pressed heavy on Elena’s skin, cool against the heat that still lingered in her chest from the council’s bowing. She sat on the stone bench, their queen, their fire, their chaos—and still just a woman whose hands trembled with the weight of everything.
• Gabriel leaned against the tree, shirt undone, eyes sharp in the dark. His grin was lazy, but his body hummed like a storm waiting to break. Alessio stood beside her, gloves off now, his bare fingers tracing the back of her hand with a gentleness that didn’t match the violence he carried in his bones.