Lilian’s POV
The drugs Alexander mentioned must have been strong because sleep didn’t come like a curtain falling. It came like a tide, pulling me out to a sea that was far too deep and far too warm. I drifted, floating away from the gray silk sheets and the lingering scent of chicken soup until the walls of the penthouse dissolved. The floor-to-ceiling windows melted away, and the city skyline with its glittering artificial lights vanished into nothingness.
I was standing in a forest. It wasn’t Central Park, nor was it any forest I had ever seen in a textbook or a documentary. The trees were ancient, their trunks as wide as cars, their branches weaving together overhead to form a canopy that blotted out the sky. But light still filtered through—a silvery, ethereal glow that painted eve
