♯mily !

𝓒𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝓣𝐇𝐑𝐄𝐄 . . . 𝔰𝔬𝔫𝔤 𝔯𝔢𝔠 . . . shame by mitski ! ( 𝔣𝔲𝔩𝔩 𝔭𝔩𝔞𝔶𝔩𝔦𝔰𝔱 . . . click here ! )

❝ they’re right outside the door and they don’t know . . . how it feels so good, it feels so good ❞

𝐃𝐄𝐒𝐈𝐑𝐄 𝐖𝐀𝐒 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐎𝐋𝐃𝐄𝐒𝐓 𝐊𝐈𝐍𝐃 𝐎𝐅 𝐏𝐎𝐒𝐒𝐄𝐒𝐒𝐈𝐎𝐍.

Older than sin. Older than prayer. Older even than fear itself. It had no voice at first. No name you could call out loud. No shape you could point to and banish with a trembling finger. 

It moved silently, slipping through the body like shadow crawling across a wall at dusk—slow and patient. It lived in the soft curve of the spine and in the slow bloom of heat that gathered low and relentless. It pooled beneath skin and bone like something molten searching for a place to break through—to make itself a home.

And right now?

It had you by the throat.

The wood had not shuddered when you slammed the door. 

You had half expected it to—expected the old timber to splinter beneath the sheer violence of the motion.

You had not been entirely certain that the strength behind it had been your own.

For one fleeting instant, just before the door struck shut, your body had felt guided rather than driven—as though something older and steadier than your own trembling will had taken hold.

It had come like a sudden weight at your back, a press of unseen bodies gathering close behind you. Not gentle, but urgent. A force had then surged through your spine and down your arm with terrifying certainty, curling your fingers tight around the edge of the door and slamming it shut before your mind could catch up.

You could still feel the echo of it in your bones now, lingering deep beneath the tremor in your hands. The strength that had surged through you had not hesitated. It had not wavered. And it had not felt like fear driving you then, but like intervention.

Like your foremothers had been there in that moment—crowding close, pressing their will into yours, forcing the wood closed before you could falter. Before curiosity could outweigh caution. Before you could betray yourself—but most importantly, them—with a single careless step forward.

You did not move at first. 

You stood there in the dim hush of your narrow hallway, pressed tightly against the cooling timber as though you could sink into it if you tried hard enough. Your eyes were squeezed shut, your forehead resting against the rough grain of the wood—not from exhaustion, but from the desperate, childish hope that darkness might somehow blot out the image still burning behind your lids. 

Those crimson eyes lingered there in your memory, bright and terrible, paired with that patient gaze that had studied you as though you were something already claimed. 

Your palms flattened wider against the door, fingers splayed, pressing hard enough to make the joints ache. You needed to feel it. Needed to feel the reality of the barrier beneath your hands—the lock, the bolt, the iron holding firm between you and the creature that had worn a man’s face.

You traced the cold iron latch with trembling fingertips, desperate for the reassurance of its solidity. In your mind, you pictured the faint half-circle of salt still guarding the outer threshold, imagined the neat white line undisturbed despite the force with which you had slammed the door shut moments earlier. 

He had not crossed it. Had not even dared to touch it. The salt had held firm, unbroken and unmoved, and the knowledge steadied you only slightly. You told yourself it was still there. Still guarding. Still protecting.

Your breath came in ragged, tearing gasps that sounded far too loud in the sudden silence of the house. Each inhale scraped painfully against your throat, each exhale breaking free in short, uneven bursts. Your heart pounded wildly in your chest, a frantic bird battering itself against the cage of your ribs, desperate and senseless in its terror. You felt it everywhere—in your chest, in your throat, in the fragile pulse fluttering at your wrists. 

For one brief, horrifying second, a thought flashed through your mind: could he hear it? Could he hear that frantic rhythm pounding beneath your skin, that wild staccato of fear and something far more dangerous tangled together beneath your ribs?

Lord, if only it were just fear…

Fear would have been clean. Cold. Acceptable. Fear would have made sense, would have been righteous and understandable. But what pulsed through your veins now was not cold. It was hot—molten—spreading through your body like liquid fire that refused to cool. It gathered low in your belly and throbbed there, alive and restless, refusing to fade no matter how fiercely you willed it to disappear. 

That was the shame of it. That was the part that made your stomach twist and your knees tremble—not merely dread, but the knowledge that something darker had begun to entwine itself with your fear.

Yes, you realized then, he probably could hear your heart. After all, he was still standing on the other side of the door, was he not? 

You did not need proof of it. You did not need to hear the scrape of boots against the porch boards or the shift of breath against the wood. He had to still be there. 

You could almost picture him in your mind: standing exactly where you had left him, just beyond the line of salt, just outside the reach of iron, wearing that same lazy, knowing grin carved into the handsome angles of his face. Listening. Waiting.

You did not need to look through the narrow window beside the door. You did not dare press your ear against the wood and risk hearing the slow, measured rhythm of his breathing. You could feel him without doing either. Deep in your bones. His presence pressed against the other side of the timber like the weight of a gathering storm—unseen, yet unmistakably real. 

You could still smell him, too. The scent clung stubbornly to your skin, lingering like a brand burned into flesh. Ozone. Copper. Pine. It clung to you despite the fact that he had never crossed the threshold, never laid a hand on you, and still you carried his presence like a mark you could not wash away.

You expected him to knock again. Expected the sudden crash of fist against wood, the false ease and patience in his expression shattering into fury as the monster beneath his calm exterior revealed itself. You braced for the possibility of the door splintering beneath unnatural strength, for the sound of iron tearing loose from its moorings. You even found yourself waiting for it, muscles tensed in anticipation. 

But nothing came. 

The silence stretched instead, thick and suffocating, wrapping around the house like heavy fog. It swallowed every sound until even your own breathing felt intrusive in the stillness.

“Go away.”

The whisper slipped from your lips before you could stop it. Barely audible, thin and fragile, the words trembled as they left you and fell helplessly into the quiet. 

Still, you refused to let him think you had broken. You would not give him the satisfaction of imagining you trembling here like prey already caught in his snare. You would not allow him to picture you clinging to the door like a drowning woman gasping for air that tasted like him. 

So, with a force of will that felt like lifting a heavy stone with bare hands, you peeled yourself away from the wood. The movement felt unnatural, painful, as though invisible threads had bound you there and now resisted your escape. As though you were meant to remain there, as close to him as possible.

“Stupid girl.”

Your grandma’s voice cut through your thoughts with the sharp clarity of a switch striking skin. You could hear the familiar rasp of her tone as plainly as if she stood beside you now, arms folded, mouth drawn tight in disapproval. 

“You shouldn’t have engaged him in the first place. Shouldn’t have let him speak. You don’t wrestle with pigs, girl, and you sure as hell don’t argue with the Devil.”

You squeezed your eyes shut harder, jaw tightening until your teeth ached.

She was right. Of course she was.

It did not matter that the door was locked now, that the bolt sat firm beneath your shaking fingers. It mattered little that you had shut him out in the end—not when you had already let him inside in the only way that truly counted. You had listened. You had lingered. You had allowed his words to coil into your thoughts like something living, something patient.

And now, you realized with a rising, crawling dread, the wound he had left behind was not closing.

It was festering.

To have almost given in was unthinkable. A betrayal. Not merely of yourself, but of every woman whose blood had led to yours. Of every hand that had touched this house before your own.

You could still feel your foremothers. Not in any shape the eye could see, not in voices carried clearly enough to be mistaken for sound, but in the way the air seemed heavier, thick with memory. 

Their presence had always lived here, folded into the beams and the floorboards like smoke worked deep into old timber. This house had held them all at one time or another. It had witnessed their grief swallowed behind closed doors, their laughter in rare, fleeting moments of peace. Their quiet rebellions in a world that had never once welcomed them kindly.

You had felt them before—long before tonight.

On gentler evenings, when the world lay still and the forest breathed softly beyond the windows, their presence had come to you like something distant and familiar. Like wind brushing through tall summer grass. Those moments had never frightened you. If anything, they had steadied you and wrapped around your bones like reassurance.

But this was not that.

This time, their presence gathered behind you like a storm. Their disapproval and anger pressed against your back with suffocating weight, settling over your shoulders like wet earth. It crept beneath your skin until every nerve felt exposed, raw and aware. Eyes—unseen but unmistakably present—burned into you with a quiet, terrible judgment that made your stomach knot.

They had known him.

The Devil had stood here before. On this very porch. Beneath different moons and older skies, in years swallowed by time and memory. You could almost see it: the porch lantern swaying gently overhead, its light trembling against the night. The boards creaking beneath slow, measured footsteps. A hand lifting toward the door—always the door—patient, confident, certain that sooner or later someone would falter.

Each generation. Each woman. Tested and tempted.

But the truth, you realized, was that the true trial had never been him alone. Not the Devil’s presence. Not the sharp edge of his smile or the careful sweetness woven into his voice. Not even the terrible promise that seemed to follow in his wake.

No—the real danger had always come afterward.

It had come from Bellwood.

From the people who filled its crooked streets and crowded its narrow church pews. The same people who turned their heads when you passed by in daylight, lips tightening with thinly veiled contempt. The same people who whispered behind closed doors, who spat into the dust when your shadow crossed their path.

They had always told their stories about your kind.

Even in the earlier years of Bellwood, they had accused your foremothers of loving him. Of welcoming him into their homes, of dancing beneath black new moons with skirts swirling through shadow while the forest watched in silent witness. They had whispered that witches of your bloodline gave themselves willingly—*body and soul*—to the creature that haunted the woods. And when whispers had no longer satisfied their fear, they punished them for it.

You saw it then, vivid and merciless, as though the house itself remembered and chose to show you.

Women dragged screaming from their homes, wrists bound with coarse rope that bit into flesh. Torches flaring against the dark, casting monstrous shadows across twisted faces thick with righteous fury. Stakes driven deep into the earth. Ropes tightened. Wood stacked high beneath trembling bodies. Flames rising hungry and bright, swallowing skirts and skin alike while smoke clawed its way into the sky.

Others had not been granted even that spectacle.

Some were pushed beneath the surface of cold river water, held there by steady hands until the struggling slowed, until bubbles stopped breaking the surface. Others were locked away in cellars and forgotten, left to waste into bone and silence.

All because someone had once claimed they loved the Devil. And yet—not one of them had opened the door for him. Not one.

Your grandma had told you that with a certainty that left no room for doubt. 

They had endured flame and drowning, hunger and isolation. They had borne the slow cruelty of neighbors who smiled in daylight and condemned them in darkness. And still, they had refused him. Still, they had chosen death over the possibility of his touch.

The weight of that knowledge settled over you like ash falling from a burned-out sky. Because now you had stood on that same threshold where they once stood. Where they had held their ground with teeth bared and backs unbroken—even when the world had turned against them.

And you—

You had almost listened…

Your grandma’s voice surfaced again in memory, softer this time but no less firm. You could remember her standing at this very door years ago, her rough, work-worn hand pressed against the wood as she spoke.

“This wood’s older than the town itself,” she had murmured. “Seen more devils than the church down the road.”

Your ancestors had sealed this threshold again and again across the years—layer upon layer of herbs, iron, prayer, and blood. And when those things had not been enough, they had paid with their lives so the line would not break.

So that their daughters—and their daughters’ daughters—might one day live without fire licking at their heels.

So that you might stand here now, breathing free air in a house that had survived what so many others had not. Untouched by flames that had once consumed your bloodline. Untaken by the waters that had swallowed so many women whole.

Their lives had been the currency. Their suffering the price. Their blood had seeped into the soil beneath this house, into the roots of the great oak outside, into the very bones of the land itself.

And you had nearly undone it all with a single moment of weakness.

You could almost hear the earth shifting beyond the walls. In your imagination, the graves beneath the oak stirred restlessly, soil cracking under unseen movement. Coffin lids rattled faintly beneath the weight of memory. Bones knocking against wood in silent fury.

You saw them then—your foremothers—rising in your mind’s eye from the dark soil, ash clinging to hollow faces, smoke trailing from the hems of their dresses. Their expressions were hard, carved from disappointment and grief. Their gaze settled on you with a weight that felt like heat against exposed skin.

You pressed a trembling hand to your chest, as though sheer force might still the frantic pounding of your heart. But the gesture only made the sensation worse. Your pulse hammered beneath your palm, wild and relentless, refusing to slow.

You squeezed your eyes shut tighter. Drew in a long breath through your nose until your lungs stretched painfully against your ribs. Then another. And another. You forced yourself to focus on the rhythm, to anchor yourself in something steady.

You needed to calm down!

You hadn’t done anything unforgivable.

You hadn’t opened the door.

You hadn’t stepped outside.

You hadn’t—

Your breath faltered.

But you almost had. And what kind of Bellwood witch did that? Not a very good one, that was for sure.

The thought burned through you with fresh humiliation, hot and merciless.

You turned away from the door abruptly, as though the mere sight of it might scorch your skin if you lingered too long. As though the wood itself still held the memory of his presence, radiating heat you could not bear to feel again.

And deep down, in a place you did not dare examine too closely, you realized you no longer trusted yourself to remain standing that close to it…

The air inside the house pressed in around you the moment you turned from the door, thick and unmoving, as though the walls themselves had drawn closer while your back was turned. It felt harder to breathe now, as if the very air had been touched by him and carried his presence inward despite the iron bolt and the careful line of salt outside. The thought of him still clung stubbornly to your tongue, bitter and metallic, coating the roof of your mouth in a way that would not fade no matter how often you swallowed.

You forced your feet to move.

The floorboards groaned beneath your bare soles as you hurried through the narrow hallway, each step sounding too loud in the suffocating quiet. The house seemed to yawn around you with its age—timbers shifting faintly, beams settling with tired sighs—as if it, too, felt the strain of what had just occurred.

One by one, you reached out and pinched out the remaining lamps as you passed. Each flame died with a soft hiss beneath your fingers, leaving behind thin curls of smoke that twisted lazily upward before dissolving into darkness. The shadows thickened with every step, swallowing the narrow hall until it felt less like shelter and more like concealment.

You did not pause until you reached your bedroom.

The moment the door shut behind you, your hands went to your clothes without conscious thought. Your fingers trembled so badly that the buttons resisted you at first, slipping free of your grasp as your breath came in uneven bursts. You tugged at them with growing impatience, dragging fabric free from your body as if it burned. 

The blouse fell first, then the skirt, then the last thin barriers of cloth that clung damply to your skin. You stripped them away with desperate urgency, shedding each layer as though it carried contamination—his voice, his scent, his memory. The garments fell in a careless heap at your feet, crumpling into the shadows like discarded skin.

Your skin prickled in the sudden exposure, slick with heat despite the stillness of the room. For a moment, you simply stood there, breath shallow, arms hanging useless at your sides while your pulse thundered through your veins.

Then you reached for the nightgown. The same you had worn that night.

The white linen slipped over your shoulders in a cool rush, its stark touch sending a faint shiver along your spine. The fabric settled against your flushed skin, whispering softly as it slid down your body, covering you once more in something that felt—if not safe—at least familiar. 

You did not light another candle. You did not want more light. Darkness felt safer now, thicker somehow, as if it might swallow you whole and keep you hidden from prying eyes.

From his. From theirs. The darkness hid both. Or at least, it allowed you to pretend that it did.

You crossed the room slowly and climbed into the bed, your limbs trembling despite the thick summer heat that clung to the air. The mattress dipped beneath your weight with familiar resistance, the old frame creaking faintly in recognition. 

It was the same bed where your late husband Robert had once slept—curled up beside you, his broad shoulders taking up more space than seemed possible. The same bed where your grandmother had drawn her final breath years before—her hand still clasped around yours as life slipped gently from her body.

This bed had held grief. It had held sickness. It had held tragedy. It had held love, once. And now it held you—lonely and aching as you were.

The scent had lingered faintly despite your efforts—the memory of that night a month ago, the one that had undoubtedly started this nightmare. Lavender and salt masked most of it, layered thickly into every corner of the room in your desperate attempts to cleanse what had happened here. You had burned herbs until smoke choked the air.

Still, something remained. A trace too stubborn to erase. Just like him.

You lowered yourself onto your back and pulled the quilt up beneath your chin, clutching the edge of it tightly between your fingers. Your body trembled in small, restless waves, muscles refusing to settle no matter how fiercely you willed them to still. The warmth of the night did nothing to soothe the chill that lingered beneath your skin.

You squeezed your eyes shut.

You would sleep, you told yourself. You had to.

Tomorrow would come, as it always did. The sun would rise and flood the world with clean, merciless light. It would bleach the night from the earth, burn away the shadows, reduce this entire encounter to nothing more than memory.

You would wake stronger. You would wake steady.

You were a witch of the Bellwood line. A good one. The last one.

You were not weak. You were not foolish. You would not be broken by the Devil and his handsome face and honeyed voice.

Sleep. Just sleep.

You repeated it over and over in the silence of your thoughts, clinging to the command as if it were a rope thrown into deep water. Your breathing slowed in careful increments. Your fingers loosened their hold on the quilt. Your pulse softened, though it never fully settled.

And when sleep finally claimed you, it did not feel like safety. It felt like surrender. Like stepping into a snare you had not seen until it tightened around your ankle. Less a sanctuary and far more like a trap . . .

𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐃𝐑𝐄𝐀𝐌 𝐃𝐈𝐃𝐍’𝐓 𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐑𝐓 𝐖𝐈𝐓𝐇 𝐈𝐌𝐀𝐆𝐄𝐒. It started with heat.

A suffocating, humid warmth that pressed down on you like a heavy wool blanket in the height of July. The air was thick, syrupy, and hard to breathe. It tasted of honeysuckle and rot, sweetness and decay tangled together in a way that made your mouth water.

Your skin was fever-warm, your pulse drumming deep at the base of your throat. You were floating in this feeling—of being suspended in a haze of darkness where the only thing that existed was sensation.

You tried to shift. But your body, you realized then, would not answer to you. You couldn’t move, couldn’t shift, couldn’t flee. Limbs that had moments ago been your own now felt heavy, unstrung, splayed loosely against the mattress as though arranged by some other hand.

You tried—Lord knows you tried—to pry your eyes open, but they stayed fastened shut. Not by weakness, but by something else, something that had sewn them closed from within. It was as though your body had yielded, surrendered all control, while your mind remained awake—achingly, terribly awake.

The darkness that pressed in around you was soft and total, not empty but full—a velvet blackness so dense it became almost palpable. It comforted even as it confined, a womb and a coffin in one.

And though you could not see him—not in shadow, not in dream—you knew that this was his doing.

The Devil, it seemed, had followed you into your dreams at last.

You recognized him not by sight but by the shape of the silence surrounding you. His presence pressed against you with a contour only your spirit could perceive. It defined itself not through sound but through the way the air bent around it. It was the same sensation that had gripped you barely an hour prior. When you had realized what lingered there beyond your door. When you had met his gaze, and the reddish abyss of Hell had stared back at you.

That same slow-bleeding dread now returned, winding through you like a serpent uncoiling in your chest. It wrapped around your ribs with deliberate care, threaded its way down your spine, until your limbs tingled and the fine hairs along your arms and neck rose as if trying to flee the skin they were meant to guard. A living tension, intimate and inescapable.

You felt the weight of existing, the fragility of it, as though under the gaze of something that had seen eternity and found your mortality laughable.

The air shifted around you.

It thickened at your lips, cool against your throat, stirring faintly over your chest. He was inhaling. A slow and deliberate drag of breath taken by something that did not need to breathe, but relished the pretense of it nonetheless. Each pull of air drew in more than oxygen—it drew in you. Your scent, raw and heady: the warmth radiating from your fevered skin, the tang of your exhaustion, the metallic edge of your fear curling through your blood.

You could feel him savoring it. Lingering on the taste of your nearness, as if it melted on his tongue. As if the air itself carried your essence, and he wanted to imagine what the real thing would taste like once he finally, inevitably, claimed it.

He didn’t speak. Apparently, he had decided to reach out to you instead.

You had expected his eventual touch to be claws—harsh and unforgiving, raking and carving fire and blood into your flesh as punishment for your previous defiance. You had expected weight, a crushing press, heat that would scorch, a violence that would demand submission. The kind of touch meant to punish, to remind you how fragile and pathetically mortal you probably were in his molten eyes, to show you the taste of defilement that he surely hungered to press upon your soul.

But what suddenly touched you then was anything but violent.

A soft, imperceptible gasp slipped past your lips as his fingertips—soft, warm and untouched by anything sharp or cruel—made contact with your hipbone. The thin linen of your nightdress did little to separate you from him; it clung to your sweat-slicked skin, draping each curve in its flimsy barrier, yet not enough to shield you from the intimacy of that first touch.

His fingers continued to slowly trace the delicate swell of your hip and you could feel your body stiffen instinctively. His touch felt more like a coaxing and deliberate insistence than anything else.

It was gentle. Almost worshipful. And utterly wrong. Against every expectation, against every terror you had rehearsed a thousand times. Still intrusive, yes. Inescapable in its defilement. Corrupting in a way that made your pulse spike, your stomach turn and your breath hitch.

But it was not violent. Not at all.

He let his touch wander higher—his fingertips ghosting along the side of your waist. Heat bloomed strangely where his fingers passed, slow and molten, the way sap seeped from a tree when it was cut just right. His soft and reverent fingers traced impossibly light patterns, mapping the terrain of your body as though memorizing it.

Your unconscious body slightly stirred with a soft shiver and your lips softly parted in a silent gasp. Not in pleasure. But in recognition. In yearning.

Then his palm flattened over your ribcage, just beneath the swell of your left mound. His hand spanned it easily. Held you there. Measured you. With the confidence and self-proclaimed right only a lover who had known you for ages could possess. 

Your left nipple stiffened beneath the thin fabric from the lazy, circling scrape of a single claw that had suddenly appeared. Barely there. Enough to drag another gasp from your throat and make heat bloom in your core.

The next thing you felt was his mouth at your neck.

Not biting.

Just breathing.

Hot. Damp. Steady.

It was not the sharp promise of teeth, not the piercing dread you expected. It was softer—a warmth pressed against the hollow where your neck met your shoulder, that most private place, that most defenseless curve of you.

His slightly parted lips lay there without urgency. Without demand. Simply resting, like he could live there, could make a home of you. As though he had always belonged to that place. As though the pulse that leapt beneath your skin had been waiting for his mouth all along.

And Lord—

He was practically nuzzling into you.

Like a lover. Like someone who adored you. Like someone who knew you inside out—and now sought to savor you, to memorize you again in sleep.

Your breath hitched both in fear and want as his began to sweep lower—over your clavicle and your sternum. For a moment, he halted at the valley between your breasts, his mouth leaving you, and it almost felt like he was stopping to take a step back and appreciate the sight: the soft fabric almost taut over the valley and clinging to your mounds, revealing the hardened nipples beneath.

A soft, surprised moan escaped your chapped lips when his thumb suddenly brushed over one of them with startling reverence.

You didn’t flinch. No, your unconscious body practically arched into the touch. 

You could’ve almost sworn that you heard him let out a low and soft groan. Like it hurt him, too, to want you like this.

Your thighs clenched on instinct. The linen rode up when your restless body shifted. You were almost exposed now, bare beneath the thin shift that clung damp to your legs. You didn’t remember when you’d gotten so wet. Only that the heat between your legs pulsed in time with his breaths.

“Ah, there she is.”

You could hear his deep, honeyed voice murmur, thick with an ancient accent you could only imagine to be his actual one. But the satisfied approval had not been uttered with his lips. Not aloud. No, it had come from inside of you—his deep voice curling through your ribs.

You could feel him nuzzle back into your neck, nose tenderly pressing against your skin.

Your muscles flexed in anticipation when his hand returned and began to wander lower. Dancing over the soft flesh of your thigh in an almost teasing manner. Slipping beneath the hem. Just shy below your pulsating heat. Two clawless fingers. His knuckles dragging against tender skin. Not rough. Not probing. Just testing. Just enough to make your hips twitch from the tender caress—to make you whimper in your sleep, both in protest and need.

What would your grandma think of this? How disgusted and ashamed she and your foremothers must be this very moment, seeing you splayed out on their bed and giving in oh-so easily to the Devil’s temptation. You, the last woman carrying their blood and threatening to doom it all.

Cold shame bloomed in your heart and clashed with the all-consuming heat in your core.

You tried to move then—against whatever invisible chains had wrapped around your unconscious body and made you unable to act. You tried to squirm, to break loose from the power that this nightmare—this Devil—had over you.

You wanted to push him off. To drag him closer. To punch him. To kiss him. To curse him. To condemn him back to the deepest corner of Hell that he had crawled out of.

But he—the culprit of this torture that was now threatening to tear you apart, body and soul—only chuckled against your throat. Dark. Velvet-soft. Like he knew what you were thinking, what you were feeling—how conflicted your poor soul was, a constant push and pull with both duty and desire.

Your attempts were fruitless, the air around you feeling much colder now as the hand between your thighs gave the faintest caress to your vulva, cruelly avoiding your throbbing bundle of nerves, before moving away entirely. You had flinched at the featherlight touch, whimpering as you felt him move against your neck.

He pressed more firmly now, his nose grazing your skin, dragging upward in the softest line. His lips shifted, brushing over the hollow while you quietly whimpered in fear like some ensnared animal. But his mouth only wandered higher, until it hovered beneath your jaw and finally left you. 

You could feel his face inches from yours, looking down on you with those reddish eyes of his. You flinched once more when his touch returned only a second later—his hands now cradling your face, his right thumb brushing away the loose tear hanging on by your lower lash line. You hadn’t even noticed that you were tearing up through your closed eyes.

“Shhhh.”

You felt his warm breath ghost over your lips as he hushed you in a way that would’ve been tender had it come from anyone else. But there was nothing tender about the primal feeling of danger and fear looming over you now like some hand when his next words—whispered in a way that belied the terrifying warning lying beneath—made the hot blood in your veins turn to ice: 

”You’d do well to say yes to me, little witch.”

𝐘𝐎𝐔 𝐖𝐎𝐊𝐄 𝐖𝐈𝐓𝐇 𝐀 𝐆𝐀𝐒𝐏, your body jolting upright as if you’d been struck.

The morning light was harsh, filtering through the cracks in the shutters in dusty, unforgiving beams. The room was quiet. The birds were singing outside, indifferent and cheerful to the turmoil within your being.

You were a ruin.

You sat there, chest heaving, lungs grasping for air. Your hands were clutching the sheets so hard your knuckles were white. And between your legs... oh, God.

You were wet. Soaking wet.

The realization hit you with the force of a physical blow. Your nightdress was dampened with it, the linen heavy and clinging to your thighs. The sheets beneath you were sticky with your own slick. And the ache—the ache hadn't vanished with the dream. It was pulsating, a dull, throbbing emptiness in your center that screamed for attention. 

Your body was practically humming, trembling with the aftershocks of a pleasure that had been dangled in front of your face like a promise and then cruelly ripped away before it could’ve bloomed into eventual release. You felt hollowed out. Raw. Needy and riled up in a way you hadn’t been in a long time. 

It had been weeks since you had last touched yourself. Since that night which had seemingly sealed your fate. It had resulted in you starving yourself of the smallest release, as though punishing yourself. And perhaps, when those horrid nightmares of tearing flesh and bloody fangs had started infiltrating your mind shortly after, it might have also been in hopes of starving them, too. 

You felt shame crawling up your spine and flooding your entire being at the betrayal now oozing out from between your legs. The humiliation of it all came hot and fast, like a wave that burned your skin. You looked down at your trembling hands, at the mess between your thighs, and you felt sick. 

"Oh, God," you choked out, quiet and miserable, pressing the heels of your hands into your eyes. "No, no, no.”

It was him. It had to have been.

The realization settled over you like a shroud. 

Of course! This had been his doing. Not yours—no, never yours. You didn't dream like this, you never had! You were a widow, a woman of virtue. You hadn't felt a touch like that in months—and certainly never with such feral, animalistic intensity. No, this was clearly his rotten attempt at corruption—his need, if anything, and not yours! 

He had somehow found a way to craw into your mind while you were defenseless, slithering through the cracks of your subconscious like a serpent. Despite the salt and protections, he had planted those images, those sensations. He had violated the sanctity of your sleep just to prove a point. Just to make you want and ache.

Your grandma had warned you about that. Had told you that the Devil would play with your mind. That he would make you see things—feel things—when he thought you weakest.

You then remembered the nightmares of the past month—the blood, flesh and screams of so many innocent souls. He had been there then, too. Crawling inside you. For you knew, even back then, that those hadn't been yours either. 

He had been testing the locks, you realized, and now... now he had seemingly found the key. 

He’s inside me, you thought, hugging yourself as a shudder racked your frame. Like a serpent coiled in my belly, making itself a home.

The humiliation was total, burning in the back of your throat like bile. 

You, your grandma’s granddaughter. You, who knew the names of the roots and the phases of the moon. You, who had been taught to guard your soul with iron and salt. You had lain here, panting and writhing for a creature that wanted to consume you, spilling your essence into the sheets like some pathetic bitch in heat.

“Like some easy whore,” your mama would have probably said.

And if your grandma was watching from above—and you knew, with a sinking realization, she was—she wouldn’t be angry. She would be ashamed. You could feel the weight of her disappointment pressing down on the house, heavier than the roof itself. The generations of women who had fought, who had denied, who had kept their legs closed and the Lord’s prayer loud... they were all watching you unravel now.

You scrambled out of bed, nearly tripping over the tangled sheets, as you rushed to the washbasin, desperate to scrub the evidence of the sinful night from your skin. You stripped off the soiled nightgown, your fingers fumbling with the buttons, before you threw it into the corner as if it were burning.

You scrubbed your skin with a ferocity that left it red and stinging. You used the harsh lye soap, the one meant for scrubbing floors, and you scoured your thighs, your belly, your hands. You washed until the water in the basin turned cloudy, until you felt raw and scraped clean. But no matter how hard you scrubbed, you couldn't wash away the sensation of those phantom fingers pressing against you. You couldn't wash away the ache that still thrummed—low and persistent—deep inside your body.

But he wouldn’t win, you vowed. Your teeth gritted so hard that your jaw ached when you later stripped the bed with violent, shaking hands, bundling the sheets to be boiled—to be purged. No, you wouldn’t let him win…

The water hissed and rolled in the copper pot as you prepared the sheets to be boiled—steam blooming upward in thick, damp gusts that fogged the windows and slicked your hair to the back of your neck. You fed more wood to the fire than was strictly necessary, as if heat alone could burn the night out of the fabric. 

The bundle of soiled linen—nightgown and sheets twisted together—went in all at once, plunged beneath the surface like a body in a river. The water hissed as it swallowed them whole.

You stirred with the long wooden spoon until your shoulders burned and your fingers ached around the handle. The smell of lye, lavender, and faint, metallic shame rose with the steam, catching in your throat. 

Sweat beaded at your temples, neck damp beneath the loose tendrils of hair that had escaped your pins. The kitchen windows were propped open, but the summer heat pressed in stubborn and thick, refusing to be pushed back out.

You didn’t think. You wouldn’t let yourself.

Thinking meant seeing his hands again—those phantom fingers pushing up the hem of your nightgown, brushing so reverently along the soft skin of your thigh. Thinking meant feeling his mouth settle against your neck once more, heavy and warm and impossibly tender. Thinking meant remembering the way your body had arched, traitorous and eager, toward a touch that hadn’t even been real—

Your grip tightened on the spoon until your knuckles whitened.

“Enough,” you muttered, the word scalding on your tongue.

You focused on the work instead. On the scrape of the spoon against the iron. On the rhythmic creak of the floorboards under your shifting weight. On the sting of the hot steam against the soft skin of your face. You leaned into those little pains, trusting them more than you trusted your own mind.

When the water finally boiled itself quiet and the sheets had been churned and scrubbed into something that felt more like cloth than sin, you hauled them out with shaking arms. You wrung the fabric out with practiced force and carried the dripping bundles outside through the back door.

The morning sun was already high, not yet cruel but insistent, beating down on your bowed head as you pinned the sheets to the line. They hung there—pale flags of surrender, dripping quietly into the patchy grass below.

Robert’s grave—as well as your grandma’s—sat not twenty yards away beneath the large oak, the fresh cut of the earth gone from raw wound to neat scar. You did not look at it. Not today. 

You stayed there a moment longer, bare feet pressed into the packed earth, the hem of your dress already damp where it had brushed against the wet sheets. The woods beyond the backyard loomed, dark and dense, a wall of green shot through with the occasional spear of sunlight. 

For a moment, you searched for movement you knew you wouldn’t find, before turning your back on the line and going back inside…

Mrs. Kepler’s poultice had set thick and cool overnight, the mixture congealed in the small stone pot like greenish mud. You scraped the rim with the back of your spoon, smoothing the top with practiced care before tying a square of cheesecloth over it with twine.

She wanted it by morning. You’d promised to bring it to her little house in the middle of Bellwood, taking pity on her worsening hip. And you kept your promises—even when your insides felt like they’d been turned over and left to rot at the thought of stepping a foot into that wretched town again.

You changed your dress before you left. 

You reached for a high-necked shirtwaist, the front neatly adorned with narrow vertical tucks. The bishop sleeves billowed gently from the shoulders before gathering into fitted cuffs at your wrists. After avoiding town for nearly a week or so, it seemed wise to present yourself in something restrained—respectable enough to quiet curious eyes and lingering whispers.

You tucked the shirtwaist firmly into the waistband of the same brown pleated walking skirt you had worn the day before, smoothing the fabric down with steady hands. This time, however, you secured it with a contrasting ochre leather belt, the simple circular buckle catching a faint glint of morning light as it settled into place. It had been your grandma’s favorite.

At last, you turned to your hair, sweeping it up into a loose, airy pompadour once more. You allowed a few stray strands to remain at your temples and along your cheeks. They framed your face in a way that made you look less rigid than you felt…

The sun had climbed higher by the time you stepped out of your front door, basket hooked over one arm with Mrs. Kepler’s poultice safely stored inside. The porch boards groaned beneath your weight in their old, familiar complaint. You paused just long enough to glance at the half-circle of salt still dusted pale and unbroken in front of the threshold—the same line he had stood beyond.

For a heartbeat, your mind replayed the way he’d looked there in last night’s heavy dark, all lazy smiles and coaxing promises. The porch lantern stuttering above his head. The way his red eyes had tracked you, slow and deliberate, like he was tasting you one inch at a time.

Your stomach clenched.

You locked the door behind you and then stepped over the salt.

The walk wasn’t long, but the heat made each step feel twice as heavy. The cicadas screamed in the branches overhead—that relentless, rattling chorus that had once been only summer sound and now felt like a warning shaken straight from the trees. But you kept your eyes forward.

When the trees began to thin and Bellwood’s crooked little sprawl came into view, your shoulders tensed without you willing it. The town looked the same as it always had—one dusty main road, a handful of side streets sagging under heat, the church steeple stabbing up at the pale sky. A wagon rattled past, wheels kicking up thin ghosts of dirt, and someone’s laundry flapped slack on a line behind the general store.

Eyes followed you the moment your brown leather boots hit the packed earth of the road. They always did.

An old woman paused in sweeping her stoop, the broom stilling mid-air as her gaze snagged on the hem of your brown skirt. Two men on the corner dipped their heads together, whispers folding neatly into the space between them. Across the way, a little girl tugged at her mother’s sleeve, curiosity bright in her face until the woman turned, saw you, and yanked the child closer, murmuring something low and sharp against her hair while glaring at you.

Witch, their mouths didn’t bother forming, though you could almost hear it anyway.

You kept walking.

The Kepler house sat a little off the main road, as it always had—low and stubborn against the weight of time. It leaned ever so slightly to one side, its boards weathered gray by years of sun and rain, its porch sagging in a way that reminded you uncomfortably of your own. The steps creaked beneath your weight as you climbed them, the wood soft in places where too many seasons had gnawed at it.

A narrow strip of garden clung stubbornly to life beside the porch, though neglect had taken its toll. Tomato vines drooped heavily against crooked stakes, their leaves yellowing at the edges, while a row of beans climbed a makeshift trellis fashioned from warped sticks and fraying twine. The whole patch looked tired.

You adjusted your grip on the basket and lifted your hand to the door.

You knocked once, firm but not loud. Then again, a little sharper this time, your knuckles rapping against peeling paint that flaked beneath your touch. The sound carried strangely in the still air, hollow and thin.

Inside, something shifted.

A chair scraped. Footsteps shuffled closer, uneven and slow.

The door opened after a moment with the drawn-out creak of hinges that had not seen oil in months, the sound stretching long and complaining as the wood gave way.

“’Bout damn time, girl!”

Mrs. Kepler’s voice came sharp and sour before you even fully saw her face. It was her way of greeting—always gruff, and always complaining. Yet even as the words left her mouth, her small, dark eyes flicked past your shoulder toward the road, quick and nervous, like she didn’t want anyone lingering nearby to catch sight of you standing on her porch.

She filled the doorway with her broad build that had softened by age and years of hard living. Flour dusted the front of her apron in pale streaks, clinging to the creases of worn fabric. Her gray hair had been scraped back into a bun, though loose strands had escaped and clung stubbornly to the damp skin at her temples. The lines around her mouth were deep and permanent.

“Good morning to you, too…” You murmured a little irritated, letting the words carry just enough bite to match her tone.

Even as you spoke, you felt the faint prickle of regret settle along your shoulders. Offering to deliver the poultice yourself had seemed like the right thing at the time. But standing here now, with the weight of town eyes never far from your back, felt less like kindness and more like a mistake.

Still, you reached into your basket and retrieved the bundled jar. You stepped forward, just enough to press it into her waiting hands. You were careful to remain outside the threshold. That was a lesson learned early in life: never cross into spaces where you were not truly welcome. It spared you more trouble than most people cared to admit.

Mrs. Kepler took the package with a quick, almost greedy motion, her fingers snatching it toward her chest as though afraid you might change your mind and take it back.

“Hip’s been actin’ up fierce, I’m tellin’ ya,” she let out a low, almost grumbling chuckle, already working at the knot of cloth with impatient fingers. She acted as though your pointed greeting had never happened at all. “Could barely get outta bed yesterday mornin’. That doctor from Tupelo just tells me to rest—ha!” She gave a short, humorless bark of laughter. “Like I got time to lay around and let the whole house fall apart.”

She paused then, her hands stilling. Her gaze lifted slowly to your face, sharp and measuring. It lingered there longer than was comfortable.

“Y’sure this stuff gon’ work?”

“If you use it like I told ya to,” you replied, keeping your voice calm and even. “Rub it in warm, right over the joint. Mornin’ and night. No more than that, or you’ll end up with skin red as boiled crawfish.” You tilted your head slightly, fixing her with a knowing look. “And don’t you go mixin’ it with whatever miracle tonic that cousin of yours keeps tryna sell outta his wagon.”

Color crept into her cheeks at once, blooming dull and embarrassed beneath the loose folds of her skin.

“I- I was only—”

“Don’t,” you cut in, though your voice softened just a touch at the edges. Not gentle, exactly—but less sharp. “They be puttin’ opium and God-knows-what else in them bottles. You wanna go numb that bad, I can brew you somethin’ safer myself.”

Her mouth pursed, lips flattening into a thin line as she worried the cloth knot beneath her thumb. For a moment she looked like she might argue. Then her shoulders sagged, and she let out a small, reluctant sigh.

“Fine,” she muttered. “I’ll do as ya say, girl.”

A faint ghost of a smile tugged at the corner of your mouth despite yourself.

“You always do.”

For just a moment, something like gratitude flickered between you—quiet and uneasy, the kind that lived beneath pride and stubbornness. It might have lingered, too, if not for the way she suddenly stiffened, her expression shifting as realization settled back into place.

She crossed herself quickly, almost furtively, fingers brushing her chest in a small, hurried gesture—as though she had just remembered who stood before her door. As though accepting your help required immediate forgiveness from God Himself.

“The payment’s inside,” she said abruptly, already shifting backward as if eager to end the interaction before it lingered too long.

“It can wait,” you answered quickly, before she could shut the door between you. “Carton of eggs next time you’re near my place’ll do.” You nodded toward her leg. “And keep off that hip as much as you can. Let your boy carry the heavy things for once.”

“He’s useless as tits on a boar,” she scoffed, though a faint spark of fondness slipped into her voice despite the insult. A quiet huff of laughter escaped her before she cleared her throat, regaining some of her usual hardness.

Her eyes flicked over you one last time—taking in your appearance. Then she gave a short, curt nod.

“I’ll send the eggs when the hens decide to start earnin’ their keep again.”

The door closed with a dull, final thud.

You remained where you were for a heartbeat longer than necessary, staring at the weathered wood as though it might shift or open again. As though the space itself might swallow you whole if you lingered too long.

Then you forced yourself to turn—back toward the road. And with quiet resolve tightening your shoulders, you made your feet move…

By the time you trudged back up the path towards your own house, the sun had reached its highest point. The sheets hanging on the line near the back door were mostly dry, stiff and clean, snapping faintly in the occasional breath of breeze. You took them down one by one, folding each with more care than necessary, stacking them in a neat pile that made your raw hands ache.

Your first patient of the day arrived not long after you’d set the fresh bedding aside in your home. The knock at the front door was quick, nervous—three light taps in rapid succession. The kind that said whoever stood on your porch would rather be anywhere else.

You opened the door to find Ruth Abbott on your steps, straw hat pressed tight against her chest. She was about your age, though life had folded her into sharper lines—her knuckles swollen from washing other people’s linens, shoulders stooped from years bent over a washtub.

“Afternoon, Miss,” she said, words tripping over one another. Her dark gaze skittered past your shoulder into the sunlit interior of the house, then landed miserably on her own dirty boots. “I, uh… sorry to… to bother. I can come back—”

“You’re here now,” you cut in, giving her a small smile. “What’s wrong?”

She hesitated, teeth catching her bottom lip, before pulling in a shallow breath. “It’s my chest,” she admitted with an exhale, one hand fluttering vaguely over her ribs. “Been coughin’ somethin’ fierce these past weeks. Hurts when I breathe in deep, right here. Doctor says it’s nerves.” Her mouth twisted at that, before adding quietly, “But I doubt nerves make you spit up brown ‘n red in the mornin’.”

You frowned.

“You still workin’ over at the mill?”

“Six days a week,” she said, shame and stubbornness warring on her face. “Can’t afford not to…”

You stepped back in silent invitation. She hesitated on the threshold—eyes dropping to the line of salt, to the iron nail rusted into the wood of one pillar, and to the charms carved into another. For a second, you saw the conflict in her plain as a wound: fear of you, fear of what people would say if they saw, fear of her own lungs tightening like fists.

Then she stepped over, quick, as if afraid the floor might bite.

You set her at the kitchen table and listened to her breathe, pressing your ear against her back while she hugged herself and tried not to cough. The wheeze was there, low and wet—cotton dust clinging where air should’ve moved clean.

“Turn around,” you said. She did. You watched her eyes, the way they shadowed when she inhaled deeply, the flare of her nostrils, the pinch at the corners of her mouth when pain sparked.

“Can you fix it?” she asked finally, voice small.

“Can’t fix the mill,” you said. “But I can help your lungs hate it a lil’ less.”

You fell into the familiar rhythm of work then—hands moving for dried mullein and coltsfoot, slippery elm and honey. You crushed and measured, your mind dividing itself neatly: one part counting drops into the dark glass bottle, one part watching Ruth’s restless fingers drum against the table, one part drifting back to the feeling of a different weight on your chest that morning, a different breath at your neck.

You pushed that last part down. Hard.

When the tonic was done, you slid it toward her. “Two spoonfuls with hot water mornin’ and night,” you instructed. “And if you can manage it, stand near the river after your shifts. Breathe deep where the air’s clean. Let it push some of that dust out.”

She nodded, eyes bright with something like relief. “What do I owe you?”

You paused for a moment, thinking.

“Bring me a sack of flour next time the wagon comes in from Jackson,” you said, hesitating before adding, “and if anyone asks why you’re breathin’ easier, you tell ‘em it’s because you drink more water and rest when you can.” Your gaze held hers. “You don’t have to say my name.”

Color rose in her cheeks. “I… I wouldn’t mind sayin’ it,” she murmured. “If it might make folks think twice ‘fore they spit it.” A beat. “But I know better.”

“So do I,” you said.

She left with the bottle cradled like something fragile. You watched her go from the narrow window, tracking the hunch of her shoulders until the trees swallowed her up. When she vanished, the house felt bigger again. Emptier. The quiet crept in around your ankles.

It didn’t last.

By mid-afternoon, the sun had slouched westward, turning the light a softer, more forgiving gold when the next knock came. This one was frantic—heavy fist pounding too many times in quick succession.

You opened the door to find a young woman on your steps, hair half out of its braid, cheeks flushed. A baby wailed in her arms, red-faced and furious, tiny fists beating against her breast.

“Please,” the woman gasped, already halfway over the threshold before you could even assess her or tell her to come inside. “He- He won’t stop cryin’! Been at it since last night, and I- I can’t—” Her voice broke.

“I’ll take a look,” you said, already reaching to take the child before she dropped him.

He was hot and furious, little body rigid with his own distress. You pressed him to your shoulder, swaying instinctively, one hand cupping the back of his too-warm head, the other firm against his small spine. He smelled of sour milk and sweat and the faint, powdery sweetness of talc.

“Any fever?” you asked over the baby’s sharp, jagged cries.

She shook her head, eyes wild. “Not much. Just fussy. Screamin’ like this whenever I put him down. Mama says it’s my milk bein’ bad. That the Lord’s displeased, and He—”

“Your milk’s fine!” You interrupted, harsher than you meant to. The baby snuffled against your neck at the change in pitch, his cries faltering. You softened your tone. “How old is he?”

“Seven weeks yesterday.”

“And you? You eatin’?”

A miserable shrug. “When I can.”

You hummed low in your throat, a sound that surprised you with its own tenderness. The child’s damp cheek pressed against your collarbone, his tiny heartbeat fluttering like a trapped bird where his chest rested over your own. 

For a moment—just a breath—you let yourself focus only on that: the simple, solid weight of new life against you. Of something you could’ve had, too—if fate had been kinder to you.

“Colic, most likely,” you said, pulling back enough to look the baby over, noting the curled legs, the tight little belly. “His little stomach’s still learnin’ how to do what it’s meant to. I’ll brew you some fennel and chamomile for your own tea—what helps you will help him. And I’ll show you some ways to hold him that might ease it.”

And that, you did. You moved her hands where yours had been, guiding her arms until the baby rested stretched along her forearm, his belly over her wrist, his head in her palm. You showed her how to bounce, gently, how to walk, how to hum just low enough that the sound vibrated through his small bones.

“Like that,” you murmured. “You’re doin’ fine. He’s just little and loud about his discomfort. Men are like that, too,” you added without thinking, wryness slipping past your guard.

She barked out a startled laugh, then clapped a hand over her mouth, as if worried joy was a sin in your house. “My husband sure is,” she whispered after a moment, giving you a smile.

You taught her how to steep the tea, what signs to look for that meant something worse than colic, how to trust that some crying, as terrible as it felt, would pass. When she left, the baby had slumped into an exhausted doze against her shoulder, little mouth slack, damp lashes clumped on flushed cheeks.

“You’re a blessin’,” she said at the door, eyes shining with exhausted gratitude.

You almost said, I’m cursed, actually.

Instead, you only nodded with a tight smile, fingers pressing into the rough wood of the doorframe.

You watched her walk away into the forest, the sun already bleeding out along the horizon and turning the sky the color of bruised fruit. The shadows of the trees stretched long and thin, fingers reaching across the clearing toward your porch. You closed the door carefully, sliding the bolt into place, fingers lingering on the iron as though touching it might ground you.

The house exhaled around you. Or maybe that was just you.

You realized, then, that you hadn’t eaten since dawn. Your limbs ached with the dull heaviness of hunger and too little sleep. The quiet pressed in, thicker than it had been all day, no footsteps on the path, no voices bleeding in from the road. Just the ticking of the hallway clock and the faint creak of the walls settling.

You lit a few lamps—one in the kitchen, one in your workroom—small, steady flames that pushed back the coming dark in little halos. The black candle on the mantle waited. Your gaze snagged on it.

“The Devil listens hardest at night.”

You lit the candle with unsteady hands, the dread already beginning to set in.

Night was coming. And with the night, the dreams. You tried to stay awake. You truly did.

You brewed a pot of tea so strong it was bitter as bile. You sat in the rocking chair by the hearth and said the Lord’s Prayer twice—the Bible open on your lap as you went on to read the same psalm over and over until the words swam before your eyes.

“Deliver me, O Lord, from the evil man: preserve me from the violent man...”

But exhaustion was a patient hunter. It waited until your head lulled, until the book slipped from your fingers, until your guard dropped for just one second.

And then it dragged you back under…

𝐇𝐄𝐀𝐓 𝐒𝐋𝐀𝐌𝐌𝐄𝐃 𝐈𝐍𝐓𝐎 𝐘𝐎𝐔 𝐅𝐈𝐑𝐒𝐓—thicker, heavier than before. The darkness around you had changed. It felt closer now, tighter. Less like a vast, velvety expanse and more like the inside of a throat—wet and warm and pulsing faintly with a heartbeat that was not your own.

You weren’t lying down anymore.

You were standing.

Or rather, you were being held upright, though you couldn’t feel your feet against any ground. Your body hovered in that strange, weightless suspension between falling and being caught, every nerve aware of the fact that if he let go, you would plummet into nothing.

His hand was at your throat.

Not squeezing. Not crushing.

Just resting there—broad and sure, fingers splayed along the sides of your neck, thumb fitted into the hollow beneath your jaw as though that place had been carved for him alone. The pad of it stroked once, a lazy, absentminded slide over your racing pulse, and your breath stuttered in answer.

You still could not see him.

Your eyes remained stubbornly sewn shut from the inside, lashes damp against your skin, lids weighted with something heavier than sleep. It did not feel natural. It felt deliberate. As though some unseen hand had pressed darkness into the sockets themselves and bid it stay there, sealing you inside your own body. 

You strained against it until your temples ached, until a hot pressure built behind your eyes, but it was useless. You were blind in the most suffocating sense of the word—not because there was nothing to see, but because he had decided you would not.

And perhaps, that was even worse.

Because sight, at least, might have given shape to your fear. A face. A mouth. The exact angle of those terrible eyes. But this—this was something crueler. To be left only with sensation. To know him not by image, but by the way your body reacted to his nearness before your mind could think to deny it.

You felt him everywhere.

Behind you, first. The broad and impossible shape of him pressed along the line of your back with a solidity that made your breath catch. His chest was cool this time—unnaturally so—an even, hard plane laid against the feverish heat of your body. It made no sense. It should have felt dead, that coldness. It should have repulsed you. Yet the contrast of it made every overheated nerve in you spark brighter, your skin tightening where his presence hovered too close. 

It was like standing half inside a fire and half inside a grave. Perhaps that was what awaited your damned soul…

But he was not only behind you. He was in front of you, too, somehow. Around you. In the air that crowded your lungs and would not leave room for enough breath. In the pulse hammering at the base of your throat. In the strange, unbearable awareness that something ancient and intent had wound itself around the fragile fact of you and was now studying every tremor as though it meant something.

Your hands hung uselessly at your sides, fingers curled into the loose beginning of fists. They twitched once, helplessly. The movement felt pitiful. Your own body no longer belonged wholly to you; it only remained in your possession in the most technical sense, and even that seemed subject to his mood.

“Still running, little witch?”

The sound of his voice was not sound at all so much as intrusion.

It arrived from everywhere at once—inside your skull, against the delicate shell of your ear, in the hollow under your ribs where your heart battered itself raw from fear, anger and something else entirely. It did not travel through the air so much as through you, unfurling in your bones like smoke threading its way through old floorboards. 

His accent was thicker now, older somehow, the consonants rolling darker on his tongue, as if the careful mask of man had slipped and something far more ancient was speaking through the borrowed shape of his mouth. There was amusement in it, yes, but there was something else too: an ease so complete it bordered on arrogance. The ease of something that did not need to chase because it already knew where you would end up.

Your throat worked convulsively around a swallow.

The movement dragged the delicate column of your neck against his palm, and you hated the tiny, humiliating sound that escaped you in response—a broken little whimper, thin and breathless, all the more damning for how involuntary it was. It slipped out before you could choke it back. Before pride could reach it and strangle it dead.

His chuckle followed at once.

It rolled low and deep through the dark like distant thunder over open fields—soft at first, then reverberating harder, until you felt it in your sternum. The sound of something entertained. Something patient. Something pleased.

“I told you—did I not?” he murmured huskily, and now his breath moved against the shell of your ear, cool enough to raise gooseflesh over the back of your neck. “You would do well to say yes.”

You tried to answer.

Lord, you tried.

To spit at him. To rasp out a curse sharp enough to cut the air between you. To force the shape of no past your lips—even if it came out broken and ragged, scraped raw from the depths of your throat. Even if it sounded small. Even if it trembled.

At least then it would have been yours.

A word of refusal. A sliver of defiance. Something living and stubborn enough to stand between you and him, however fragile it might have been. Anything would have been better than this suffocating silence pressing down around you—this voiceless helplessness that made you feel less like a woman and more like prey caught mid-breath.

Because this silence felt like surrender. And that was not something your bloodline had ever allowed.

Your teeth clenched as panic clawed its way higher in your chest. You wanted to snarl, to bite, to bare your teeth the way cornered animals did when escape was no longer possible. To show him—even in the smallest, ugliest way—that you would not fold so easily beneath his presence.

That you would not yield. Just like the witches before you.

Still, the shame of it spread through you like poison.

Anything would have been better than this. Anything to show your foremothers that you would not be the one to fail them. That you would not be the fracture point where generations of resistance finally broke. That you would not be the weak link in a chain forged through blood, fire, and stubborn survival.

Not you. Not the last of them. Not the one entrusted with everything they had endured to protect…

But nothing came when you finally managed to part your lips.

Not even a scrape of sound. Not a croak. Not a whisper. Your tongue lay thick and dead in your mouth, heavy as lead, and your jaw felt as though some invisible, merciless hand had wired it shut from the inside. 

Panic struck so fast it was almost clean—a hot, white bolt beneath your breastbone that spread through your chest in violent waves. You strained against the silence until your throat burned. Until the tendons in your neck stood out. Until the effort itself made tears bead hotly at the corners of your sealed eyes.

But the silence held.

It clung to you, intimate and absolute.

“Shhhh. Relax, baby.”

His fingers flexed softly against your throat.

The command thrummed through you more than it reached you. It was not spoken so much as impressed upon your body, a low and resonant hum that traveled through the cage of your ribs and settled in your spine. You felt it there, a vibration of authority that made the muscles in your limbs go weak with involuntary obedience. Something old in you—something primal and furious and ashamed—recognized the power in it at once.

“Be a good girl and listen to me, hm?” 

You could almost hear the lazy grin as he drawled the words. It felt mocking and humiliating in its tenderness. You gritted your teeth as his thumb moved once, slowly, over the wild flutter of your pulse.

You shook your head as much as his hold would allow.

It was a small movement. Desperate. Frantic in its uselessness. The kind a trapped lamb might make just before the wolf’s teeth clamped down on its neck.

For the briefest heartbeat, his hand tightened.

Not enough to choke. Not enough to bruise. Only enough to remind you—cleanly, unmistakably—that he could. That the tendons and bones and blood vessels in your neck were fragile little things beneath his touch. That if he chose to, he could snap your life in half with less effort than it took to close a fist.

The knowledge flashed through you cold as river water.

Then his grip loosened again.

Almost soothingly.

“Stubborn,” he mused, and the word sounded less like criticism than fondness twisted into a darker shape. “I do like that about you.”

His other hand—God, when had it settled there? Had it always been there?—shifted at your waist.

The heel of his palm pressed more firmly into your side while his fingers spread wide over the curve of your middle, spanning you with that lifelong-lover-confidence that made your stomach knot. His thumb brushed the sharp jut of your hip through your clothes, once, twice. Not wandering this time. Not tracing or teasing. Just there. Present in a way that was somehow more intimate than movement might have been.

Claiming.

It felt like a hand placed not merely on your body but on the idea of it, as though he were reminding both you and himself that he knew the shape of you already. As though every place he had touched in the first dream still belonged to his memory. As though the untouched places existed only as a future certainty.

Heat climbed treacherously through you at the realization, and shame rose with it in equal measure.

“But you’re tired,” he went on softly, with the almost idle cadence of a man making conversation in a sunlit room instead of pinning a woman in the dark between fear and want. “Aren’t you?”

The darkness around you rippled.

Not metaphorically. Not like imagination. It truly moved—shuddering at the edges like fabric caught by a wind that did not exist. The air thickened. The shape of it changed. For one terrible, disorienting instant, it felt as if the whole dream had been dipped in black water and hauled up remade.

And then—

You were no longer suspended in that endless void.

You were standing in your kitchen.

Or something wearing your kitchen’s face.

At first glance, it was yours. The table. The stove. The basin by the window. The rough plank floor you knew by every creak and splinter. But the moment your mind reached for the comfort of recognition, the wrongness revealed itself. The table was too long, stretching farther than it had any right to, its far end fading almost into shadow. The stove loomed taller, black iron rising like a church organ in a funeral chapel. The corners of the room withdrew from you, impossible and distant, as though the house itself had been pulled thin over some larger thing lurking beneath it.

It was your kitchen dreamt by something that did not understand proportion, only possession, and had never actually stood inside of it…

And there—

At the basin—

You saw yourself.

Your own body bent over the wash water, arms plunged almost to the elbows in a tub gone cloudy with soap and filth and the residue of panic. You scrubbed the linen with brutal force, shoulders hunched, jaw locked, lips moving around words that made no sound. The skin of your hands and forearms was reddened raw. Wet hair clung to the nape of your neck. There was something miserable and punishing in the rhythm of your movements, as though you were not washing cloth at all, but trying to flay a memory from existence.

And beside that bowed figure, though no second body stood there, shame seemed to crouch like another presence at the sink.

You felt it at once. Heavy. Familiar. Looking over your own shoulder.

You turned instinctively, trying to wrench your face away from the sight.

His hand slid from your throat to your jaw and held you there.

Not harshly. No, his fingers merely cupped the line of your face with a dreadful steadiness, angling your head back toward the basin the way one might guide a child to look at something instructive.

“Look,” he said softly.

The single word struck deeper than a shouted command.

“See what you do to yourself.”

The scene dissolved before you could resist it further.

The kitchen stretched, blurred, smeared into long streaks of light and dark—as if someone had dragged wet paint across the world with the side of a hand—then snapped back into hideous clarity.

Mrs. Kepler stood before you now.

You saw the old woman’s hands first: swollen-knuckled and eager, snatching the poultice from your grasp with an urgency she’d probably have denied if accused of it. Her fingers curled around the jar as though it contained relief itself and she feared the world might change its mind and take it back. 

For one brief, unguarded second, gratitude softened her face. Not prettily. Not fully. But enough. Enough for you to see the desperation beneath the suspicion. Enough for you to remember that pain humbles pride faster than prayer.

“You carry her weight,” he murmured from behind you then.

His thumb had returned to your throat. It traced small, idle circles there, almost absentmindedly, while his voice did the cutting.

“You ease her pain.”

The image flickered.

Ruth now.

Bent nearly in half with coughing, one hand braced against your table, the other pressed to her chest as if she could hold her lungs together by force. You saw yourself beside her, palm moving in slow, firm strokes along her spine. Not hurried. Not disgusted. Patient. Grounding. The bottle passed between your hands. The tremor in hers. The tiny shift in her face when hope—small, frightened, disbelieving hope—slipped in where fear had been living.

“Her lungs,” he continued. “Her fear.”

The words wrapped around you like velvet lined with knives.

“You take that, too.”

Another flicker.

The baby came next—red-faced and wailing, mouth open in outraged misery, tiny body rigid with helpless discomfort. Then the slow unwinding of him in your arms. His cheek pressed against your collarbone. Your hand cupping the fragile heat of his skull. The young mother staring at you through sleepless, swollen eyes, all gratitude and shame and collapse braided together.

And there, on your own face, a softness you did not permit yourself when no one was looking.

“Their sleepless nights,” he went on, almost thoughtfully. “Their panic. Their grief when the world proves too hard and too sharp and too hungry.” His voice lowered. “You make it yours, don’t you?”

The visions did not stop there.

They began to spin faster, one after another, blurring together until they became an endless procession of human need crossing your threshold.

The young boy from yesterday, trying not to cry while you stitched him.

A woman with yellowing bruises blooming over her ribs like spoiled fruit, your fingers cool and careful as you pressed salve to her skin and chose not to ask the question hanging raw between you both.

An old man shaking with fever, muttering apologies to ghosts only he could see while you wiped the sweat from his brow and changed the cloth again and again and again.

A girl with a palm sliced open on a canning jar.

A child with worms.

A laboring mother screaming into a rag.

A man too proud to say he was afraid until your hand steadied over his and the truth came out anyway.

Faces bled into one another. Hands blurred. Tears. Coughs. Blood. Milk. Sweat. Mud on the porch. Desperation in the eyes. Relief in the shoulders. Suspicion returning once the pain had eased.

A thousand little hurts.

A thousand little salvations.

And somehow, at the center of each one, always—

You.

“You bleed for them,” he whispered.

This time his mouth did touch you.

It was only the lightest brush against the corner of your jaw, the bare ghost of lips against skin, but it sent a violent jolt through your whole body as if something inside you had been struck with a live wire.

“In a thousand little ways,” he continued calmly. “A drop here. A breath there. A sleepless night. A piece of your heart each time one of them comes apart on your doorstep.”

His breath skimmed your cheek.

“They curse you in daylight,” he said softly, almost wonderingly, “and creep to your door at night. They call you wicked when the sun is up and holy when fever takes hold.” The next words came lower, darker. “And still—you open it.”

The scene changed again.

So suddenly your stomach lurched.

Now it was your bed.

Your bedroom.

The sheets were soaked through with crimson. Dark at first in the low light, then brightening where the moon caught them—a red so vivid it seemed wet all over again. The smell hit you before anything else: iron and sweat and the sour, animal smell of pain that had outstripped language. You saw yourself there on the bloody mattress, hair plastered to your temples, face slick with tears, nightgown dragged up, thighs smeared red to the knee.

Your hands were between your legs.

Trying to hold in what would not stay.

Trying to keep some small, terrible thing inside your body through sheer force of denial.

But it had slid through your fingers anyway. Cold. Lifeless. Slick in a way your palms would remember until they rotted from your bones.

Your chest seized so violently it felt as though your ribs might split.

A sound clawed at your throat—a gag, a sob, a scream, all tangled together into one unbearable thing—but his grip at your neck tightened just enough to keep it trapped inside you. It pulsed there, soundless and immense, while he forced you to witness every second of that lonely, blood-drenched night again.

No midwife.

No husband.

No grandma.

No one but the darkness, your own ragged breathing, and the small still body that had never drawn breath at all.

“Your child,” he murmured.

You hated how gentle his voice sounded then. Gentle as a hand smoothing hair back from a fevered brow.

“Your husband.” A pause. “Your grandma.”

Each word landed like dirt on a coffin lid.

“All that grief,” he said, “all that bone and ash and blood you carry tucked away under that pretty skin…” His thumb swept once over your cheek, catching a tear before it fell. “And what do you get in return, hm?”

The vision pulled back.

Further.

Further still.

Until you saw everything at once, all of it layered over itself like panes of cracked glass.

You at the basin, scrubbing until your hands went raw.

You at the bedside, mopping blood and sweat and fever.

You in the dirt over fresh graves.

You on the bed, split open by loss.

You kneeling at your bedside with your fingers laced so tightly together the knuckles blazed white, accidentally praying to a silence that had never once broken for you.

You soothing.

You screaming.

You bleeding.

You enduring.

The scenes overlapped until there was almost no difference between them.

The only constant was you, again—and the hollowed-out look in your own eyes.

“Tell me,” he said, and the sudden bitterness in his voice cut so sharply it startled you, “why is it me you rage against? Why not the town that drowned your foremothers, that cursed their blood and spat on their daughters—only for them to come crawling back the moment sickness started taking their children?”

The question tore through the dream like lightning splitting a tree. For a second, even the visions seemed to still beneath it.

“I watch, and I wonder.” His voice dropped, quieter now, but no less dangerous for it. “I truly do.”

Then his hand left your throat.

The absence of it was immediate and dizzying. You swayed, the sudden loss of that pressure feeling less like freedom and more like being cut loose in deep water. Your lungs dragged in air too fast. Your skin burned where he had been, every pulse point waking to the memory of his touch.

But before you could gather yourself—before you could fully feel the fragile, terrifying shape of that brief release—his fingers returned. They slid upward with exquisite slowness. Along the line of your jaw. Over the damp heat of your cheek. Into your hair.

He was in front of you now—not seen, never fully seen, but known by the shift in the air, the looming nearness of him, the way the darkness itself seemed to bend toward his shape. He cradled your head between both hands as though it weighed nothing. As though it were precious. Breakable. Worth lifting carefully.

His thumbs came to rest on your cheekbones. The gesture was so tender it made revulsion and want rise in the same breath.

“Why,” he asked softly, “do you keep giving what no one gives back?”

He did not ask it like a taunt. He asked it like a man genuinely bewildered by the sight of someone bleeding from the hands and still reaching out to offer comfort. Like a creature who had watched the world take and take and take from you, and could not understand why you had not yet learned to bare your teeth.

Your jaw trembled.

Your tongue was still thick and sluggish, your voice trapped somewhere deep beneath hurt and humiliation and fury—but tears burned behind your sewn-shut eyes all the same. One escaped, slipping hot down the curve of your face.

His thumb caught it. Slowly. Smearing the salt of it across your skin.

You wanted to bite him.

The urge came sharp and feral, flashing through you like an instinct. You wanted to sink your teeth into whatever part of him you could reach—his hand, his wrist, the throat you could not see but could feel somewhere close enough to tear. You wanted to spit in his face, to taste blood and smoke and whatever foul thing animated him, and prove that he could be hurt.

You wanted to wrench your head from his hands, to break whatever invisible tether bound your limbs and run.

Instead, you did nothing.

You stood there, mute and shaking, your body betraying you with every trembling breath. His hands held your face with a dreadful steadiness, thumbs still resting lightly against your cheekbones as he tilted your head slightly.

The gesture was almost curious. Clinical, even. Like a naturalist turning an insect beneath glass to better study the shape of its wings.

“I am not here for them, little witch.”

His voice changed when he said it.

The amused velvet of it dropped lower, tightening into something more focused. More intent. The playful lilt that had threaded his earlier words faded into a darker register—quiet and deliberate, as if he had grown suddenly tired of pretending the rest of the world mattered at all.

“Let the townsfolk worship their dead god,” he continued softly, “and their small miseries.”

His fingers tightened in your hair—not enough to hurt, but enough to make the roots of it prickle against your scalp. The warning in the gesture was unmistakable.

“I am here for you.”

The darkness behind your eyes pulsed.

“I offer you rest.” The words were quieter now. Softer—dangerously so. “An end to this… pious little martyrdom, if you will.”

His thumbs moved slowly along your cheekbones, brushing the dampness of tears you had not realized had fallen.

“You could lay it down,” he continued. “All of it.”

The darkness shifted again. You felt his breath closer now, cool and slow against your skin.

“The guilt,” he murmured. “The grief.”

Each word settled over you like falling ash.

“The ache between your legs and in your bones.”

Your stomach clenched.

“You could even make them pay,” he added with a low chuckle, as though the idea had just occurred to him. “For what they have done to you. To your mother. To your grandma. To the women who bled and burned before you.”

The air seemed to tighten around you. His mouth dipped closer.

“For what they have done to your kind.”

You could feel it now—so near it made your pulse stutter. The faint scrape of something sharp grazing the air beside your jaw.

A fang.

It hovered just shy of your skin. Not piercing. Not biting. Just there.

“All it costs…” He whispered.

The words brushed the space between your lips without quite touching them.

“Is an open door.”

Your heart kicked violently in your chest, stumbling over itself like a frightened animal trying to escape a trap. For a moment you thought you might faint.

Your tongue felt thick and useless in your mouth, but you forced it upward anyway, pressing it hard against the roof of your palate. You dragged breath into your lungs and tried again—tried to break through whatever unseen thing held your voice captive.

A sound came. Small and broken. A ragged scrape that barely deserved the dignity of language.

“N—”

The syllable shredded before it could finish forming.

It caught in your throat, collapsing inward on a sob you had not meant to release. You coughed against it, chest jerking violently as you struggled to force air through lungs that seemed suddenly too tight.

His hands slid downward, cupping your face more firmly. He hummed. Low. Reassuring. Like you were some frightened animal trembling beneath his palm.

“C’mon, baby,” he murmured. The endearment made something inside you recoil even as your body shivered beneath it. 

“Say yes.” His thumbs brushed the corners of your mouth and coaxing you softly, “whisper it, and I’ll do the rest.”

His breath ghosted over your lips again.

“You’ll never have to boil another sheet for shame again.”

The words struck deeper than they should have.

“You’ll never wake up alone in that bed,” he continued, “and be left empty and aching.”

Heat surged low in your belly.

At the same time, cold terror speared through your spine.

Your treacherous body remembered.

It remembered the dream from last night—the slow drag of his fingers across your skin, the careful way he had mapped the curve of your body like territory already claimed. It remembered how close you had come to unraveling in his hands. How your breath had caught. How your hips had moved without permission.

Oh, how easy it would be to fall…

But you gathered yourself. Every last scrap of stubbornness. Every brittle, exhausted piece of will your ancestors had left buried in your bones. You dragged the sound up from your chest like it was something alive that had to be clawed free.

“N—”

Your throat burned. The effort made tears spill harder down your cheeks.

“—no.”

It was barely there. Thin. Weak. And utterly pitiful. But it was yours.

The darkness went very still, and for a long moment nothing moved.

His thumbs stopped their slow stroking against your cheekbones.

The strange phantom heartbeat that seemed to pulse through the walls of the dream faltered—just once—like the entire world had paused to draw a single, collective breath.

And then? Then he laughed. Though not cruelly. No, the sound rolled low and rich through the darkness, warm as smoke filling a glass jar. There was no anger in it. No disappointment. Only indulgence. As though you had just said something charmingly foolish.

“No?” he repeated with a soft huff.

His voice held the kind of fond amusement that made your stomach twist harder than rage ever could have.

“Oh, my sweet, stubborn witch…”

His breath skimmed your cheek again.

“Don’t you realize?”

His hands slid away from your face. The loss of them was immediate.

Cold air rushed against your skin where his palms had been, and your body reacted with a violent, involuntary shiver. You hadn’t realized how much of your balance had depended on his touch until it vanished.

“You’re hiding,” he continued quietly, “from something you cannot stop.”

And then, something touched the corner of your mouth. Light and fleeting.

A kiss. Although, it barely qualified as such.

His lips brushed yours only for the briefest instant—the faintest graze, like the soft punctuation at the end of a sentence that was far from finished.

But the effect on you was catastrophic.

Your whole body ignited at that single point of contact and suddenly ever tether binding you to motionlessness fell from you like heavy chains.

Heat flared through your veins like lightning striking dry timber. Your knees buckled, your breath collapsing into a soundless cry that tore through your chest without ever reaching your throat. Your hands jerked upward at last, instinct taking over where reason had failed.

You reached for him. For his shoulders. His shirt. His hair. Anything.

Your fingers grasped—

Nothing. Empty air. The darkness collapsed around you like a snuffed candle.

But before it vanished completely, his voice slipped through the unraveling dream—soft as velvet, dark as the space between stars.

“You can’t hide from me forever.”

𝐘𝐎𝐔 𝐖𝐎𝐊𝐄 𝐖𝐈𝐓𝐇 𝐘𝐎𝐔𝐑 𝐇𝐀𝐍𝐃 tangled deep in the front of your own skirt.

For a moment you did not understand why your fingers hurt.

Then sensation came rushing back all at once—sharp and unpleasant, like blood returning to a limb that had fallen asleep. Your hand had clenched the fabric so tightly that the knuckles were stiff and pale, the tendons along the back of your wrist standing out like cords. When you tried to loosen your grip, your fingers resisted at first, cramped and trembling from the strain.

Your throat burned.

Not the dry ache of thirst, nor the faint soreness of sleep. No—this was deeper. Raw. As though your voice had been dragged across gravel for hours. As though somewhere in the unseen depths of your sleep you had been screaming until your lungs emptied and your body had forgotten how to stop.

You swallowed. The motion hurt.

Slowly your awareness spread outward.

The room around you sat in a dim, uncertain hush. The lamps you had lit earlier had burned themselves nearly out, leaving only faint, guttering orange embers that glowed weakly in their glass chimneys. The shadows they cast were thin and trembling, barely holding back the night pressing against the walls.

Only one light remained strong.

The black candle on the mantle.

Its flame burned tall and unwavering, steady as a watchful eye. The glow from it stretched across the room in long crooked shapes, dragging the furniture into warped silhouettes against the walls.

Your lips tingled.

The sensation crept into your awareness slowly at first—just a faint prickling, easy enough to ignore if you did not think about it too closely.

But you did think about it.

You couldn’t not.

Very slowly, with fingers that still trembled, you raised your hand and pressed the pads of them against your mouth. Your skin felt normal. There was no heat. No swelling. No trace of pressure. Nothing that should have been left behind by another pair of lips touching yours.

And yet, you knew. You knew with the quiet, dreadful certainty of instinct.

He had kissed you.

Or else you had dreamed it so vividly that your body—treacherous and confused and still humming with the memory of him—could no longer tell the difference between waking and sleep.

The clock in the hallway chimed. The sound startled you.

Once.

The hollow note rolled through the house, soft and distant.

Twice.

The second strike echoed longer, lingering in the rafters.

Three times.

Each chime spread through the quiet like a stone dropped into deep water, the ripples fading slowly into the walls.

It was the middle of the night.

Your chest rose and fell carefully. The house creaked around you in the slow, patient way old wood always did once the evening cooled. The floorboards ticked faintly. Somewhere in the rafters a beam shifted with a dull wooden sigh.

Outside, the forest had come alive.

Crickets rasped endlessly in the grass beyond the porch, their chorus thick and constant. An owl called from deeper within the trees, its low, mournful note stretching across the clearing before dissolving into silence again.

Everything sounded exactly as it should have. Everything looked exactly as it always did.

Nothing out of place. Nothing wrong.

You swung your legs over the side of the chair. The moment your feet touched the floor, your muscles protested violently. They trembled beneath your weight as though you had run miles instead of merely slept in a chair. Your knees wobbled dangerously, threatening to give out beneath you, and you had to catch yourself against the armrest before your balance returned.

For a moment you simply stood there. Breathing and waiting for the room to stop tilting.

Your mama’s Bible lay on the floor beside you.

It must have slipped from your lap when sleep finally dragged you under. The thin pages had fanned open across the boards, their pale edges catching the candlelight so that they looked almost like broken wings spread helplessly on the floor. One verse caught your eye then—the one that had been underlined long ago in your mama’s thin, careful hand:

“Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour: Whom resist steadfast in the faith.”

The sight stirred a faint, guilty discomfort somewhere in your chest. But you did not bend to pick it up. Not yet.

Instead, you walked to the window. The shutters had been left half drawn. Thin slats of moonlight slipped through the narrow gaps between them, laying pale silver bars across the floorboards like the ribs of some ghostly cage.

You leaned forward slowly. Carefully. Your eye pressed to the narrow space between two of the boards.

The backyard lay quiet beneath the moon. The great oak stood exactly where it always had, towering over the small rise of earth where two graves rested beneath its branches. The leaves stirred lazily in the faintest breeze, whispering softly against one another like distant voices exchanging secrets.

The grass moved in gentle ripples. Pale and peaceful.

No tall figure. No pale shirt catching the moonlight. No burning red eyes watching from the dark.

Nothing.

And yet, you could feel him.

Not the way you had felt him in the dream. Not pressed against your back. Not breathing against your ear.

But somewhere. Out there. At the edge of the trees. Or further back. Or perhaps closer than you realized. It was impossible to say.

The sensation reminded you of storms in late summer—the kind that gathered miles away beyond the hills. You could not see the lightning yet. You could not hear the thunder. But the air changed. The pressure shifted. Something in the world leaned ever so slightly in a new direction.

As though something was coming.

A chill crept slowly down your spine.

“You’re not welcome here,” you whispered into the night. Your voice sounded hoarse and thin, scraped raw from whatever struggle your body had fought in sleep.

“You hear me?” you added quietly. “You stay where you belong.”

For a long moment nothing happened.

Then—

Something rustled in the brush near the treeline.

Your breath caught in your throat.

The movement came again. A soft stirring among the leaves.

A shape stepped forward from the shadows.

Your pulse leapt, but the tension broke almost immediately.

A deer.

Slender and dappled in the moonlight, its narrow head lifted toward the house. Its ears twitched as it tested the air, black nose flickering slightly with curiosity.

It watched your window for a moment. Then, apparently satisfied that nothing dangerous lurked there, it lowered its head and returned to grazing. Unbothered and unaware.

You let out the breath you had been holding.

“Jumpin’ at nothin’,” you muttered under your breath, forcing a small, brittle laugh that sounded hollow even to your own ears. Still, your fingers tightened unconsciously on the windowsill until the wood pressed hard against your skin.

Letting him crawl around inside your head like—

The thought finished itself without your permission.

Like he already lived there.

Your stomach twisted. 

You shut the shutters the rest of the way. The iron latch slid into place with a hard, decisive click that sounded louder than it should have in the quiet house.

When you turned back toward the room, the black candle still burned steadily on the mantle. Its flame stood tall and unmoving. A thin ribbon of wax had spilled down one side of the candle, hardened now into a pale trail that resembled a tear.

You stepped closer.

Something about the air around it felt… strange.

Not warm. Not cold. Just thicker somehow. As though the space around the flame had grown heavier than the rest of the room. If you reached out, you half believed your hand might sink through it the way it would through water.

The sigils carved into the candlestick’s base caught the light. They were old marks. Your grandma’s work. Symbols cut with slow, careful hands meant to ward away things that crept through the dark.

Protection. That was what she had called it. Warding.

You stared at the steady flame—a light meant to hold the worst of the night at bay. Your fingers dug into the palms of your hands.

“He’s already inside…”

The words slipped out more bitterly than you intended. Your voice sounded strange to your own ears. Flat and distant.

“What good are you now?”

The candle flame dipped. Just slightly. It was such a small movement that you might have dismissed it as a trick of air. But no window was open. No breeze stirred. And the flame bent anyway. As if answering.

You rubbed your mouth again, harder this time, as though you could erase the lingering memory of that kiss by force alone. But the sensation refused to fade.

Desire had sunk deeper. It curled low in your belly now like a slow-burning coal. It wound itself through your ribs and settled there, heavy and restless. It drifted through the house itself like smoke soaked deep into old wood.

And with a slow, sickening clarity—

You realized it was no longer only yours. It belonged to him, too.

Or perhaps it belonged to whatever had begun forming in the space between you ever since that night. Something fed equally by your fear and his patience. By your loneliness. By the slick between your thighs. By his endless, amused hunger. You felt him inside you. Not physically. But somewhere deeper.

You felt him in the ache behind your temples, in the restless pounding of your heart, in the hollow space beneath your sternum where grief had carved its permanent home.

He slid along your spine. Coiled slowly around your heart like a serpent that had chosen its nest long ago and had no intention of leaving. A parasite you could not scour away with lye and boiling water. One you could not scrub from your skin. One the sun itself might not burn away.

But there were still doors.

And for now—

You could choose which ones remained shut.

( prev. chapter ♱ next chapter )

𝐅𝐄𝐄𝐋 𝐅𝐑𝐄𝐄 𝐓𝐎 𝐒𝐄𝐍𝐃 𝐑𝐄𝐐𝐔𝐄𝐒𝐓𝐒 𝐎𝐑 𝐈𝐃𝐄𝐀𝐒 + don’t forget to like, reblog & comment !!

There was no need for further specifics; the implications were clear enough. Your sister had already been married off to some ageing lord in the Reach. As the late-blooming spare that had been left behind, you were the one he could afford to gamble with. If a Targaryen prince took a liking to you, if he bedded you and left you with child, or better yet, if such a scandal could force a marriage... Well, that would be quite the elevation for your family, wouldn’t it? 

You swallowed down the bitterness rising in your dry throat and focused on the task at hand. The camp was a labyrinth, scarcely lit by struggling torches and braziers that hissed and steamed at the downpour attempting to smother them. Somewhere amongst the mess were the royal tents, and within those prestigious walls of canvas and rope, your father hoped, were some bored and restless princelings ripe for seducing. 

Stomach churning, you kept walking, kept weaving, until your eyes landed on the dripping banners that held the three-headed dragon, red on black, the evening’s new gloom adding to their intimidation. Unwanted, your heart kicked hard against your ribs at the sight. 

The Targaryen tents were noticeably larger than the others, naturally, and arranged in a tight and separate cluster away from the rest of the circus. You slowed your approach, expecting guards, expecting someone to stop you, but either the storm or the drink had driven everyone away. The entrance to the tent nearest to you flapped loose in the breeze, almost like it was beckoning you in. 

You hesitated. This was madness fit for a Targaryen. If it went wrong, far more lives than just your own would be forfeited. 

But your father’s face surfaced in your mind, that look of cold calculation as he all but discarded you. You thought of your mother, who’d said nothing to put a stop to it. 

You stepped forward and slipped inside, before what little courage you had could desert you. 

The warmth hit you first, a wall of it scented with wax and parchment, leather and smoke, something vaguely spicy. The braziers glowed low in the tent corners, and candlelight danced from lanterns hung high, casting everything in a soft haze. 

However, for a royal tent, the interior was not as you expected. 

You had imagined opulence, excess – bejewelled goblets and silks draped over every surface, the ostentatious wealth of dragon kings laid bare while the lowest in their kingdom grew restless and hungry. And there was wealth within, to be sure. The dark wood furnishings were finely carved and polished, the chairs and couches piled high with plush cushions, and the bed was decorated in silks so deep a red they were almost black, and furs thick and lush enough to see even a Dornish man through the coldest winter. But there was a simplicity to it all, an understated quietness to the elegance that surprised you. It felt minimalist, almost practical. 

Except for the desk in the middle of it all. 

Covered in parchments and books, inkwells and quills, and half-burned candles. You drifted towards it unthinking, curiosity overriding caution, your eyes skimming over the scattered pages. Personal letters, by the look of them, written in a precise and delicate hand. You peeled your gaze away, not daring to pry any further than you had already, and lingered on the books instead. 

So many haphazard stacks, most of their spines cracked and covers worn. Histories, mostly, it looked like. Accounts of battles and kings long dead. Then, as if proudly placed atop a blank sheaf of parchment, lay something older, smaller. 

You reached for it, fingers careful as you lofted it close and eased it open. The etched leather cover had been softened with age and use, the pages inside yellowed and fragile as you turned them. A painted wooden bookmark slipped free from within it, clattering softly onto the desk. You froze instinctively, heart racing as you glanced towards the tent entrance, but still there was no one there. 

With slowing breaths, you turned your attention back to the bookmarked page. The handwriting was beautiful but difficult to decipher, the ink faded in places, and there were words – sometimes whole sentences – written in a script you recognised but couldn’t read. Valyrian, you thought. Or something close to it. You squinted at the glyphic text, trying to parse meaning from the shapes, but the fragments written in the Common Tongue had more to say: war, ruling, strength, blood, family. 

It appeared to be a personal accounting of some sort, or perhaps a diary. 

You were so absorbed in its tale that you barely registered the footsteps outside, or the rustle of fabric from behind you. It wasn’t until someone spoke that you realised you were no longer alone. 

“It is a rare thing,” A man’s voice came low and smooth, touched with amusement, “For a whore to read.” 

You spun around dizzyingly fast, clutching the book to your chest as your damp skirts whipped heavy through the air, your heart lodging itself somewhere in your throat. 

He stood just inside the tent entrance, rainwater dripping from the edges of his cloak. With his short dark hair and neatly trimmed beard that was more salt than pepper, he was not the young target you had been aiming for. He was handsome though, at least, with his broad frame held in a way that exuded confidence and power, and mismatched eyes – one pale and one dark – fixed on you with an unexpectedly quiet intensity. 

He seemed curious, almost intrigued, rather than furious at finding an intruder in his tent.

You swallowed around the lump in your throat and begged your voice to remain steady, “How fortunate, then, that I am not a whore.” 

His lips twitched upward, just for a second, “Then what are you?” 

You hesitated, weighing your options, deciding on something at least close to honesty, “A nameday present.” 

That earned you a raised brow, his features sharpening with amusement as he stepped closer.  

“I’m afraid it is not my nameday,” He admitted, his tone still light, entirely ignorant of how hard your stomach dropped. 

“Ah,” You nodded slowly, forcing a smile in an effort to salvage something from the mess being created, “It would appear I’m in the wrong tent – forgive me, my lord.” 

You moved to walk past him, to flee before someone called for your head, but he shifted into your path, halting you. Not aggressively, not threateningly – just enough to make it clear he wasn’t ready for you to make yourself scarce just yet. 

He shot you a crooked smile, “Not so fast.” 

Your pulse raced faster than you thought possible. This was it. He was going to call the guards, have you dragged through the mud, whipped bloody. You opened your mouth to apologise, to beg, but he moved closer before you could, entering your space seemingly with little thought for propriety. 

Tilting his head, he considered you for a beat before his hands found your damp shoulders, your arms, your waist, patting you down with a thoroughness that felt unnecessarily precise. 

“I’m unarmed,” You hurried out when he came to rest at your thighs, fingers lingering long enough for a heat to crawl up your neck. 

“One can never be too careful,” He mused, apparently satisfied at your lack of threat, and backing up just enough that you could breathe again without inhaling the scent of him – the spice and leather made sense now. His voice dipped lower, the gravel in it lending it some bite, “You claim you’re no whore, yet you sneak your way into a man’s tent when he is unawares.” 

Air hitched hard and fearful in your throat, but when you met his gaze again, there was still no sign of the anger you were expecting. He was teasing you, and something bold and wild within you coaxed you into obliging, “I wouldn’t call it sneaking.” 

“No?” He chuckled, finally looking away from you just long enough to palm away the droplets that clung to his features, “What would you call it?” 

You paused, but couldn’t think of a clever answer quick enough. 

Still enjoying himself, he pressed you again, “Who are you?” 

“My father is brother to Lord Piper of Pinkmaiden,” You nodded, mostly to yourself, feeling neither happy nor particularly prideful at admitting to such a lowly status. 

“You’re a long way from home,” He pointed out after a moment’s consideration, his expression growing briefly distant as he no doubt tried to recall all the branches of your family tree. Either oblivious to or deliberately ignoring your obvious distaste, he continued, “And what business does a lady of the Riverlands have in a stranger’s tent?” 

“I believe my father’s instructions were to entertain the handsome, young princelings in the black and red tent,” You blushed, voice holding surprisingly steady as you took him in again, “But you are no princeling.” 

He huffed out a sharp, breathy laugh, his eyes twinkling, “Is that so?” 

There was something familiar about those eyes, you were beginning to realise, something stirring at the back of your mind, “Your eyes—” 

“Tell me,” He interrupted quickly, flicking his gaze away from you, “Had you found who you were looking for tonight – or, rather, who your father had you looking for – then what? Why would he send his most precious prize into the dragon’s lair?” 

His hissed precious prize almost made you wince, the words landing heavier than they should have. Keeping your tone light, you tried to brush it off, “The same reason as any other lord, I suspect – to foster alliances, though I do believe he would also settle for a scandalous and hastily arranged marriage.” 

“Quite the reacher, isn’t he?” His expression shifted, something darker flickering across his face for the first time since you’d met him. There was a pointed judgment there, weighing heavy, not directed at you but rather in alignment with you. At least, that’s what you hoped. 

“Second son,” You announced dryly, “Lots to prove.” 

Your attempt at nonchalance did its job of pulling him from whatever displeasing place his thoughts had carried him to, and he huffed out another quiet laugh, “Well, I’m terribly sorry to have to disappoint him, but I’m afraid you won’t be getting married tonight.” 

“That’s a shame,” You blinked slow, unable to keep from smiling when he took half a step closer. 

For a moment, neither of you had anything more to say. The rain continued to hammer against the canvas overhead, the wind picking up outside and whistling through the treeline, but inside the tent it remained warm and almost stiflingly close, the air thick with something you didn’t dare name. He was still watching you, his mismatched hues still curious and heavy, pinning you in place, exposing you in a way that had little to do with the thin, damp fabric of your dress. 

Just as he opened his mouth, as if to speak again, fate interrupted: 

“Your Grace?” 

The male voice came from outside the tent, muffled by the storm but clear enough to rip right through the moment. The man before you shifted noticeably, the amusement draining from his expression, replaced by something that almost looked like regret. 

He sighed, his shoulders sagging as he reached for the clasp at his throat, shrugging his cloak off, and that’s when you saw it. 

The pin. 

Heavy, ornate, wrought in the shape of a hand. 

The Hand of the King. 

Not for the first time tonight, your stomach dropped, the world tilting threateningly in your vision. You looked up, met those mismatched eyes, and the pieces snapped into place with a violent clarity. 

Baelor Targaryen – Prince Baelor Targaryen. The heir to the Iron Throne. 

And you had just spent the last ten minutes flirting with him. 

He saw the realisation hit, watched the blood drain from your features, and you could’ve sworn his expression softened for a heartbeat, before the mask slipped itself on. He pitched his chin towards the entrance of the tent, tone far firmer than it had been, “Come.” 

A man ducked between the tent flaps. A Kingsguard, by the look of him – white cloak, polished grey-white armour, his short dirty blonde hair darkened by rain. He glanced at you briefly, his eyes widening with alarm before snapping to the prince. 

“Forgive me, Your Grace,” The knight said quickly, “I did not realise you had company.” 

“Worry not, Ser Donnel,” Prince Baelor half-heartedly waved him off, moving to hang his cloak on a hook stand nearby, “I presume you have news of my sons and their cousins?” 

The knight nodded, shifting awkwardly on his feet, “Yes, they’ve taken shelter at an inn on the outskirts of the Kingswood, and hope to be with you on the morrow.” 

“Very well,” The prince winced, breathing out his disappointment. He paused in afterthought, head tilting with consideration as the knight bowed, making to leave again, “Ser Donnel?” 

Ser Donnel froze, straightening, “Yes, Your Grace?” 

“The lady is my esteemed guest. To speak ill of her – to anyone – is to speak ill of me, do you understand?” 

There was a lengthy beat of tense silence, before Ser Donnel nodded again, keeping his expression carefully neutral as he regarded the two of you, “Yes, of course, Your Grace... My lady.” 

And with that, he was gone, slipping back out into the storm. 

You stared at the empty entrance, your mind racing. This was a disaster. An absolute, horrifying disaster. Your father had sent you to seduce a princeling, some untried boy that you could mayhaps wrap around your finger. Not the heir to the Iron Throne. Not the man who would think nothing of having you executed for your treasonous indiscretions. 

“I should go,” The words tumbled out of you, your voice strangled. You moved towards the entrance, desperate to put as much distance between yourself and this catastrophe as possible, “Pardon my intrusion, Your Grace.” 

“Wait,” His hand caught your wrist, gentle but firm. He stepped in front of you, blocking your path once more, and when you looked up, you found him smiling – that same crooked, teasing grin, “You came here seeking a prince, did you not? Though, granted, I am neither young nor handsome.” 

You blinked hard, conflicting emotions rising within you, “At least you must certainly have been entertained, watching me make a fool of myself.” 

“I do not think you a fool,” He admitted quietly, his expression sobering. He released your wrist, but remained in your space, eyes flitting around your face as if he were trying to read your very thoughts, “Brave, yes. Intriguing, definitely. But no fool,” He hesitated, the hand that had held onto you twitching at his side, “And I apologise for making you feel like one. It’s not very often I get to be alone with someone who has no idea who I am.” 

The sincerity in his voice caught you off guard, and for a moment, you were at a loss for what to say, what to do. This was so far off course from what you had planned. You had to leave. 

“It is I who must apologise, Your Grace, for taking up so much of your time. I’ll not disturb you further,” Something brave – or something mad – sparked within you, and you dared to step around him, dared to call his bluff. 

“I could order you to stay,” He said, a hint of that earlier amusement creeping back into his tone as his eyes followed you, “If you’re going to continue to suddenly be so deferential.” 

You scoffed without fully meaning to, which only seemed to make him light up more, “I would have thought the Hand of the King had more important things to do with his time.” 

“You think my sons and nephews would be more entertaining, is that it?” He leaned in slightly, his voice sharp but jestful, “Perhaps easier to manipulate? Forgive my forwardness, my lady, but you do not strike me as someone afraid of a challenge.” 

Your breath caught. Had you really been so easy to read? And yet, he was still teasing you – no, challenging you. Open, unoffended... Eager. And despite everything – despite the fact that this was probably one of the most dangerous men in the Seven Kingdoms – you felt something warm spark in your chest. Something reckless. 

“No,” You breathed, meeting his gaze, “No, I’m not.” 

His smile widened, “Good.” 

He moved away then, at last, crossing to a sideboard laden with bottles and goblets and glasses in varying colours and shapes, and you watched as he poured two glasses of wine. Dark red, almost black in the dim candlelight. When he turned back, he held one out to you, and after a moment’s hesitation, you took it. 

“To unexpected company,” He toasted, raising his glass. 

A smirk tugged at your mouth as you clinked your glass against his, “To wrong tents.” 

What sounded like a genuine laugh bubbled out of him, a startling sound that you suspected few got to hear. It settled gentle between you, like a secret shared, unburdened. 

After a long first sip, he gestured towards the seating area near a brazier, and you followed, about to sink into the plush couch when the weight of your cloak pulled hard at your shoulders, the damp wool heavy and cold. Before you could move to adjust it, Baelor was there, his fingers deft as they worked the clasp at your throat. 

The cloak eased away, and he lifted it carefully, his gaze lingering on you for a beat longer than necessary. You felt exposed under that look, acutely aware of the way your dress clung to you, still damp and thin from the rain. 

“Better?” He asked as you sat down, moving to hang your cloak up beside his own. 

You nodded silently, not trusting your voice as he came to sit next to you, immediately angling himself towards you, as though having his attention anywhere else was not an option. 

For several minutes, the two of you simply sat there, drinking and listening as the storm raged on outside. And then you remembered – the book. You were still holding it, clutching it tight within your fingers like a lifeline. 

“You were reading,” Baelor smirked, following your gaze, “Before I disturbed you.” 

“I...” You stared down at the worn leather cover with its scale-like etchings, suddenly embarrassed, “I didn’t mean to pry. I just—” 

“It’s alright,” A wave of his hand cut you off, “I’m curious, actually. What caught your attention?” 

You opened the book carefully to where you vaguely recalled the forgotten bookmark had lain, and held it out for him to see, “The handwriting is beautiful, but I couldn’t read most of it. Some of it is in Valyrian, I think?” 

“Very good,” He nodded, his expression shifting to something almost wistful, “My great, great grandmother’s diary. She wrote in the Common Tongue, mostly, but certain things – private things – she recorded in High Valyrian.” 

“Private things,” You repeated, intrigued, “Like what?” 

He leaned in, a conspiratorial smile pulling at his features that had your breath catching, “Things not meant for prying eyes.” 

Scoffing, you shook your head, hoping to distract from the heat spreading across your cheeks. But you were still curious, and so the next words to tumble out of your mouth were poorly planned, and utterly ridiculous: “Could you read some of it to me?” 

Baelor’s brow raised, looking entirely too pleased with himself while you floundered. You were sitting in a tent with the heir to the Iron Throne, asking him to read to you like you were some lovesick girl. 

If he picked up on the absurdity of the request, he was gracious enough to not needle at it, “I’m a tad rusty... And I shouldn’t really be so readily revealing family secrets.” 

“I wouldn’t be able to understand you anyway,” You pointed out quickly, “I just want to know what it sounds like.” 

He studied you for a long moment, his mismatched gaze unreadable as he scooted closer, your pulse spiking when his fingers grazed yours as he slid the book from your grasp. He flipped through the diary with the same delicate touch you had used, before settling on a page, his eyes scanning the text. And then he began to read, aloud, to you. 

The Valyrian flowed from him like warm honey, smooth and confident, each word rolling off his tongue with a practiced ease that belied his claim of being rusty. As expected, you didn’t understand a word of it, but gods, it was beautiful. The cadence of it almost hypnotic, the way his voice dipped and rose, the slight rasp that edged certain syllables... It stirred something low inside you, something that felt dangerously addictive. 

You found yourself leaning closer, drawn in in the face of all propriety, and when he glanced at you, there was something dark and knowing in his look. 

He read for several minutes, several pages, his voice never faltering, and you sat there, entirely transfixed, until he finally stopped, closing the book with a soft thud. 

Smirking, his attention returned to you, “I did not think you would be so easily pleased.” 

“Neither did I,” You admitted sheepishly, swallowing down another sip as your mouth suddenly went intolerably dry. 

With his hummed chuckle, the air between you shifted, thickened, and you became painfully aware of how close he was. Close enough that you could see the flecks of contrasting colours in his irises, the little scar to his brow. Close enough to feel the heat radiating from him. 

“Could you read some more?” You tucked your chin down, voice barely above a whisper. 

“More?” He cocked a brow at you, setting the book aside and leaning back just a hair, his gaze sweeping over you in a way that felt deliberate, assessing, “You didn’t come here tonight just to have a prince read to you.” 

He didn’t wait for you to respond. Standing, he plucked your near-empty wine glass from your fingers and moved to refill it, except that he didn’t immediately sit again when he returned, looking down at you with that same infuriating smile, “Let’s make this interesting – a quid pro quo, if you like. You answer my questions, and I’ll read to you some more.” 

Pretending to weigh up the offer, you took a long sip of your new wine, this one hitting quicker and harder than the last, “Very well.” 

“Good answer,” Baelor took a sip of his own wine, before rejoining you on the couch and cutting straight to the chase, “How old are you?” 

You bristled, taken aback, “How unexpectedly impolite of a prince... I’m old enough.” 

Your chiding bought you another laugh. He settled back into the cushions beside you, his features softening, “How confounding, that no man has claimed you as his wife yet.” 

“The second daughter of the second son of a vassal house is hardly a prize,” You mused flatly, swirling the wine around in its glass. 

“I disagree,” There was something in his tone that had your eyes snapping up to his, and for a moment, you forgot how to breathe. 

The words hung between you, and the way he was looking at you – steady, sincere, without a trace of highborn mockery – made your chest tighten in a way you hadn’t expected. 

You took another sip of wine, intending to steady yourself, but the warmth of it spread through your limbs, loosening the last of your caution. The conversation began to flow easier after that, though you noticed the balance had shifted. Where before he had been the one asking questions, poking and prodding, drawing answers from you with that infuriating precision, now you found yourself inadvertently turning the tables. 

It started innocently enough – a question about his sons, about the hunt tomorrow. But his answers came clipped, deflecting, almost solemn. His gaze would drift, and between scattered sips of wine, his fingers would move almost absently around themselves, pulling your attention. 

The rings. 

Two of them, one for each hand. He twisted and twirled them as he spoke, in a restless motion that seemed entirely unconscious, making their jewels catch in the candlelight. It was subtle enough, easy to miss if you hadn’t been watching him so closely, but once you did notice it, you couldn’t stop. 

He did it again as he deflected another question about his duties as Hand, and again when talk shifted to his eventual role as king. 

“I’m sure my sons would have made far better company,” He pondered lightly in a quiet moment, but you caught the edge beneath the words, the self-deprecating smile that he tried to mould into something else, “Younger, certainly. Easier on the eyes... More entertaining for a lady.” 

“You’ve said that twice now,” You pointed out, emboldened by the drink and the easy intimacy of your surroundings, “About not being young or handsome or entertaining enough.” 

He blinked, his fingers stilling for a fraction of a second, before resuming their spinning, “Have I?” 

“You have,” You set your glass down with a sigh, angling yourself towards him more fully. The couch had seemed large enough when you’d first sat down, but somehow the space between you had diminished without either of you realising or acknowledging it. You continued to prod, “Why? Why would a prince of the realm be so unkind to himself?” 

He huffed out a quiet, empty laugh, “Perhaps because it’s true.” 

“Is it?” The question poured out alarmingly quickly, earning you an unexpectedly sharp look. 

For a moment, you thought he might shut you down entirely, retreat behind that princely mask. But then his shoulders sagged, and he leaned harder into the cushions, his weary eyes drifting towards the crackling brazier as his fingers spun endlessly on. 

“In my position, everyone expects you to be a certain way – ready, perfect... Better than you are, better than what came before,” His voice came quieter, more contemplative, “With all those roles and titles, rules and expectations, how can a man even tell who he truly is?” 

Though his gaze seemed weighted and lost in the simmering flames, the rings spun faster, in a nervous and agitated tempo, and before you could reckon with the movement, you reached out and placed your hand over his, finding the metal bands cool under your skin in spite of all his fiddling. 

He went very still, his eyes dropping to where the two of you were joined. 

“You don’t have to do that,” You pushed softly, your thumb tracing his knuckles. 

The tent felt impossibly quiet all of a sudden, with even the storm outside fading into a distant murmur. You could feel the rough warmth of his skin beneath yours, the faint tremor in his fingers as they were finally forced into stillness. 

“Force of habit,” He mumbled, voice rough as he cleared his throat. 

You smiled, “I noticed.” 

“You’ve been watching me,” It wasn’t a question. There was something raw and unguarded in his expression that made your breath catch, and his hand shifted beneath yours, turning to curl around your own, “Why?” 

You should have pulled away – decency and deference practically compelled it. You should have laughed it off, deflected the way he had been doing for much of the evening. But the wine had loosened your cares, made you reckless, and the way he was looking at you – like you were something unexpected, precious – made it impossible to lie. 

“Because watching you is easy.” 

His features shifted with a flicker of something deeper. His thumb brushed over your wrist, a slow and deliberate graze that sent heat crawling up the veins in your arm, and suddenly the inside of the tent felt a little too quiet, too close. 

“You didn’t come here tonight looking for me,” He sighed with almost bitter resignation, “You came looking for some impudent, impatient princeling you could wrap around your finger.” 

You nodded in quiet agreement, and let the moment have its way with you, “I did... But I’m glad I found you instead.” 

The words landed between you like a spark to kindling. 

For a stuttering heartbeat, neither of you moved, even to breathe. And then, slowly, carefully, he released your hand to reach up, his fingers brushing along your jaw before tucking a loose strand of hair behind your ear. The touch was feather-light, as if you were the most fragile thing in the world; it made your heart race all the same. 

He leaned in. 

Close enough that you could feel the warmth of his breath against your lips, close enough that you could see the way his pupils had blown wide, almost swallowing up the mismatched hues of his irises. Close enough that if you tilted your head up, just a fraction... 

He stopped, and you could feel the tension radiating off him – want warring with restraint. His eyes closed tight, his jaw clenching with indecision, and you thought for a second that he might let it happen, he might kiss you anyway. But then, agonisingly slowly, he retreated from you. 

The loss of him felt like a physical ache, settling unnervingly cold even with all the wine and candlelight. 

He wasn’t looking at you anymore, his attention returning to his rings with their twinkling little rubies. There were no more clever words to share, either spoken or implied. The game was over. 

The shift was painful enough to sober you up. With a quiet sigh, you stood, smoothing down your skirts with uncertain hands, and moved to return your wine glass to the table he had plucked it from earlier, the floor feeling unsteady as you walked. 

“I should go,” You murmured down at all the pretty bottles and glasses in front of you, almost glad to have him out of your line of sight, unable to distract you further, “I’ve taken up enough of your time.” 

The silence that followed lingered thick and heavy, oppressive, broken only by the gentle patter of rain and the crackles of the braziers. It seemed he really was going to let you leave this time, let this strange and unthinkable night finally come to an end, with nothing to show for it but almosts and what-ifs. 

But then you heard him move. 

Footsteps behind you, slow and certain, crossing the space between you. You felt him then – the heat of him at your back, that familiar warmth that rolled off him in waves. Your breath caught, your fingers curling around the table edge. 

When he spoke, his voice came low and rough, dancing through you like lightning, “Are you quite sure this is what you want?” 

You closed your eyes, your heart hammering in your chest. Still, your answer came out steadier than expected, “Yes.” 

“You understand what it would mean?” He pressed, stepping close enough that you could feel his even breaths curl down your spine, “What the consequences may be?” 

Something coiled ever tighter inside you. You understood well enough. The risks of it all. Of being caught. Of being left with a bastard child. The scandal, the ruin it could bring down on you, and you alone. He was the heir to the Iron Throne, not some boy-prince; there would be no hasty marriage to save your honour, no easy solution if this went wrong. 

And still, you couldn’t make yourself walk away. You repeated yourself, firmer this time, resolved, “Yes.” 

For a worryingly long beat, he didn’t move, didn’t speak, and you wondered if he was trying to convince himself as much as you had. But then his hand came up, gentle and tentative as it slipped around your waist. Slowly, he closed the gap between you until you felt his solid frame at your back. There was a patience to his movements, as if he were still giving you the chance to pull away, to change your mind. 

He breathed in the scent of you, his lips pressing a soft, grazing kiss behind your ear that sent a bolt right through you. He took his time, making peace with this decision just as you had – with giving in, with letting himself want you. Another kiss, lower this time, trailed its way down to where your neck met your shoulder, and you couldn’t stop the quiet sound that escaped you, couldn’t help but melt into his tightening grip around you. 

You tilted your head without thinking, giving him better access, and you felt the low rumble of approval in his chest, buzzing through you. He continued his torturous exploration of your neck, every kiss, every graze feeling like a question – Are you sure? Is this what you want? – and every time you leaned back against him, every soft sound you made, was your answer. 

His other hand wrapped around you, deftly working with the other to undo the strings at the front of your dress. Having long since dried in the warmth of the tent, it needed little encouragement to fall, pooling clumsily at your feet. The chemise it left behind was thinner, more exposing, and Baelor was all too content to show the new skin available to him the same eager affections. 

When you finally turned in his arms, unable to bear the ache of not being able to taste him back, you found his eyes already on you – dark with want, but still edged with the thinnest thread of restraint. 

You leaned up, closed the few inches left between you with a kiss that was more curious than insistent, fragile and hesitant. The berry wine you had shared seemed to taste so much better on his lips, and soon enough you were chasing it, hungry for more. You reached for him, fingers working at the fastenings of his doublet with a desperation that made them clumsy. But then your fingers found something else, brushing against a cold metal that made you freeze. 

That damned pin, again. 

The Hand of the King. Heir to the Iron Throne. 

You thought you had made peace with it, but seeing that pin glinting grimly in the low light made the reality of it crash over you all over again – who he was, who you weren’t, the impossibility of it all. You were the lowest rung of the highborn ladder, what were you thinking? Your hands stilled, doubt creeping in like ice water through your buzzing veins. 

He noticed immediately, of course. 

His hand came up to cup your chin, tilting your face up until you had no choice but to meet his gaze again. His thumb breezed a trail across your cheek, as tender and grounding as the words he spoke, “Deference has no place between us now. Not in this place, not tonight.” 

You swallowed hard, searching his face and finding so much sincerity. 

“Tonight,” He continued, “I am your lover, not your prince.” 

The corner of your mouth twitched despite yourself, and he smiled – small, at first, but so heart-warmingly real. His thumb traced your lower lip, and then he was kissing you again, the weight of titles and consequences melting away until there was only you and him, only this. 

Together, you worked the pin free, and it fell with an achingly heavy clatter onto the table behind you – the Hand of the King, both the title and the man, discarded, forgotten. 

He kissed you harder then, as if realising himself just how unburdened he was, his hands fisting in the fabric of your chemise. Pushing flush against you even as you wrestled his doublet off, you gasped into his mouth at the feeling of his arousal pressing firm through the layers between you. 

The table dug into the back of your hips, and you thought for a moment that he might take you right there and then, as eager and hungry as his touches betrayed, but his movements slowed to a stop with visibly painful effort, chest heaving beneath his shirt as his forehead came to rest against yours. 

He pulled back just enough to look at you, his eyes twinkling as they searched your face. An unspoken question hovered on the air while his hands travelled upward, to the thin straps that clung loosely to your shoulders. Teeth sinking into your bottom lip, you nodded, and he eased your chemise off, the featherlight fabric tickling you as it went and joined the rest of your skirts beneath you. 

He sucked in a sharp breath, his jaw clenching briefly with barely held restraint, as his hand travelled lazily down all that was new to him. Stood bare, the air felt cooler, nipping at you in spite of his dark and heated gaze. 

Then, suddenly, he was lifting you, strong arms sliding beneath your thighs with disarming ease, and you wrapped your legs around his waist on instinct, your shoes clattering uselessly to the floor. The movement had you pressed together even more firmly, in all the right places, the friction of his pants dragging a gasp from you. 

He carried you towards the bed, kissing you the entire way – deep, hungry, breathtaking kisses that left you dizzy. When he lowered you onto the silk sheets, the cool softness was a shock against your overheated skin, but you could barely register it before he was there, covering you with his body, the weight of him pressing you into the mattress in a way that felt both too much and not enough at the same time. It was enough to make you squirm though, desperate for purchase wherever you could find it. 

Your fingers raked eagerly down his shirt, twisted into the strings of his pants, praying for something – anything – to give, to grant you as much access to him as he had to you. Your efforts earned you a teasing smile that you felt rather than saw, as it pressed tight to your jaw. 

“Patience, my love,” He chided, his scruff grazing skin that was shamefully sensitive. 

His kisses travelled to your neck, then lower – your collarbone, the swell of your breast – each touch as reverent as the last, and maddeningly slow. Your hands found his hair, threading through dark strands not long enough to cling to, as hard as you damn tried, and when his mouth closed around your nipple, your limbs failed you entirely, and you arched beneath him with a sound unbecoming of a lady. 

He took his time lavishing attention on you, his mouth and hands working in cruel tandem until you were writhing beneath him, pleading for more. Only then did he move down your body, pressing kisses to your ribs, your stomach, your hip. Hooking your knees lazily over his broad shoulders, he eventually settled himself between your thighs. 

His thumb parted the folds of your cunt with deliberate slowness, the rough pad of it gliding through your slickness with ease, teasing at your clit and pulling a cry from you. You felt his low chuckle, the indulgent little sound vibrating through every nerve ending in your body. Then, without warning, his mouth replaced his thumb. 

The first swipe of his tongue would’ve been more than enough, your thighs clamping reflexively around him as pressure and pleasure coiled tight in your belly. But he kept going, kept lapping in deep strokes, sucking hard and savouring the taste, pushing you right to the edge before retreating, and renewing his efforts when you would finally slump, dragging you right back to that delicious brink. 

The babbled plea tore from your throat before you could stop it – a ragged, worthless cry that was half his name, half something more primal. His fingers dug possessively into your hips, and this time he didn’t relent, your hands twisting up the silken sheets as the pressure built again. Then, finally, he let you fall. 

You lay boneless against the sheets, your chest heaving, your entire body humming with aftershocks. Through half-lidded eyes, you watched him pull away, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand in a gesture that was somehow both obscene and oddly humanising. An indulgent smirk played at his lips as he dragged himself upright. 

He rid himself of his pants and shoes with agonisingly unhurried movements, still teasing after thoroughly undoing you. His shirt rode up as he did, catching on his thick cock as it sprang free at last, and you couldn’t help the way your breath hitched.  

He crawled back up the bed towards you, his features softening as he reclaimed your mouth, the kiss gentler now, reverent, savouring. With it came that sharp tang of wine again, now mingled with the dizzying musk of your own pleasure. 

Still trembling, your hands found their way beneath the one piece of fabric still separating you with shameless urgency, desperate to feel skin against skin, to feel all of him, and he obliged in helping you work it off, tossing it aside without care. 

There was a pause then, a shared breath held, as you let your fingers explore the newly exposed planes of his chest, tracing the scars, the lines of muscle firm beneath your touch. He watched you, seemingly as mesmerised with you as you were with him, until your hand drifted lower, when he caught it gently, bringing it to his lips before letting you settle. 

His cock teased at your entrance, a pressure unfulfilled as his eyes searched yours, a vulnerability there despite all that had already passed between you. He spoke at last, voice barely more than a rasp, “Are you sure?” 

“Yes,” You whispered back, emphatic and certain as you pulled him in for a kiss that said more than you could coherently verbalise, the few words you could scramble together muffled by the moment, “Gods yes, Baelor, please.” 

There was no teasing with his slowness this time. Careful and considerate, he sheathed himself inside you, swallowing your whimper with another kiss as you adjusted to the stretch. Each deliberate drag of his hips felt deeper than the last, fuller. You clutched at his shoulders, nails biting into flesh that felt hot enough to burn. There was a gasp in your ear, the gentlest nibble at your neck. 

Then, once you’d stopped wincing, when one sort of tension in your body rapidly began being replaced with another, more pleasurable sort, he hitched your legs up high around his hips, shifting the angle, and your world all but fractured. A choked moan broke free from your throat as he hit a spot deep within you, one that sent lightning arcing up your spine. His breath stuttering, Baelor’s mismatched hues darkened at the sight of you unravelling beneath him. 

“There?” He questioned, voice rough and heavy, and you could only nod frantically, your hips canting up eagerly to meet his next thrust. 

The pace that followed was merciless. Gone was the restraint, the careful control, and what remained was something raw and tetherless, each snap of his hips into yours wringing desperate sounds from you. Every brush of his skin against yours, every ragged breath into your neck, every peppered kiss, made your body sing. 

You weren’t alone in your undoing, at least – every gasp of his name that fell from your lips, every broken plea and prayer, had his rhythm faltering. 

There was the tickle of whispers in your ear, silken Valyrian words rolling off his tongue and straight down to your coiling core. His free hand slid up your ribs, his palm rough against the soft swell of your breast, his thumb circling your bud with agonising leisure. 

You were teetering again, and he knew it. And he was too, if his breathless grunts were anything to go by. 

The hungry graze of teeth at your neck sent a fire licking low, just as he buried himself to the hilt in you. Your back arched hard as you clung to him, a cry tearing out of you as your orgasm shattered through you in blurry waves, each one making you tremble through the last of his matching thrusts.  

An equally feral sound spilled from him as he followed you over the edge, his movements stuttering as his head lolled against your shoulder with a shuddering exhale. You felt him pulse inside you, the heat of his release flowing deep and warm.  

You breathed there together for a long moment, uneven and rabid, the high continuing to vibrate on beneath damp, sensitive flesh. With your fingers raking lazily down his spine, he shivered, almost buckling under his own weight, and you wouldn’t have even minded if he had. But instead, with a drawn out sigh, he shifted, his length withdrawing from you with a wet tickle that made you clench all over again. The absence was immediate and hollowing, cool air rushing to fill the space he’d left behind, and you bit your lip against a whimper, fighting the urge to chase him. He collapsed beside you into the gentle sheets, frame shaking and heavy, burying his satiated moan into the pillow. 

His hand found your abdomen almost immediately as he settled, fingers dancing idle patterns against your skin. You lay still beneath the gentle movement, watching the candles flicker and burn low in their lanterns overhead, momentarily too spent and wine-soft to do anything else. 

You could feel him watching you. 

When you finally turned your head, you found him propped up on an elbow, looking at you with an expression so unguarded it almost hurt to witness. Like you had given him something he hadn’t known he was missing. Like you had given him the world, and he was still trying to work out just how to hold onto it. 

“Thank you,” He said quietly, voice raw. 

You blinked, certain you had misheard him, “For what?” 

The corner of his mouth curved up, soft and a little shy, “For indulging me.” 

A disbelieving scoff escaped you before you could think better of it. You turned onto your side to face him, “I think you’ll find it is very much I who has been indulged.” 

At that, his features softened – with relief or perhaps pure and simple pleasure, you couldn’t tell. His fingers, which had followed your movement without breaking their lazy rhythm, now traced the line of your waist instead. He leaned in to press a kiss to your shoulder, and said nothing more, seemingly content to let the point rest between you, shared and understood. 

The candles burned lower, dimmer. Outside, the rain had gentled to a murmured pitter patter. Your eyes grew heavy and you felt yourself slipping, lulled by your surrounds, by the evening’s events, by him. 

“Would your father expect you back tonight?” He asked eventually, quiet and careful enough to keep you from startling. 

It was the content of the question itself that gave you cause to stir, pulling an empty, bitter laugh from you, “I doubt it. By now he’ll be so deep in his cups he’s likely forgotten he brought me at all.” 

Baelor hummed, a low and half-appreciative rumble. He had nothing to say in response, nothing was needed, his silence alone somehow felt more like solidarity than any words might have. He shifted, drawing up the nest of folded furs from the bottom of the bed to wrap around the both of you. 

“Good,” The earlier amusement returned to his face as he looked down at you with a wicked grin, “I would indulge myself a little more tonight, if you would allow it.” 

You smiled, not needing to be asked twice. 

The hours that followed were unlike anything you had words for, in the Common Tongue at least. 

They passed in layers – in the low burn of rekindled desire beneath the furs, his hands and kisses finding you over and over again with the same unhurried dedication as before; in the hushed and breathless intervals in between, when you lay spent and tangled together and talked of small things, inconsequential things, the kinds of things that felt enormous in the dark and the quiet. He made you laugh twice, genuinely, and both times he looked at you afterwards like the sound had done something to him. 

Just before the candles burned down to their last, clinging wicks, he retrieved the diary again. 

Tucked into the curve of his neck, his arm wound loosely around you, you felt the vibration of his voice. The Valyrian came softer this time, slower, something that felt more private. Poetry, you thought, from the rhythm of it. Something old and lyrical and achingly beautiful. 

You still didn’t understand a word of it. You didn’t need to. 

His thumb moved in slow circles against your arm, and his voice continued low and steady, and the pulsing ember-red coals of the distant brazier glowed soft in the corner of your half-closed vision. 

You were asleep before he reached the end of the page. 

It was the press of a kiss to your temple, soft and lingering, and the curl of fingers through your hair that finally roused you, and for a moment you couldn’t place where you were. The silk sheets, the fading warmth, the faint scent of smoke and leather and something distinctly him – it all came rushing back in a wave that coiled hot inside you, reviving the ache between your legs. 

When you opened your eyes, Baelor was there beside the bed, fully dressed, doublet fastened and the cold Hand’s pin restored to its rightful place below his collar. He was crouched at your side, his free hand just a hair’s breadth from touching your own as he watched you with an expression that was equal parts tender and reluctant. 

“Good morning,” He hummed, his voice a little more gravelly than when you’d first met him. 

You blinked at him, still sleep-soft and disoriented, acutely aware of the cold air nipping at your bare shoulders above the sheets, of your hair that was surely a disaster, of the fact that he looked every inch the prince while you looked like... Well, like you’d spent the night doing exactly what you had been doing. 

“Morning,” You managed, somehow sounding even rougher than him. 

His mouth quirked, almost apologetic, “My sons and nephews will be arriving within the hour. I’m expected to greet them.” 

Reality settled over you like cold water. Of course. The hunt. Prince Valarr’s nameday. The world beyond the tent flaps, which had felt so distant last night, was closing back in, tightening its grip on your fantasy. 

You moved to get up, when he stopped you with a gentle hand. 

“There’s no need to rush,” He said with a shake of his head, tipping his chin towards a nearby table that lay full of food – bread, cheeses, fruit – simple bounties, but more than you’d expected for so early in the day, if the dim grey-blueness of the tent was anything to go by, “You should eat something first, gather your strength after such a... Busy night.” 

His smile grew as you buried your face in your hands, hiding the heat crawling across it. 

You sighed, “I’m fine.” 

“Nonetheless,” Carefully, he pried your hands away, brushing at your cheek with his thumb before withdrawing, “It is there if you want it. And you’re welcome to stay as long as you need. Just because I’m leaving doesn’t mean you have to.” 

The kindness in his voice, the adoration in his eyes, made your chest ache in a way it had no right to. You nodded a silent agreement, not trusting yourself to speak. 

He stood then, the loss of him painful and immediate. He moved away, adjusting his cloak, and it was only as you watched him that you noticed your clothes from last night at the foot of the bed, neatly folded and waiting. 

Your breath caught, something else clicking into place – he was dressed, the breakfast was prepared, the braziers had been tended to. Someone else had been in this tent – multiple someones, possibly. Servants, presumably. And they would have seen you here, bare and tangled up in their prince’s sheets. 

Panic clawed its way up your throat. 

“Baelor—” His name escaped you in an impulsive rush, and you found yourself wincing – that wasn’t who he could be to you anymore. Even so, he turned immediately, frowning at your evident and unprompted fear, “What about the servants?” 

“They won’t speak of it,” His tone was reassuringly firm, and you almost believed him. He crossed back to you, crouching again so he was eye-level, “The servants are loyal, and they know the price of loose tongues. You recall Ser Donnel?” 

You nodded slowly, unsure where he was heading. 

“I told him that to speak ill of you was to speak ill of me – that wasn’t just courtesy, that was a command. He understands what is at stake for you, and he’ll ensure the others do too,” His hand found yours where it clutched the sheets, his thumb smoothing soft across your knuckles even as his jaw tightened, “I cannot predict what might come of this further down the line. But this, here, you? This I can protect. And I will.” 

You stared at him, speechless, the quiet intensity in his mismatched eyes cracking something in your chest wide open, “Why?” 

“Because you deserve better than to be collateral damage in your father’s schemes. Because last night...” He paused, looking almost vulnerable as his gaze faltered for a beat, “Last night was a gift I didn’t know I needed, and I won’t let it cost you everything.” 

Your throat tightened, tears threatening your vision, and you had to look away before you did something foolish. 

He lifted your hand, pressing a long kiss to the back of it, before standing again. He moved slower this time towards the entrance to the tent, as hesitant now as you were to let the world take him back. When he spoke again, his voice had shifted – lighter, touched with that familiar amusement that had pulled you in the night before, that made your heart skip. 

“If it pleases you,” He offered, and you looked up to find him glancing back at you over his shoulder, a knowing smile playing at his lips, “I would have you find me again tonight. Perhaps we might get to finish reading that diary.” 

The way he said it – the eager curve of his mouth, the mischievous glint in his eye – made it abundantly clear that you’d likely get as far through that diary as you had last night. 

You smiled despite yourself, something warm unfurling inside you, “Perhaps.” 

“My lady,” He tipped his head, formal and proper, a prince acknowledging a noblewoman. And then he was gone, slipping through the tent flaps and out into the cool early morning. 

The tent felt impossibly large without him. Impossibly still. 

But as you sat there, wrapped up in his sheets, you couldn’t help but think of how different it all felt now compared to when you had very first slipped inside – uninvited, afraid. Then, this space had felt foreign and dangerous, a place you had no right to be in. Now, it felt like somewhere you might belong, at least just for a little while longer. 

The taste of him still lingered on your swollen lips, and the promise of tonight was already coiling hot in your belly. You found you didn’t mind the emptiness quite so much.