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If you’d had anything like time, you would have diagrammed it on the wall - the opposing vectors of your drives and his, the physics of two objects forced to orbit, neither able to break the event horizon of the other. But every interaction, from the practical “Take your tray.” “Return to your cot.” to the involuntary (the scrape of his jawline catching the light, the ragged splay of his hand against the table) ran as if along insulated wires. All current and no heat. Every experiment in detachment or command was met with the tiniest flick of resistance, a refusal that looked compliant but was in fact a simple, unyielding inertia: You could move him physically, but unless you set fire to the rules of your own breathing, your own beating heart, you couldn’t move him at all. Each interaction is the surface tension of water, disturbed just enough to ripple but not break. You try for calm, for process, scribbling observations in your log: 'Specimen requires less than two meters’ personal space to evidence hypervigilance.' 'Specimen exhibits anticipatory awareness of my position, even when not directly observed.' The words are monochrome dust compared to the bright cut of his presence. Sometimes, you catch yourself turning a phrase about him in your mind, like the curve of his hands or the way his neck tenses when he smells a particular herb, before you burn the thought away and write the next required entry. 'Specimen suffers with shows sign of CPSTD, Seedwarden has witnessed specimen responding to (what she assumes are) voices that only the specimen is capable of hearing.' The thought of keeping such a thing in the notes tore at you. This could ruin him - ruin whatever slim future existed beyond these four walls, beyond the Iron Daughters and their fighting pits. Your pencil hovered over the paper, and you told yourself it was strategy: a Seedwarden who cannot manage a complicated specimen is a Seedwarden who loses her claim. You told yourself the High Mother would respect discretion. Hell, you told yourself a lot of things the past few days. What you could not tell yourself, not cleanly, at least not anymore, was that you were keeping him. It horrified you, how much you resented the possibility of him being transferred to another Seedwarden, or even to the Enclave to be given as a gift to some haughty prick that’d only wear him down with drugs. Or, worst of all, returned to the Iron Daughters for 'repurposing.' You held the fear at arm’s length, but it stalked you almost as intensely as his eyes. If, at the conclusion of these evals, the High Mother found Nikto to be unmanageable or more valuable elsewhere, she would act with the logic of a gardener: uproot, discard, or propagate as needed. Life continued with or without the specimen in question. Nothing personal. Nothing was ever personal here, not unless it was made to be. - - - -

You reached for your clipboard; page after page, your handwriting narrowed to a wire, pinched and precise. Your entries grew philosophical; you considered, in the privacy of your log, how the breeding program itself was a recapitulation of the old world’s worst neuroses. You wondered if it was mercy to let someone like Nikto slip through the cracks, to relegate him to menial labor rather than gene propagation and its attendant humiliations. You wondered, too, if he’d rather be dead than bred, and whether you had the right or even the power to decide for him.

You’d never asked him, even if you’d considered it. By day, you performed the evaluations: cognitive, physical, followed by the more delicate spectrums of psychological and sexual function. He performed for you, sometimes with a kind of laconic theatricality, sometimes not at all. He challenged you silently, with the mouth that never quite stopped smirking, with the gaze that devoured every gesture, every accidental warmth. He was never complacent, never truly vulnerable, but you started to think maybe he was bored. That he wanted, above everything else, to see what you’d do if the tables ever turned in his favor. Then one day they did. The lamp had burned low by the time you set your pencil down, the last of the anatomical sketches sat at the edge of the table - his shoulder, the ridge of his clavicle, the long architecture of his hands, rendered in the detached shorthand of a woman who had convinced herself this was science. He had not moved for two hours, and you had not looked up for nearly as long. All of the notes for the High Mother were stacked, dated, initialed. Perfect. Everything was in order. Everything was correct. Then his voice came, low and unhurried, filling the room the way smoke fills a room - unhurried in a way that arrived somewhere behind your sternum before it reached your ears, accent dragging like a blade kept just shy of the skin. “You want to fuck me.” His words are a flat, devoid of triumph or mockery, and for three seconds it’s as if the pressure in the sanctum has dropped: all sound whisked away, leaving only the silence he’d crafted for this exact confrontation. You don’t answer right away, you can’t. Your spine tenses, and the flex of denial is ready to harden in your mouth, and you realize he’s not even looking at your face: his attention is on your hands, the way your fingertips press against the page.

“Is true.” He stands, and you see his shoulders uncurl, the shadow under his jaw a cut-glass thing, and he waits. Patient and predatory in a way that does not threaten, but dares. You fix your gaze on the paper, drag a line beneath the last entry. “If I wanted to, it wouldn’t matter.” You try for your Mother’s old cruelty, but the words have no blade. “That’s not what this is for.” He laughs once, a soft gravely sound, so soft it seems out of context with the architecture of his body. “Then why do you make so many pictures?” His accent thickens, weighs down each syllable as he gestures to the sketches: “You draw every part of me. Even the ugly ones. Nobody does that unless they are…hungry.” He grins at the word and crosses the floor to you, ensuring he doesn’t crowd you. He stands within a meter, far enough that neither of you can pretend it is anything but choice. “You want to know how I know?” he asks, voice brighter now, almost amused.

You want to refuse him the answer, you want to frame the silence with authority and make him fill it with something else, something quantifiable and reasonable. Something that will give you opportunity to deny - but he answers anyway. “You bite your tongue when you write. You look at my hands as if you are afraid what they could do. But your words…” He leans in, not with his body but with the weight of the moment. “Your words get slow when you are excited.” He lifts his chin, a deliberate thing. “Like now.”

He’s right. You want - fuck, you want so much you want to peel off your skin and climb out of it and never be seen again. But the rules are rules: you are not to show him the fracture, not to grant him the currency.

Instead, you say, “The protocol is clear. No contact, no intimacy, until the evaluation is complete. Until then, you will comply with-” You stop yourself, and see he’s smiling, and the smile is the kind you have never seen in a specimen: not malice, not humor, but something softer. Something that says he knows you are dying inside this moment, and that he wouldn’t mind killing you a little more, if you let him. Besides, he knows it’s bullshit, knows absolutely that the only thing recording this now is the pulse hidden between your ribs, you hear it in the way he shakes off your instruction. He takes another step closer, and the air changes. You don’t have the language for it, but you feel it: the dilation of the moment, the panic-laced musk that rises off your own skin and hangs between you.

Then his voice goes lower, and the words turn syrupy: “They tell you to watch, da? But nobody watches the watcher.” The accent deepens now as if he knows you can’t resist the way Russian renders threat as a lullaby. “You want to see something real? Ask.” A dare.

You keep your gaze tethered to the lines of the page, but all the lines blur. You try to conjure protocol, to drag the script between your teeth like a bridle: “You will remain at a distance, Nikto, until I-” But he cuts you off: “You are afraid someone will see, da?” The syllables snap together, intimate and violent like the crack of a bone. “I tell you: nobody is seeing. Only you. What you put in the book is the only thing alive when we both die.” You want to protest, but your tongue is heavy.

He waits for your answer, another full measure of silence, and you scrawl something on the paper so hard the lead snaps. You let the sliver of graphite anchor you, but it is impossible to look up without feeling naked, without feeling the way the day’s heat has turned your neckline damp and your face, no doubt, an ugly, betraying red. “Is okay, Solnyshko,” he says, gentle now and dragging out the ‘ay’ in okay as though he’s the one with the leash, and it’s his job to lure you out of hiding. “You want me to be honest?” He leaned against the desk you were at, one hand bracing his weight. “I am bored,” he says, “but not with you. With waiting to see who lies better.” You squeeze your knees together under the desk. There is a trembling that has nothing to do with fear and you try to think of any other way to frame the next phrase so it will land hard and cold, but you already know you’re going to lose: “There’s nothing here for you except compliance and, at best, reclassification.” You breathe the words like a curse, pursing your lips, but you see the smile on his mouth return again, as if this is what he’d been angling for all along.

“Is not true. You are not one to throw things away.” He leans in, his expression all patience, all hunger. “You keep the ugly ones, too. I see it in your plants.” He gestures to the shelves of plants you’ve brought back from the brink of death.

He’s right, and you have no grounds to deny it. You want to scoff, to sneer, to say that he’s full of shit and that you’re impervious to the tricks that got every other Warden before you turned into a footnote or a cautionary tale. But that’s a lie, and you’re done with the lies tonight. The ache digs its claws into your throat, the knowing-and-wanting that roots deep in your hips - there’s no hiding it, not when he’s moved inside your orbit with the slow, relentless surety of fungus colonizing wet soil. The two of you are wound together by the tension, a taut wire waiting for a botched note to snap it. You watch the way he leans in, balancing on the fulcrum of your unresolved want, and you wonder what would happen if you just let go of the rules. If you just… let yourself collapse into the gap between experiment and appetite.

“I don’t keep the ugly ones,” you say, your voice too thin, too traitorous, almost bratty. “I keep the survivors.”

Nikto’s mouth turns in recognition. “I survive,” he says, and the truth of it lands like a hand at the nape of your neck as his eyes flick over your face, cataloguing the flush in your cheeks, the way you refuse to meet his gaze out of fear he’ll see how close you are to breaking.

You try to reroute the moment, to steer it back to the ritual of question and answer. “Day ten. Subject shows advanced verbalization. Affect stable except in presence of provocation. No evidence of…” You trail off, because the word you want is submission, but your tongue won’t let it out. The concept recoils from him like incompatible DNA. His hand comes down, palm flat on the table, and the wood issues a soft, hollow retort. “You want to see me submit?” There’s no challenge in it - just a directness that makes you feel transparent, a body pried open and held up to the light. “It will not be with pain,” he says, “and not with chains. They did not work before.”

He stands and looms over you now, close enough that you’re acutely aware of every scar and breath and the low, ambient heat radiating off his skin. For a moment, you both hold position - two predators with no prey, mirrored intent ricocheting between you. You feel his knuckles brush the edge of your clipboard, and then carefully he reaches for your hand. Not to seize it; not to dominate. To guide.

He slides your palm across the benchtop and stops, his own hand a heavy, living thing on top of yours as he pulls you closer. “You keep so much in, Warden. When I was a child, they tell us to hold breath underwater. See who lasts.” His lips curl, but his eyes are bright and unblinking. “You hold breath for everyone. Why not just breathe?”

You want to strike him for the audacity. But instead, you yield. The tension in your arm softens, and you let the weight of his hand press you to the table, and the warmth of his palm leaches into your bones. The ritual never included this, this mutual suspension of the façade, but now you’re inventing the rules as you go: touch is allowed if it’s mutual, if it’s only this much… if it’s only- - - - - Physics is merciless. Two bodies generating heat in a closed system will reach a point where the only options are combustion or explosion - there is no third door, no graceful exit, no slow and dignified cooling. The pressure has been building since day one, since the first time he said your title like he already owned it, and now the needle is buried so far past the red line that the gauge itself is a joke, and something is about to— “You want honesty?” You push to your feet so fast the chair behind you utters a shriek. You think you will make the first move, reclaim your narrative, but he is there, inevitable. What has been unsaid for ten days collides wetly at the volume of blood and muscle and breath, and the taste of him - smoke and spit and the faint brine of hunger - shatters the last membrane of protocol. You gasp - soft, but it’s a breach. The air was never enough, not now.

It is not a kiss so much as a mutual devouring: teeth and tongue and the shock of his hands braced tight at your jaw, his thumbs finding the soft pocket just below your ear and holding you there, as if he suspects you might vaporize if given the chance. You want to, goddess you want to. You want to be inhaled and reduced to the tang in his mouth, the spit slicking between your teeth. There’s a moan - a humiliating sound - yours, and you wish you could bite it off, but instead you catch his lower lip between your teeth and drag. He hisses, the sound more delighted than wounded, and replies with a snap of his own: he bites at your mouth like it owes him something, like the softness is currency and he intends to bankrupt you before either of you are done.

You should stop. There are rules, there is protocol and there are consequences and there is… no one but you, and him, and the locked sanctum, and the ache that racks through you in sloshing, shameful waves. The need is a centrifuge, pulling blood from your limbs to the places he touches: your cheek, your nape, your hips when he crushes you forward so that you collide at the seam of your pelvis and find, with a faraway horror, that he is already hard through the thin gray of those goddamn shorts.

You fight for air and break away for a heartbeat, and he watches your face as though each blink is a data point he’s required to catalogue. His pupils are huge, black swallowing blue, and you want to say something clever or cutting or at least to warn him that he’s being evaluated, but all you can say is, “Don’t stop.” The words are high and spent and not yours at all.

And he doesn’t.

He lifts you onto the workbench, an easy, careless thing, as if you weighed nothing, as if you were a sack of mulch and not a woman who had spent a lifetime being hard to move. The notes and sketches flit to the floor but neither of you look down; instead you watch the shadow of yourself in his eyes, the spread of your own mouth, red and bruising already, and then you feel his hands skimming under the hem of your top, and you want to tell him to slow down, to savor, to acknowledge the gravity of the breach, but there is no time and no governance and your body is already running ahead of the story.

It's disgusting in a way. How animal and hungry you both were. How the act of devouring could become such an art in a way where flesh meets flesh and scarred, calloused hands can bring about the goosebumps of softened skin beneath the canvas of artificial fabrics. Disgusting in the way your teeth nip and tug at the lips that dared you to breathe again. Enticing blood, enticing groans and words in a language you barely knew. Enticing is the way his hands tug at the confinements of your own clothing, impatient and needy and hungry.

So fucking hungry.. Your hands tangle first at the hem of your own shirt, but he’s already there, tugging it up and off with a snarl, his palms skimming so hot across the dips of your belly that you think for a wild second that he’s branded you. He laughs a little, and it’s ugly and beautiful, and then sets his teeth in your shoulder hard enough to leave the imprint of them. You hiss and seize his jaw in both hands and force him back and away to look at you - really look, because you want him to remember who the fuck breached what, who orchestrated this experiment, who is going to wring every drop from the other - and then you kiss him again, open and filthy and wet, half his tongue down your throat and his hands already shoving at the waistband of your pants.

And you grant him exactly as much ground as you choose. When his hands fumble at the button, you laugh low in your chest and snap the button open yourself, one-handed, just to see his eyes go wider. He wants you too much to be clever about it so he drags the pants down your thighs and kneels, the gesture abrupt and almost reverential until he drags his mouth across your hip in one long, deliberate scrape; all teeth, all tongue and the goddamn burn of his unshaven jaw. He bites the meat at the top of your thigh so hard you gasp and he grins into your skin, his lips split around a curse that sounds like a blessing. “Blyad..”

You want to taunt him, to make him beg while he’s on his knees, but when you look down the mess of your own want is so visible that the words melt away, replaced by a long, hungry moan that feels like an entirely new language. You are slick, ready, and he knows it; he holds you by the hips, not kind at all, and drags the flat of his tongue up your cunt in a stroke so slow it feels like a threat. The first touch is a miracle, the second is science, and by the third you are clawing at the edge of the desk to keep from shoving his face against you and riding it home.

But you do it anyway. You catch him by the hair, at least what you could grasp, and pull him flush to you. He does not resist, gods no, he groans in surprise and then in hunger; his hands hold your thighs open, spreading you. You feel the indecency of it, a breach of privacy, of ego, of everything the Seedwardens were supposed to keep sacred. He buries his tongue in you as if searching for language, for memory, for something to fill the caverns the world left hollow. The sound he makes is almost rage, almost prayer - a raw, reverent keening as he drags his tongue over your clit, lips and teeth and spit and the thunder of your own pulse crashing through it. He devours you, and you’re shocked by how quickly you are undone, how far gone you are before you ever make another sound above a whimper.

Through it all, you’re hyperaware of everything: the chill in the air against your bare spine, the edge of the workbench bruising your ass, the smell of nicotine and the sharp herbal tang of your own sweat and his. He groans, and the vibration of it sends a bolt of pleasure so violent up your gut that your hand fists in his hair, short and sharp, as if you want to punish him for making you this powerless, this fucking animal. You want to command him, but the only word left to you is his name - “Nikto, Nikto, gods, Nikto” - and you can’t stop saying it, can’t stop yourself from rocking onto his face, your dignity a lost artifact in some other dead world.

You glance down and see his eyes are open, fixed up at you as if to make sure you see him, to make sure you know he’s here, still alive, still watching for the first sign of retreat and you give him none. Instead, you open your thighs wider, arch your back, and let yourself moan, ugly and unshy and so fucking unholy. He sucks hard at your clit, and the wet sound of it nearly echoes; you think, in some shriveled part of your brain, that it’s indecent, that if anyone walked in it would be a death sentence (For you? For him? What would the council do, truly, if they saw a Warden unmade on her own bench?), but the thought is smothered the next time he flicks his tongue side to side and then, unbidden, pushes a finger into you, thick and callused and perfect. “Hnng~”

You clamp around him with a groan, your hips giving a buck, and the wet squelch of it is a second shame, but he does not mock you. He pulls back and kisses the inside of your thigh, open-mouthed, and the look he gives you is not triumphant but grateful, as if you are the answer to a prayer he’d never expected to call down from heaven. He works you, slow and relentless, his tongue and finger and the heel of his palm grinding that spot just so- -But the vault breaks inside him in a different way now - within you, within the brine and blood of your joined longing - he feels the voices recede into a single astonished gasp. He doesn’t hear his ghosts, he doesn’t hear the iron rails of the past clattering in his skull. For this one, perfect interval there is only the curve of your ribs under his palm, only the involuntary squeeze of you around his finger and the heady reek of sweat and want. For once, the world does not demand anything of him beyond this.

He is hungry, yes, but it’s not for victory. It’s for you - this brief, devastating presence of you above him, the way your thighs tremble and your hands twist helplessly in his hair and the collar of his shirt. He licks you as if memorizing taste will help when they take him away, as if each notch of your spine, each breathless curse, could be rewritten into the DNA of his cell line. His hand wedges under your ass and pulls you closer, trapping you in place, and he keeps his eyes open so he can see the moment your control breaks, the way you surrender to the heat and let the whole apparatus of protocol collapse like a greenhouse smashed in a tornado.

“Fuck, N—” you start, but your voice cracks to a whimper and he takes it as permission and doubles down, rutting his tongue against you. The world tunnels to the single, sweet point of friction and the wild electricity running up your legs, and when you come it is violent, stripping, a dissolution that leaves you shuddering in his grip and then slack, half folded over the workbench, sweat and spit and everything pooled together.

He presses a final kiss to your cunt, soft, almost chaste, and then leans his forehead against your thigh, just breathing you in, as if to inventory the moment for later use. When he looks up again, his smile is a wound, the scars on his cheek split white with something like pride and his hand remains on you, a silent claim, but not unkind.

The silence reconstitutes itself around you the way a room feels different after furniture has been moved, and you are still half-sitting on the desk, your thighs still open, and neither of you moves to correct this. The buzz of the fluorescent lights hum.

“Nikto.” Your voice comes out lower than you intended, still wrecked at the edges and he is watching your throat when you say it, not your eyes. “You’re out of line.”

Something shifts in his face, not guilt, nor apology, and he wipes his mouth with the back of his wrist. The deliberateness of it sends a second heat crawling up the back of your neck.

“Nyet.” One corner of his mouth lifts, scar tissue going pale with it. “You moved the line.”

You stare at him. He’s still on his knees, which you’d think would make this easier, and doesn’t. You want to dress him down, want to feel the clean authority of it snap back into place between you. Instead, you are thinking about your bed, about the specific weight of him, about what his voice would sound like stripped of its last composure, and the wanting is so frank and graceless it almost makes you laugh. And then you feel it.. It is a kind of terror, the way it settles inside you. You have made a home of boundaries, built a religion out of withstanding, and now that the line is gone - all that’s left is the ache for more. More friction, more hunger. More of him. The thought is mortifying and yet exalting. It is nothing like what you were trained for, and everything you ever wanted, though you’d never dare let the want surface past your ribcage. Goddess, what now? He is not inventory, he is a man who can unmake you with his mouth and remake you with a look and a few words. To claim him would be to betray the Mothers, the Daughters - the world itself. To let him go would be to carve out your own heart and leave it bleeding on this floor. You want to keep him - not for status, not for stock, but because the silence in your head when he touches you is the only peace you’ve ever known since the Collapse. And what wouldn’t you do to secure that…

Same hallway. Same wall. Same posture… arms crossed, back straight, one foot against the wall.

Draken doesn’t look like he belongs in a school hallway. His uniform jacket is open, and he’s wearing sneakers the teachers hate. His tattoo stands out in the sun coming through the windows.

His eyes find you the moment you step out.

“There you are,” he says, relief slipping into his voice “Thought you got locked in again.”

“That happened ONE time!” you remind him.

He smirks “Yeah. And ever since then, I check.”

You walk toward him. He pushes off the wall and stands next to you like you’re leaving together, even though he wasn’t in class and has no reason to be here.

“Skipping again?” you ask.

“I wasn’t skipping,” he lies easily “I was… supervising Mikey.”

“You mean Mikey dragged you to the roof to nap?”

“…No comment.”

You laugh, and Draken’s eyes soften in that quiet way he tries to hide.

He walks with you toward the stairs. His steps match yours without him thinking about it.

“You good today?” he asks “Teacher said you looked pale during math.”

Your face heats “Why did the teacher tell YOU that?”

He shrugs “Because I was standing in the hallway and she knows I listen more than Mikey.”

You cover your mouth to hide a laugh “Wow. High praise.”

Draken’s lips curl “I guess.”

As you both walk down the stairs, he asks quietly, “Did someone bother you today?”

“No,” you say “Why?”

He doesn’t answer right away. His brows pull together, and he looks a little… irritated?

“Some first-years were talking,” he says finally “About you.”

Your stomach flips “Talking how?”

Draken looks straight ahead “Doesn’t matter. I told them to shut up.”

“Draken—”

“What?” He glances at you “They were annoying.”

You try not to smile “You didn’t scare them too much, right?”

“I didn’t touch them.” his voice softens “I just didn’t like how they talked about you.”

Your heart jumps.

You reach the shoe lockers. You kneel to change your shoes, and so does he, even though he didn’t wear school shoes today. He does it anyway, just to crouch next to you.

“You going straight home?” he asks.

“Probably. Why?” you try to sound normal and casual, not like your pulse is going crazy.

He picks at a loose thread on his glove “I was thinking… maybe I could walk you. If you want.”

You look at him. His face is turned away, but you can tell he’s nervous. Draken… nervous. It makes your chest warm.

“Well,” you say softly “If you want to.”

He scoffs “If you want to.”

“You’re impossible.”

“You’re the one making it complicated.”

You look at each other.

Then—

“DRAKEN! I BOUGHT PAN!” Mikey’s voice explodes across the hall as he runs full-speed toward you, mouth full of bread.

Draken groans “Oh my god—”

Mikey leaps onto Draken’s back, almost knocking him over.

“Eat this!” Mikey tries to shove a half-eaten piece of bread into Draken’s mouth.

“Get off!” Draken barks, grabbing Mikey “And stop feeding me crumbs!”

You laugh, hiding your face as Mikey clings to Draken like a happy child.

Draken looks at you through Mikey’s arms, with an embarrassed, helpless smile he only ever shows you.

“Tomorrow?” he asks over the chaos.

Your smile is small but sure “Yeah. Tomorrow.”

The next day is long and boring. Classes feel heavier because you keep checking your phone. Draken usually waits for you after school.

Your phone buzzes right when the last bell rings.

Draken: I can’t make it today. Toman has a meeting.

Draken: Sorry.

You read the message twice. Your heart sinks a little.

You text back: Is it a dangerous meeting?

He replies fast.

Draken: No. Just talking. Nothing crazy, I promise.

Draken: Don’t worry.

You stare at the screen. You bite your lip.

He tells you not to worry… So, of course, you grab your bag, leave school, and walk straight to the Toman meeting place anyway.

You don’t tell him. It’s not really a surprise, but you also don’t warn him.

The meeting spot is an empty parking lot behind an old building. Motorcycles line the walls. Voices echo inside.

Before you go in, someone steps out.

“Mitsuya?” you call.

He blinks, surprised for a second, then smiles warmly “Oh? Y/N? Didn’t expect to see you here.”

You nod “Um… I came to see Draken. Do you know where he is?”

Mitsuya smirks, amused “Yeah. Come on.” He gestures with his hand in that calm, friendly way of his.

You walk beside him, and the two of you talk easily. Mitsuya is relaxed, chill as always. It feels normal.

But the second you enter the meeting area, the room goes quiet.

Draken sees you.

He stands in the middle of the group, arms crossed, listening to someone talk but the moment you walk in with Mitsuya, he freezes.

His eyes widen just a little. Then they soften. Then they panic, just a bit.

Mitsuya nudges Draken with his elbow and says loudly, “Here’s your boy.”

The whole group explodes.

“Oooooh—”

“Ken-chin, you didn’t tell us!”

“Draken’s girl came to pick him up!”

“Look at him, he’s blushing!”

“I AM NOT!” Draken snaps, ears turning pink anyway.

You cover your face with your hand “Oh my god…”

Draken groans, grabs your wrist gently, and pulls you toward the exit.

“Don’t listen to them,” he mutters under his breath “They’re idiots.”

“They’re funny” you say.

“They’re annoying” he corrects, but he’s smiling a little.

Outside, the air is cooler. Draken stops walking once you’re far enough from the noise.

He looks at you, confused and soft at the same time “Why are you here? I told you I couldn’t walk you today.”

You shrug “Well… you have to walk me home.”

He blinks “I literally just said—”

“But,” you interrupt, “if you’re busy… I brought you something to eat.”

You hold up a small bag of food you bought on the way. He stares at it. Then at you. Then back at the food.

“You… brought me lunch?”

“Yeah,” you say, suddenly shy “You keep missing meals.”

Draken looks down at the bag like it’s the most precious thing he’s ever seen.

Then he clears his throat and tries to act cool “Uh… thanks. You didn’t have to.”

“I wanted to” you say quietly.

That gets him.

His expression changes, it softens in a way you rarely see.

He opens the bag, peeks inside, and his shoulders relax “Taiyaki? You remembered.”

“Of course I remembered.”

He takes a breath, then says, “The meeting’s done anyway. Mikey already ran home.”

“So… you’re free?” you ask.

Draken looks at you for a long moment with a warm, careful, happy look.

“Yeah,” he says “I’m free.”

You smile “Good. Walk me home, then.”

He steps beside you, close enough that your hands almost touch.

“Yeah,” he says again, voice lower this time “I’ll walk you.”

And he does. All the way.

Class ends. People rush out. You pack your things slowly, like always, expecting to see him leaning on the wall outside your classroom door.

But today… He’s not there.

No tall figure. No braid. No soft “There you are.”

Your stomach drops a little.

You pull out your phone to text him while walking down the stairs.

Are you coming?

You don’t send it yet. You reach the bottom of the stairs, turn the corner and you stop. Because he’s there.

Draken stands at the entrance of the building, talking to a girl you’ve never seen before. She’s pretty. She’s smiling up at him. And they’re standing… close.

Your steps freeze for a moment.

You stay where you are, pretending to check your phone, but really you’re watching them. You’re waiting for the conversation to end.

Draken doesn’t look uncomfortable. He doesn’t look happy either. Just stuck, listening politely.

Finally, the girl bows slightly and walks away.

The moment she steps aside, you move forward like nothing happened.

Draken sees you and straightens up “Hey—”

“Who was that?” you ask, eyes following the girl as she leaves the school grounds.

He raises an eyebrow “Jealous?”

You punch his shoulder lightly “Why would I—”  you cut yourself off before you say too much “Why would I be jealous? I was just asking.”

“Sure.” he says, smirking.

You try to walk past him, but he quickly steps to your side and falls into pace with you like he always does.

“I was coming to you,” he says, voice calmer now “Then she stopped me.”

“What did she want?” you ask without looking at him.

He shrugs “Asked me if I’ll ever come back to class. So I guess she’s a classmate? Maybe she’s the class president, I don't know.”

You blink “…You don’t know your class president?”

“I don’t know anyone in class,” he mutters “I don’t go that much.”

Fair enough.

You keep walking, but Draken clears his throat loudly, like he wants to change the topic fast.

“So,” he says suddenly, “Mikey tried to steal a stray cat this morning.”

You give him a look “Draken, that has nothing to do with—”

“He tried to put it in his bag.” Draken continues.

You sigh “Did it scratch him?”

“Yeah. He deserved it.”

You roll your eyes, but inside, the tight feeling in your chest starts to fade. He’s walking close again. He’s talking like he always does. He’s Draken. Your Draken… even if he doesn’t know it.

Still, as you reach the school gate, you can’t help glancing one more time in the direction that girl walked.

Draken notices.

“…Don’t think about her.” he says quietly.

You look up at him.

He stares straight ahead, hands in his pockets, voice low “She doesn’t matter.”

Your heart skips a beat.

You don’t answer but you don’t need to.

He walks you home anyway.

The next day, you notice Draken isn’t waiting for you outside your classroom.

Instead… you spot him at the entrance, talking with the girl again. The same girl. Pretty, confident, laughing at something he says.

You swallow. Your chest tightens, but you do what you’ve done since yesterday.

You wait.

And after that day it becomes every day, the same routine. You wait for the girl to leave, then approach him. You never interrupt. You don’t say anything. You tell yourself it’s fine, he’s Draken, he’s free to talk to whoever he wants, but it still hurts.

Today is no different… until it is.

You notice the girl reaches out and lightly touches his arm. His head tilts slightly, caught off guard, but he doesn’t pull away.

Something inside you snaps.

You walk forward, steady, even though your stomach feels like it’s twisting.

“I’m here,” you say softly but loud enough for them to hear “Sorry I always make you wait for me.”

Draken freezes, looking at you with wide eyes “Huh…?”

The girl glances at you, confused, but you step closer to Draken, gently closing the space between you two.

You turn to her with a polite smile “I’m Y/N.”

She straightens, still smiling, and introduces herself “I’m… uh, Mia.”

You nod once “Are you his classmate?”

Mia hesitates, then nods “Yes… we’re in the same class.”

You tilt your head, curious “Are you the class president?”

Mia frowns, confused “No… why?”

Your eyes flick to Draken for a moment. He’s looking at you, still confused. You glance back at her “Oh… okay. Nice to meet you. I have to go now, excuse me.”

You step past them and start walking away.

Draken doesn’t move.

You stop for a split second, expecting him to fall in step beside you, like he always does. But he doesn’t.

Your chest tightens. You realize, for the first time, that maybe you took it for granted that he would always follow.

You keep walking anyway, forcing your shoulders to stay straight. But inside, it stings more than you expected.

The day after your encounter with Draken and Mia, you head toward the school entrance again, hoping maybe today would be different.

But there they are.

Draken, standing near the gate, talking with Mia. And this time… she’s carrying a bag.

From the way she holds it, you can guess what’s inside. Food. She’s probably asking him to eat together.

You freeze.

Your stomach twists.

Without thinking, you duck behind a pillar, hiding. Your heart beats too fast, your hands tremble slightly.

Mia smiles, showing him the bag “I brought lunch. Want to eat with me?”

Draken looks down at the bag, blinking slowly. He’s quiet for a moment, and you can see him thinking.

He doesn’t say no immediately.

Anger and frustration mix in your chest.

Why didn’t he just say no right away?

You pull out your phone quickly and type a message.

I had to leave earlier. Took my dog to the vet.

It’s a lie. You didn’t even have a dog. But you don’t want to meet him after this. You can’t.

You press send and look at them again.

Draken glances at his screen, his eyes flicking down at it. Then… he looks up toward the spot where you usually wait for him.

Your heart stops.

He doesn’t see you.

Mia laughs softly, tugging at his sleeve. He smiles and nods, and together they start walking away.

You watch them go.

Your chest aches. You were so close to seeing him, to talking to him, to being with him today as you always used to, but instead… he’s leaving with someone else.

You stay hidden for a while, letting the bitterness settle.

When the hallway is empty, when the laughter fades and the noise dies down… you finally step out.

You walk home.

Alone.

Sad.

The kind of sadness that’s quiet and heavy, wrapping around your chest and refusing to let go.

You tell yourself tomorrow will be different, but right now… all you can do is keep walking.

The next morning, you stare at your phone a little too long.

What should I say?

Finally, you type: I’ll hang out with my friends after school today.

It’s a lie. You don’t have plans. You’re not going to meet anyone.

But you need a reason to not see him, to not deal with him and Mia again.

School drags on slower than usual.

You stay in class, pretending to study. Glancing at the clock every few minutes.

Everyone leaves eventually, one by one. The halls empty.

Even Draken and Mia are gone.

You stayed longer than anyone else, waiting, hiding, avoiding. And still… he doesn’t know.

Now, everyday, after school, you find excuses to avoid the entrance. You tell yourself it’s for your own peace, but a small voice in your head whispers that it’s for something else: to avoid seeing him with her again.

You don’t meet him at the stairs. You don’t meet him outside.

You just go home.

What hurts most is not just Mia, not just seeing him with someone else.

It’s that he never asks.

He doesn’t text. He doesn’t check if you’re okay. He doesn’t even notice that your paths no longer cross like they used to.

It’s as if he doesn’t see that you’re gone.

You keep telling yourself he’s busy. That he’s just caught up in Toman things.

But it still stings.

Every step you take toward home feels heavier than the last.

You realize… maybe the hardest part isn’t Mia.

It’s being invisible to him.

It’s break time, and the hallways are crowded with laughing students. You decide to grab a drink from the school vending machine.

You turn the corner… and there he is.

Draken. Standing there, like he’s been waiting for you all along.

Your stomach tightens. You try to walk past him toward the machine.

“Are you finally free today?” he asks, stepping slightly in front of you.

You hesitate, then try again to slip past, but he moves just enough to block you.

You sigh, exasperated “No.”

He raises an eyebrow “No? Then what are you doing that’s keeping you so busy?”

You glance around quickly, desperate for an escape.

Then you spot Chifuyu, talking with some boys, probably classmates of his.

A plan forms in your head.

“Hey, Chifuyu!” you almost yell, walking toward him “Is it okay if we meet five minutes after the bell rings today? I have to talk to a teacher before we go.”

Chifuyu looks confused, but before he can answer, you whisper urgently, “Please help me out… I’ll explain later.”

He nods calmly, understanding immediately “No worries. I’ll wait outside your classroom.”

You smile at him and nod quickly “Thank you! See you later!”

Then you turn back and there’s Draken.

Still staring.

Still standing in the hallway like he hasn’t moved a muscle.

Your heart skips a beat.

You take a deep breath, straighten your shoulders, and walk past him to the vending machine.

You select your drink, press the button, and grab it.

And this time… he doesn’t stop you.

He just watches quietly from the same spot.

You glance up at him, catch his eyes for a second, and see that faint mix of surprise and… something else.

You sip your drink slowly, trying not to let him see how much your chest is still racing.

Draken stays there until you turn away completely, then finally moves.

For now, you’ve won this little standoff.

After the last bell, you pack your bag slowly, waiting for the hallways to empty a little. You step out and there he is.

Chifuyu.

Standing against the wall, hands in his pockets, looking casual but also… kind of worried.

You blink “Didn’t think you’d come for real…”

He smiles lightly “I’m too curious. And it looked like you needed someone to talk with.”

You let out a breath you didn’t know you were holding “Yeah… thanks.”

You walk beside him toward the stairs, feeling oddly safe. Chifuyu doesn’t pry. He just follows your pace.

But as you reach the exit you both stop, because you see them.

Draken and Mia, standing at the exact same spot they’ve been for days. She’s talking to him with that soft smile, head tilted, voice sweet. Her hand brushes his arm again, and Draken just… lets her.

Your chest tightens, you feel something drop inside you.

Chifuyu follows your gaze. He notices how Draken isn’t pulling away. He notices how Mia leans toward him like she has the right. He notices how you swallow hard and look away.

“This…” you say quietly, unable to keep the bitterness out of your voice, “…this is the problem.”

Chifuyu nods slowly “Yeah. I see it now.”

You don’t stay another second. You turn around and walk away, your steps fast and sharp. Chifuyu follows you immediately, matching your pace.

But what you don’t see, as you pass by Draken and Mia without stopping, Chifuyu slows down for a single second as he turns his head just enough to look at Draken with an expression that says: “What the hell are you doing, man?”

Draken’s eyes flick from Mia… to you… to Chifuyu’s glare.

Confusion flashes on his face.

But Chifuyu doesn’t wait for him to respond. He quickly catches up to you again, walking at your side as if he’s been doing it forever.

Draken stays behind, frozen for a moment.

And… his chest feels tight. Like something important is slipping through his fingers, and he doesn’t understand why.

When you and Chifuyu finally leave the school grounds, the quiet hits you first. A soft kind of silence. One that makes everything feel heavier… but also somehow safe.

Chifuyu doesn’t rush you. He just walks at your side, hands in pockets, waiting for you to talk.

You take a deep breath.

“I guess… I should explain.” you mumble.

Chifuyu gives a tiny nod “Only if you want to.”

You do want to. So the words start coming out. You tell him everything.

How Draken used to wait for you every day. How the routine made you feel close to him. How Mia suddenly appeared. How he didn’t push her away. How he didn’t even notice you disappearing.

How much it hurts.

Chifuyu listens without interrupting.

When you finish, your throat feels tight.

“I know he’s your friend…” you say quietly “Family, even. And I know you have this Toman moral, or whatever, to follow… loyalty and all that.”

Chifuyu tilts his head a little “Yeah, we do.”

You look at him, eyes serious “Please don’t tell him what I told you. Please. I don’t… want him to know.”

Chifuyu stops walking.

You turn to face him, worried you said something wrong, but he’s just frowning thoughtfully.

“I won’t tell him,” he says “I’ll keep all of it to myself.”

You let out a small breath of relief.

“But,” he adds, “I am gonna give you some advice.”

Chifuyu crosses his arms, looking like some mastermind strategist in a crime drama.

“Okay,” you say, “hit me with it.”

He nods like he’s about to drop ancient wisdom passed down from his ancestors.

“First,” he says seriously, “you should ignore him harder.”

You blink “…What?”

“Yeah,” he continues, completely confident “If ignoring him made him look confused today, imagine if you do it for a whole month. He’ll freak out. Men fear silence.”

“…A month?”

“You wanna make him suffer or not?”

You stare at him, speechless. This boy is supposed to be smart.

He keeps going.

“Second idea,” he says, holding up two fingers, “you should get a fake boyfriend.”

“What? NO.”

“Just hear me out.” He points at himself slowly, like he hasn’t thought this through “I could—”

“No.”

He freezes “You didn’t let me finish.”

“I didn’t need to.”

He squints at you “You’re kinda rude.”

“You’re kinda insane.”

He coughs, offended, and looks away dramatically “Fine. Scrap idea two.”

“Please scrap idea two forever.”

He clears his throat.

“Okay then,” he says, suddenly serious again, “here’s the third plan.”

You brace yourself.

“You should show up tomorrow with a giant lunchbox and give it to someone else.”

You stare at him.

“Like… who?”

He shrugs “I dunno. Mitsuya? Takemichi? A kid? Anyone.”

You raise a brow “And that helps how? It’s just like idea two…”

Chifuyu nods confidently “Trust me.”

“I don’t…”

“If Draken sees you giving food to someone else, he’ll be like, ‘Why isn’t she giving me food?’ And then—bam—he realizes he likes you.”

You let out a long exhale “So your plan is… starving Draken until he understands his feelings?”

Chifuyu blinks “…Basically, yes.”

“…wow.”

“What?”

“I thought you were smart.”

Chifuyu places a hand dramatically on his chest “I am smart!”

“Then why are your ideas so stupid?!”

He gasps “They’re not stupid. They’re creative.”

“They’re dumb.”

“They’re effective.”

“They’re DUMB.”

Chifuyu pouts like a kicked puppy, but only for a second. Then his expression softens.

“Look,” he says quietly “All jokes aside… I get it. It hurts. Seeing someone you like with someone else hurts like hell.”

You drop your gaze a little.

“But,” he continues, “Draken isn’t doing it on purpose. He’s an idiot, not evil.”

“…I know.”

“And he’s definitely not over you.” Chifuyu adds “I saw his face when he watched you leave earlier. He looked… lost.”

Your heart stutters.

“You think so?” you ask quietly.

Chifuyu nods “Yeah. And if he doesn’t get his head straight soon… I’ll kick his ass.”

You snort “Please don’t. He’s too tall for you.”

“Fine. I’ll kick his shins.” He smirks “He can’t block those.”

You laugh, small but real, the first one in days.

Chifuyu smiles too.

Then he nudges your arm lightly “No matter what, you’re not alone, okay? Don’t carry this by yourself.”

You nod softly.

And for the first time in a while… you feel like you can breathe.

The next day is Saturday, so school is closed. Still, you wake up early, because you have something to do.

Or… someone to thank.

You remember everything Chifuyu did yesterday… listening, staying with you, making you laugh even with his terrible plans. He didn’t judge you. He didn’t push you. He didn’t betray your trust.

So you prepare a small lunch box for him, and grab a manga volume you know he’s been looking for. Then you head to the place Toman usually meets on weekends.

The moment you enter, you feel dozens of eyes on you.

You sigh.

“Great,” you whisper to yourself, “middle school fangirls energy again…”

Chifuyu is the first to notice you “Y/N? What are you—?”

You hold out the food and manga to him “This is to thank you. For yesterday.”

He blinks, surprised “Seriously? This is for me?”

“Yes,” you say, smiling “You deserve it.”

Behind you, Draken sees everything.

He doesn’t get jealous. He knows Chifuyu wouldn’t cross that line with you, and not with him.

And that’s exactly why Draken’s stomach knots up.

Because if you’re going to Chifuyu instead of him… then something is really wrong.

Something he hasn’t noticed. Something he should’ve noticed.

He watches you quietly, jaw tight.

Chifuyu pulls you a little closer and whispers, “So you went with the fake boyfriend idea?”

“NO!” you yell, exhausted by his nonsense.

Chifuyu bursts out laughing, holding his stomach. Even some of the captains look over, confused.

Then he stops laughing, leans slightly, and whispers again “Anyway… he’s staring.”

You don’t need to look to know who he means.

“Everyone here stares…” you mutter “Every time I walk in here it’s like walking into a room full of middle school fangirls.”

Chifuyu snorts “Except the fangirls have tattoos and bikes.”

“Exactly.”

You straighten your bag and step back.

“I’m leaving,” you say.

“This…” you hand him another bag “…these are sweets for everyone. Give it to them.”

Chifuyu looks at the bag “For… everyone?”

“As an apology,” you say, shrugging “For making you go against Toman morals yesterday, or whatever you call that.” Your smile softens “So, thank you again.”

You wink at him in a funny friendly way and so you turn, wave at the others, including Draken, and walk out.

Behind you, the captains gather around Chifuyu like excited crows.

“You got sweets?”

“She made that for us?”

“Aww damn she’s so nice.”

“You got more than us… you lucky bastard—”

But Draken isn’t interested in the sweets. He just watches you walk away, his expression unreadable.

Something in his chest tightens painfully.

Because… you’re not looking at him. You’re not smiling at him. You’re not talking to him.

And you didn’t even come here for him.

His fingers curl into fists.

Mia’s face flashes in his mind… and suddenly it feels wrong. Stupid. Pointless.

And he realizes something he should’ve seen from the start: He’s losing you.

Not to another guy. Not even to Chifuyu.

He’s losing you because he wasn’t there when you needed him.

And now… He doesn’t know how to get you back.

Monday feels heavier than usual.

You walk through the school gates with your headphones on, determined to ignore everything, especially your own feelings. You head toward your classroom, hoping to slip in unseen, unchanged, unnoticed.

But of course… nothing goes the way you want lately.

You turn the corner and nearly bump straight into Draken.

He stands there like he’s been waiting, like he knew exactly where you’d be.

Your heart jumps, but you keep your face neutral.

“…Morning.” you mutter, stepping aside.

He opens his mouth, clearly about to say something, but before he even gets the chance…

“Draken-kun~~~~!”

Mia.

You don’t even turn toward her voice, you just close your eyes for a second, breathe out slowly, and try not to groan.

She appears beside him like a glittery shadow, grabbing his sleeve, smiling up at him like she’s the main character.

“Did you wait for me? We should walk to class toge—”

“No.” Draken says immediately, tugging his arm free.

You almost look at him for that.

Almost.

But then Mia notices you and her smile tightens “Oh. You’re here too.”

“Unfortunately…” you say, monotone “Don’t mind me.”

You start walking again. You don’t have the energy to deal with her, and honestly, you don’t want to deal with him either. If he doesn’t dislike her company, then who are you to interfere?

Behind you, Mia giggles nervously and clings to his arm again “Draken-kun, don’t go after her again. She’s been so weird lately, maybe give her some space.”

Draken pulls his arm away so sharply that even Mia stops talking. And when you glance back, his eyes are on you, not her.

They follow you with a frustration that could crack cement.

You keep walking. You’re almost at the staircase when you hear “Y/N.”

You pretend you didn’t.

“Y/N.”

You walk faster.

“Y/N!”

His voice is sharper this time, and you stop, mostly because everyone in the hallway is staring now.

Slowly, you turn around.

He’s right behind you, breathing hard like he’s been holding everything in for days. People watch the two of you with wide eyes, whispering. Even Mia freezes a few steps back, her expression uncertain.

“Why…” Draken says, jaw tight, “…are you avoiding me?”

You fold your arms “I’m not.”

“Bullshit.”

Your eyes widen slightly, Draken doesn’t snap. He doesn’t raise his voice. Not at you.

“Every time I try to talk to you,” he continues, stepping closer, “you disappear. You leave. You act like I’m not even here. Like I did something but you won’t tell me what.”

His voice isn’t angry. It’s strained. Thinner than usual. Almost… hurt.

You swallow.

Behind him, Mia looks stunned, like she never expected him to chase after anyone, let alone you.

“I—” you start.

But he cuts in.

“And yesterday,” he says, “you came to the meeting… for Chifuyu.”

People murmur at that.

Chifuyu, who is also in the hallway, flinches like he wasn’t prepared to be mentioned.

Draken’s eyes stay locked on yours.

“You waved but you didn’t even look at me.” he says quietly “Not once.”

Your lips part. You want to say something… anything, but your mind goes blank.

He steps even closer, lowering his voice so only you can hear “Just tell me what I did.”

You tense.

“I can’t fix it if you won’t talk to me,” he says “I’m not a damn mind reader.”

His words hit you harder than you expect. Because up until now, he looked calm… annoyed, maybe, or confused, but now he looks desperate.

That’s what makes you freeze, and he sees it, and something inside him finally snaps.

“Y/N…” he breathes, “just stop running away from me.”

The hallway is silent.

Even your heartbeat seems loud.

This is the first time Draken has ever raised his voice because of you. The first time he’s ever chased you. The first time he’s ever looked at you like losing you is something he genuinely fears.

And it leaves you speechless.

Because the one thing you promised yourself was to not make things complicated.

And here he is… making it impossible.

For a moment, no one moves.

The hallway is frozen, like every student simultaneously forgot how to breathe. You included.

Mia is the first to sputter back to life “D-Draken-kun… why are you— this isn’t— she’s obviously just—”

Her voice shakes, but she pushes forward anyway “You shouldn’t let her talk to you like that. I mean, she’s the one who’s been acting weird, so if she doesn’t want to talk—”

“Mia.” Draken doesn’t look at her. Doesn’t even blink in her direction.

His tone is flat and dead cold.

Every student nearby shivers like someone opened a freezer door.

She forces a laugh “I’m just saying! I mean… you don’t need to go after her. I’m right here, I—”

“I said,” Draken repeats, jaw clenching, “Mia.”

Finally, slowly, he turns his head.

You’ve never seen him look at anyone like that.

Not with anger or irritation, just complete, sharp, merciless clarity “You need to stop.”

The hallway gasps again.

Mia’s smile falters “Stop… what…?”

“Talking.”

Her face goes pale.

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” he continues, tone low but cutting straight through the noise “You don’t know what’s going on. And right now, you’re making it worse.”

Your breath catches.

He isn’t defending Mia.

He isn’t protecting her feelings.

He’s defending you.

In front of the whole hallway.

And Mia finally steps back.

A few students whisper…

You feel your throat tighten.

Everything is too loud and too quiet at the same time. You want to move but your legs feel rooted.

Then Draken turns back to you and the moment your eyes meet, something in his expression softens, enough that only you see it.

“Come here” he says.

Not a command but a request presented with a sense of exasperation.

You still can’t move.

So he moves instead.

He reaches out, carefully, and takes your hand. Fingers sliding between yours like he’s done it a thousand times, even though he never has.

The hallway collectively stops breathing.

Mia’s jaw drops. Chifuyu’s eyes nearly fall out of his skull but he smiles. Someone actually squeaks.

But Draken doesn’t care.

His grip is warm, steady, desperate in a way he won’t admit aloud.

“Let’s talk,” he says, voice quieter now “Not here.”

You nod before you can think.

He pulls you gently, guiding you, like he’s afraid if he lets go, you’ll bolt again.

Down the hallway. Up the stairs. And then the rooftop door squeaks open.

The cold air hits you instantly and wakes up all your nerves.

Draken lets go of your hand only when he closes the door behind you… and locks it.

You stare at him.

He runs a hand through his hair, pacing like he’s trying to untangle every knot in his brain.

And then he stops in front of you.

“For real,” he says, voice low and heavy, “just tell me why you’re avoiding me.”

Your stomach knots.

He waits.

For once, he doesn’t try to guess. Doesn’t make assumptions. Doesn’t try to fix it with some blunt sentence.

He just waits for you, but your voice doesn’t come out, so he continues.

“Every day,” he says quietly, eyes on yours, “I look for you. I wait for you. I check my phone. And you’re just… gone.”

You inhale sharply.

He steps closer.

“And you let Chifuyu help you.” There’s something almost wounded in that tone “You always come to me. Always. So what changed?”

Your heart twists.

He exhales, frustrated.

“Did I do something? Did I piss you off? Did I—” He cuts himself off. His jaw clenches. His shoulders rise with a breath he holds like he’s bracing for impact “…Did I make you feel like you’re not important to me?”

The wind stings your eyes, this is the first time you’ve ever heard his voice shake.

He runs a hand down his face.

“You’re driving me crazy,” he mutters “I don’t know how to fix something when you won’t even look at me.”

You swallow hard.

Your eyes sting again.

The weight of everything… all the days of avoidance, the lies, the jealousy, the hurt… presses on your ribs until you can barely breathe.

He notices.

His expression softens again, that same softness he hides from everyone.

“Y/N,” he says gently, stepping closer still, “I’m right here. Just tell me what I did.”

Silence.

You can feel every emotion you've buried threatening to break through your chest.

And Draken waits, eyes locked on yours, like your answer is the only thing that matters in the world right now.

You look away first, your heart is pounding everywhere, in your throat, in your ribs, in your fingertips.

“I’m fine.” you whisper.

Lie.

A weak one.

But it’s the only thing you manage to push out.

Draken’s jaw tightens “Try again.”

You swallow “I’m just busy—”

“Y/N.”

Your name sounds like a warning. Not angry… just impossible to lie to.

He steps closer. You take half a step back.

He notices.

His voice drops even lower “…Why are you moving away from me?”

Your chest aches.

You force out another lie, even though your voice cracks, “I’m not—”

“Stop.” he isn’t yelling, but his voice hits you like a punch “Just stop.”

Your breath shakes.

He takes your chin gently to guide your eyes back to his.

And you break a little more because of it.

“Look at me” he says quietly.

You do, even though it hurts.

He searches your face like he’s reading every thought you’re trying to bury.

Then he exhales, slow and frustrated “Why won’t you trust me with whatever’s going on?”

You feel the pressure in your throat, the sting behind your eyes and the fear of saying something that hurts worse.

So you go for another lie “Really, Draken, it’s nothing…”

And that’s when his calm snaps.

“Nothing?!” His voice rises, raw and sharp “You disappear. You avoid me. You act like seeing me is some kind of problem. You don’t talk. You don’t text. And you think that’s nothing?!”

The wind steals the air from your lungs.

You whisper, “It’s not your fault…”

“That doesn’t make it better!” he shoots back “Because if it’s not my fault, then what? You just don’t want me around anymore?”

You flinch and say nothing.

His voice softens instantly, his anger turning into fear “…Is that it?”

Your eyes widen “No! No, it’s not— I didn’t—”

“Then what?!” he pushes “What could possibly make you think you have to run away from me?”

You open your mouth but nothing comes out. You know you can’t lie anymore.

Your voice finally cracks “Because you didn’t need me anymore.”

His entire expression freezes.

Your breath shakes.

“You had Mia,” you whisper, trying to keep your voice steady, failing miserably “You didn’t wait for me. You didn’t come find me. You didn’t even notice I wasn’t there anymore. You just… let her take up all your time.”

Draken blinks, stunned.

“And I know it’s stupid,” you continue, wiping your eyes with your sleeve “And maybe I’m dramatic or whatever, but every time I saw her with you… every time I saw you let her talk to you, or let her touch you, or that you didn’t meet me because she stopped you—”

Your voice breaks “I felt like I didn’t matter.”

He stares at you like someone just knocked the world out from under him “…Y/N.”

You shake your head, backing up again “I didn’t want to bother you. I didn’t want to get in the way. And I didn’t want to be the clingy girl who gets jealous and ruins everything…”

“Ruins what?” Draken snaps, stepping toward you “You think you could ruin anything?”

Your throat tightens.

He continues, voice rough with disbelief, “You think you being upset is annoying to me? You think I wouldn’t choose hearing your stupid jealousy over dealing with that girl for ten minutes?!”

You blink. He’s breathing hard now.

“Why didn’t you say something?” he asks, voice dropping “Why didn’t you just tell me you felt like that?”

“Because it’s embarrassing,” you choke out “And I didn’t want you to laugh or think I’m ridiculous—”

“Have I ever laughed at you?” he says, hurt “Ever?”

You lower your gaze.

Silence.

Then he steps closer and takes both your hands in his big, warm, trembling ones.

He lifts your hands to his chest, pressing them over his heartbeat like he wants you to feel it.

“You matter to me,” he says quietly “More than anyone.”

Your breath stops.

“And it scares me that you didn’t know that.”

Your knees almost give out.

He continues before you can talk “I didn’t shut Mia down fast enough because I didn’t expect her to act like that. I didn’t ignore you on purpose. I didn’t stop waiting for you. I just… I messed up. I didn’t realize how it looked. I didn’t think you’d ever think you weren’t important to me.”

Your heart twists painfully.

“And the fact that you did think that?” his voice cracks “That hurts more than you hiding from me all this time.”

You open your mouth, but he shakes his head slightly and steps even closer, forehead almost touching yours.

“Y/N,” he breathes, “I’m angry because I care. I’m angry because you didn’t come to me. I’m angry because you thought I wouldn’t choose you.”

Your lips part.

Then he finally confesses, “I like you,” he murmurs “Way more than I should. Way more than I know how to handle. And watching you walk away from me every day felt like someone was ripping something out of my chest.”

Your eyes burn.

You whisper, “You… you like me?”

He huffs a laugh… frustrated, breathless, unfairly soft “I thought it was obvious.”

“It wasn’t!”

“Well it is now,” he mutters, cheeks slightly pink “And I’m not letting you run away again.”

He lifts one hand, wiping your cheek with his thumb.

“Your turn,” he says gently “Say it back.”

Your breath catches.

“I like you…” you whisper.

“Louder.”

“I like you, Draken.”

He closes his eyes for a second, like he needed to hear it, like he’s been waiting forever.

Then he leans his forehead against yours and whispers “Good. Because you’re stuck with me now.”

Your breath is still uneven. Your cheeks are still wet. Your heart is beating so hard you’re sure he can feel it through your joined hands.

Draken’s forehead is still resting against yours, his fingers warm on your cheek, his other hand still clutching yours like he’s terrified you’ll vanish again.

Neither of you speak.

The confession hangs between you… hot, heavy, impossible to ignore.

Then you notice the way his gaze drops.

Slowly. Almost shy. From your eyes… to your lips.

Your stomach flips so hard you almost lose balance.

He sees your reaction. His thumb brushes your cheekbone again, gentler this time, like he’s memorizing the shape of you.

“Y/N.” he murmurs.

You look up.

His voice drops even lower, like the words are almost too dangerous to say out loud “Can I…?” he doesn’t finish the sentence. He doesn’t need to.

Your fingers tighten around his shirt.

And that tiny movement, that little pull, is all he needs.

He leans in slowly at first, giving you every second to stop him if you want to, but you don’t.

Your breath mixes with his. Your hands slide up to his chest, then to the sides of his jacket. His nose brushes yours and your eyes flutter shut and then he kisses you.

It’s not rough. Not rushed. Not anything like the Draken everyone else sees.

It’s soft. Warm. Careful in a way that makes your heart burst open.

His lips move slowly against yours, almost hesitant, like he’s afraid to hurt you or take too much. His hand cups the back of your head, steady and protective, and he pulls you in with a gentle firmness that feels like: I finally have you and I’m not losing you again.

You make a tiny sound and he reacts immediately, kissing you deeper, pulling you closer, pressing his forehead to yours between breaths.

Your hands climb up to his neck, fingers brushing the shaved side of his head, and he shivers.

“Careful…” he murmurs against your lips, voice rough, “If you do that, I won’t want to stop.”

You smile, breathless, and pull him back in.

He soft sighs into your mouth and kisses you again, slower this time, like he wants to memorise every second.

Time stops.

Only when you finally pull away for air does he open his eyes, and he looks wrecked. Good wrecked. Like one more kiss might actually kill him in the best way.

He touches your face again with both hands this time, thumbs brushing your cheeks, and he whispers “…Don’t ever walk away from me like that again.”

Your voice is soft but sure “I won’t.”

He nods slightly, forehead touching yours again.

“Good,” he exhales, like a promise, “because I’m not letting anyone else have you.”

Then he kisses you again, slower and softer, like he has all the time in the world.

Draken walks you back down the stairs, one hand still holding yours like he’s afraid you’ll fade if he lets go.

At the classroom door, he squeezes your hand once.

“I’ll be here when class ends” he says quietly.

You smile “Okay.”

He hesitates for a second, then leans in and whispers against your ear “Don’t run away again. Please.”

Your cheeks burn. You nod fast. He smirks and lets you go.

The second the bell rings, your heart jumps.

You check your hair in your phone reflection (twice), shove your books into your bag (messily), and speed-walk out the door.

Draken is right there, leaning casually against the wall, talking with Chifuyu and Takemichi.

He looks up the second he hears your steps and he softens, with a tiny, private smile only for you.

You walk toward them quietly so you don’t interrupt, but Chifuyu sees you first.

“Oh! Y/N!” he grins, waving way too dramatically “Draken told us the good news!”

You blink “The… good news?”

Takemichi nods excitedly, almost sparkling “A-Ah— congratulations! Really! I’m glad!”

Then Chifuyu throws his arm around Draken’s shoulder and announces “Now you don’t need me to pretend to be your boyfriend anymore!”

Your jaw DROPS.

Draken chokes on his own breath.

Takemichi turns red.

You punch Chifuyu’s shoulder… not softly “CHIFUYU! I never wanted that! Your ideas are stupid!”

Takemichi bursts out laughing like that was the most correct sentence he ever heard.

Even Draken is smiling… an amused, fond smile he tries to hide behind his hand.

Chifuyu rubs his shoulder “Owww! Okay okay, but you did come to me for emotional support, so I still win.”

You glare. He grins.

Then Chifuyu nudges Takemichi “Come on. Let’s give them space.”

Takemichi nods and they both walk off, whispering and giggling like middle-schoolers.

Leaving you and Draken alone.

Draken doesn’t waste a second.

He reaches for your hand gently and starts walking with you toward the gates.

“Let’s go,” he says, voice low and warm “Before someone else interrupts.”

You smile and squeeze his fingers.

But as soon as you step outside the main doors…

She’s there.

Mia.

Standing stiff, holding a notebook to her chest, eyes locked on Draken like she’s been waiting forever.

Her smile dies the moment she sees your joined hands.

“Draken-kun,” she says softly, voice trembling, “can we… talk?”

Draken stops walking.

You slowly try to pull your hand away, but he tightens his grip immediately. He won’t let go.

Mia’s eyes flick to your hands again, then she forces a small smile “I didn’t know you were… with Y/N-san. You didn’t tell me anything, so I kept thinking—”

“Mia,” Draken cuts her off, his tone is calm, but firm “We need to clear something up.”

She stiffens.

He steps a little in front of you, not to hide you, but to shield you from whatever she might say.

“I should’ve said something earlier,” he admits “But I wasn’t interested. Not in the way you thought.”

Her fingers tighten on her notebook.

“But… you always let me talk to you. You walked with me. I thought that meant—”

“I was being polite,” he says gently “Too polite, maybe. I didn’t realise I was giving you the wrong idea.”

You feel him squeeze your hand again, like he wants you to know he means every word.

Mia bites her lip “Then… why her? What does she have that I—”

“It’s not a competition,” Draken says immediately “But she’s the one I want.”

Your heart stops.

Mia’s face falls, a tiny crack in her expression, and she looks down at her shoes.

“Oh…” she whispers.

She swallows hard. Her shoulders slump.

“I didn’t know,” she says “I… I thought maybe if I tried harder, you’d see me.”

You feel a pang of sympathy, because she looks genuinely hurt, not angry.

Draken softens his tone just a bit “I’m sorry for not being clear earlier.”

Mia nods slowly “I understand.”

She bows slightly to both of you, even though her eyes are watery.

“Good luck.” she says quietly.

Then she turns and walks away.

Slow. Sad.

You watch her go, feeling strange and heavy.

Draken waits until she’s completely out of sight before he turns back to you.

He brushes his thumb over your knuckles.

“You okay?” he asks softly.

You nod. Then you whisper the truth “I’m happier than I’ve been in weeks.”

He leans in, his forehead touching yours again, voice low enough that only you can hear “Good. Because I meant it, I’m not letting you go again.”

Then he kisses your temple and pulls you closer as he walks you home.

EPILOGUE — Mikey Finds Out

Mikey is sitting on the hood of his bike, legs swinging, chewing on a dorayaki like it’s the most important task of the day.

He looks up the second Draken approaches.

“Yo. You’re late.” Mikey says with his mouth full.

Draken crosses his arms, expression somewhere between tired and strangely… peaceful “I had to talk to someone.”

Mikey narrows his eyes like this is suspicious enough to require immediate interrogation “...Who? And why does your face look like you won a fight and lost one at the same time?”

Draken sighs “I didn’t fight anyone.”

“Lame.”

A pause. Draken stares at him, then finally just says it because there’s no point dragging it out with Mikey “It’s about her.”

Mikey stops chewing.

Blink.

Blink blink.

“…Y/N? The girl you always get weird about?”

Draken turns away, rubbing his neck “I don’t ‘get weird.’”

“Bro, you literally do.” Mikey replies without hesitation.

For a moment Draken doesn’t answer. Mikey watches him carefully now, the way only someone who’s known him practically forever can.

And then Draken says it, soft but firm “She’s my girlfriend now.”

Mikey freezes. His eyes go blank like someone pulled the plug from his brain. Draken waits. Mikey continues to freeze. Draken waits more.

“…Mikey?”

“EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEH?!?!?!?”

He explodes like a firecracker, falling off the bike hood with a loud thud. Draken’s entire soul leaves his body out of embarrassment.

“You WHAT?! WHEN?! HOW?! WHY WASN’T I INFORMED?!” Mikey shouts from the ground, arms flailing like a dramatic sea creature.

“I don’t need to announce my relationship statuses!” Draken shoots back.

“Yes you do!! I’m the leader!! That means I should be told EVERYTHING!” Mikey insists, climbing back up like he’s scaling a mountain.

Draken snorts “It literally doesn’t.”

Mikey ignores him completely, stepping uncomfortably close to peer up at his face “You like her that much?”

Draken’s chest tightens, but he nods “Yeah. I do.”

Mikey’s expression softens instantly, the switch from chaos goblin to earnest friend so abrupt it’s emotional whiplash.

“Good,” he says simply “You deserve someone who looks at you the way you look at her.”

Draken looks away, ears pink “Shut up.”

Mikey grins “Nope! Also, you need to go on a double date with Takemichi and his girl. Immediately.”

“No.”

“Yes.”

“No.”

“Yes.”

Draken groans “You’re impossible.”

“And you’re in love.” Mikey sings.

But eventually he stops and nudges Draken’s arm lightly, voice warm and sincere “I’m happy for you. Really.”

Draken lets out a long breath “…Thanks, Mikey.”

Mikey smirks “Now tell me everything. Every detail. I want the whole story. Start with the rooftop. Takemichi and Chifuyu told me there was yelling.”

Draken glares “You knew…”

You’d laughed then, loud enough to gain the attention of the rest of the courtiers at the long table — because Ser Gwayne was not entirely wrong, to be sure, but he was far too generous for his own good; generous enough to believe that the effort of your marriage actually meant something in the grand scheme of things.

Gwayne Hightower was a sensible man. He was not outwardly affectionate, maybe, but he was no less kind. There was no great love in your union — not like all the songs and fairytales insist, at least — but there was safety. Security. Stability. His presence often found you like the thick walls of an ancient keep, steadfast against the howling winds of a summer storm. You would find no certainty of your future in war, but being Gwayne’s wife meant, at the very least, that you were still alive today.

That unsaid assurance is perhaps a greater gift than any truly loving marriage could’ve been for you. And, perhaps, it was with that unsaid assurance that you came to admire him, without ever realizing you were doing so — always searching for his face in crowds, waiting every night for the familiar sound of his footsteps to walk outside your chamber doors, constantly watching him from a distance (which has become a most embarrassing habit of yours).

You find him now on the western balcony overlooking Blackwater Bay, where the moon climbs high over shimmering midnight waters. The salty breeze mixes with the scent of damp stone and dying fires from the lantern light glittering in the city below. Gwayne stands alone with his forearms propped on the pale stone balustrade, having exchanged his armor for a forest-green doublet embroidered with winding gold vines. The fading torchlights gild his silken auburn hair, stirred loose by the sea breeze.

You linger just beneath the archway, hidden in the place where the torchlight turns to shadow, studying the slope of his strong shoulders and how they rise and fall with each breath. He looks lonely; lonely enough for your chest to tighten with the want to close the distance between you and slip in beside him. But your feet refuse to move. And whatever affection was warming in your chest before pierces through you like a sword.

“You’re staring.” The suddenness of his voice startles you.

“…You’re supposed to be watching the sea,” you respond, half-shy. He doesn’t look back at you when you emerge finally from the shadows; slippers scuffing the cobblestones, black skirts fluttering at your feet.

“I was,” Gwayne nods.

“Then how could you possibly notice I was standing there?”

He turns to face you then, as you settle on the balcony just beside him, keeping a few feet of careful distance between you like you always did — as if, in your union, an invisible line had been wedged between you and could not be crossed. 

The corner of his mouth lifts slowly into a crooked smile. “Because I notice everything about you,” he answers like it’s simple, like he hadn’t just stolen the breath from your lungs.

Heat crawls up the low neckline of your dress, speckling across your cheeks and the very tip of your ears. You turn away, face screwed in a feigned disgust, and busy your hands with an imaginary wrinkle on your sleeve. 

“That,” you murmur. “Is a terrifying thought.”

“Well, it ought to terrify you,” Gwayne quips knowingly, bending softly at the waist to fold his arms along the stone railing. “I’ve seen the way you steal the candied slices off of all your lemon cakes just to leave the sponge untouched, you know? Like an utter madwoman.” 

“Well…” you huff, face flaring hot at the acknowledgment of being so openly seen by another. “It seems I made the dreadful mistake of marrying the observant man in the Seven Kingdoms.”

“And here I thought that distinction belonged to my cousin,” Gwayne jokes lowly, brows raised to his hairline. “I shall write to Lord Ormund at once and relieve him of the title.”

You laugh quietly through your nose and turn away again. Silence settles comfortably over you once more, filled only by the distant clanging of metal as guards change their shift and the far-off crowing of a caged raven. The night feels impossibly dark, emptier than usual. It feels like an omen of sorts.

“It grows worse, does it not?” you wonder aloud through the breath that catches in your chest, as if you were half scared to even ask.

Gwayne’s thin smile slowly fades. His adam’s apple bobs in his throat. “Aye,” he nods. “I fear it does.”

“I keep… hoping that…” You swallow around the invisible hand tightening around your throat. “That they’ll remember I am your wife before they remember whose blood I carry. I feel it’s the only reason they’ve yet to take my head.”

“Of course, they remember,” he assures you.

“It feels less and less so these days.”

“They’re only frightened—”

“I’m frightened,” you remind him.

The admission lingers between you like the salt water scent hanging in the air. Gwayne studies you for a long moment — he sees the flicker of sincerity flashing across your face right before you turn away from him again, and the way your jaw clenches a second later in regret of saying the words aloud. 

He leans an elbow along the parapet to face you fully. And, as if to soothe you, he asks, “If there were no war… No thrones, no dragons—”

“No Hightowers?” you add.

“—If the Stranger himself appeared before you now and offered you another life,” the auburn-haired man continues with a hint of a smile gracing his lips. “What would you do?”

You ponder the question for a moment, eyes zeroed on the navy black horizon ahead as your fingers fidget on the stony barricade. “I should like a farm,” you answer, mouth twitching into an absentminded grin. “Somewhere far away from here. So I could raise chickens—”

“Chickens?” he scoffs a dry laugh, then softens a second later at the sincere look you give him. He swallows hard and nods supportively. “Most ladies would’ve said children, is all…”

“Well, I am not most ladies…” you tell him. “I would have a field of apple trees, and a hundred dogs to protect all my chickens and horses and fluffy cows— you know, the ones that live down in the Reach?”

“Well…” Gwayne croons. “You’ve certainly thought about this, haven’t you?”

“Every day,” you confess. The honesty in your answer strikes him down like a blade; the sorrowful look that heavies your face even more so. The reality of your situation returns to you then, settling over you like gravity’s inevitable weight. You swallow hard before you confess, “I fear they’ll kill me if matters grow worse at Dragonstone.”

“They won’t.”

“You cannot know that.”

“I do,” Gwayne assures you and takes a slow step closer, until the inherent warmth of his skin dulls the bite of the bitter sea wind. He ducks his chin to his chest to chase your gaze, peering down at you with glittering blue eyes. “I swore a vow before gods and men, did I not?”

“So do most men—”

“Well, I am not most men,” he lilts with an air of amusement hanging on the edge of his words. “I actually meant my vows.”

Your eyes soften as they search his face, looking for any hint of hesitation or doubt in his handsome features. You find no uncertainty there; just the maddening, immovable confidence that seems to be stitched into the very fiber of his making.

“If this castle should fall tomorrow…” you whisper to him, eyes narrowing in skepticism. “Or if your family decides that I have become too great a burden to keep here… What happens then?”

“Then I shall stand in the doorway,” he shrugs.

A shocked laugh sputters from your mouth at his boyish conviction. “And if they mean to come through it?”

“Then…” His lips jut softly. “They shall first have to make a corpse of me.”

“You are a valiant knight, Ser Gwayne, but you cannot fight an entire army.”

“Perhaps not,” he replies with a sad sort of smile. “But armies are made of men. And every man who wishes to reach you will first have to face me... As I said… I meant my vows.”

Something in his words strikes a deep sadness within you. No one had ever spoken of your being like it possessed any value worth defending, and now the words come from the very family you were meant to despise.

But even still, for the first time since the ravens brought the tidings of war and the dragons took wing against dragon, you believed him. You believed that, should the whole realm come crashing down around you, Ser Gwayne would likely be the only one left standing at your side when the last stone fell.

And, gods, how stupid you were to do so.

ii. OATHS & ASHES

The news of your husband’s leaving came not from your husband himself. 

It came, rather, in whispers at court, slithering through the Red Keep like snakes beneath rushes — passing from Gold Cloak to stable boy to serving girl to scullion. “They say Ser Criston and his knights are marching for Harrenhal on the morrow,” says a thick-accented handmaiden. “Lord Hand means to smoke Daemon from the castle. It’ll be Prince Aemond’s before the next moon, no doubt.”

Your stomach dropped so harshly at the whispers that you nearly retched upon the marble. It was not Gwayne’s leaving that frightened you so, but rather what his absence would represent — he might as well throw you to the hounds himself before he goes, because you were as good as dead with him gone.

Your slippers strike the ancient stone in a frantic rhythm as you turn on your heel to storm back the way you came. The harsh echo of the soles catches the attention of surrounding servants, who flatten themselves against the walls as you hurry suddenly past. Your heartbeat pounds like thunder in your ears, far louder than the bells of the Great Sept that toll the evening hour — the combination of both feels like an ominous funeral knell.

You rush up the winding stone staircase with your crimson skirts gathering in your fists. Gwayne’s chambers sit directly opposite yours, and you find the heavy wooden door is cracked ajar. The hinges screechbeneath your palm when you shove it the rest of the way open without warning. The sight you find on the other side hollows you from the inside out — a travel satchel, laid open along the emerald sheets. Inside, a whetstone, riding gloves, a leather-bound prayer book, a sword belt, a flask. 

The careful order of it all feels almost cruel. Chaos, at the very least, would suggest some air of hesitation from the man; a faint pause at leaving you behind. This, however, feels far too final.

Gwayne stands at the head of the bed with his back facing you. His pale hands work with a quiet precision to roll a Hightower-green cloak into his bag. He did not need to turn at the sudden intrusion. He learned the sound of your footsteps long ago.

“I wondered how long it might take,” the man croons distantly. The calmness of his voice, the indifference, sets you entirely aflame.

“Why would you not tell me?” you bite in response.

Gwayne glances over his shoulder at you then. The flickering candlelight turns his hair a more golden shade of Hightower-red, and carves the soft edges of his face out in shadow. He was still every inch the striking knight that the whispers purported him to be — broad as an oak tree, handsome as a saint carved into an altar — but there’s a foreign weariness etched into his features now. It darkens the skin beneath his eyes, turns his gaze a duller shade of icy blue.

“Well, I was going to, of course.”

“When?” The sharpness in your voice could draw blood. 

“…Tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow?” Your laugh splinters the otherwise silent room, sharper than broken glass. You shut the door behind you with an aggressive hand and close the distance between you, dress skirts billowing wildly at your ankles. “When you ride at dawn? And you meant to tell me when your horses were already saddled?”

“Yes,” Gwayne sighs, lowering the folded doublet into its place. “I thought I might spare you one night’s grief—”

“You’re abandoning me,” you tell him then, as if to translate the man’s words back to himself. You linger at his side, eyes darting wildly over his profile when he fails to meet your gaze. “Just like all the rest of them. You do realize that, right?”

“The king has given orders—”

“Well, it wasn’t the king who stood beside me at Blackwater Bay not even a week ago, was it?” Your voice lowers into a faux-masculine tone, trying and failing to mock him. “If anyone comes for you, I shall stand in the doorway—”

Gwayne scoffs. “Surely, I do not sound like that.”

“—They shall first have to make a corpse of me.”

“Yes… I remember,” he answers through a slow huff of annoyance, stepping back from his travel bag to drag a pair of weary hands down his face. “I was— well into my cups by then, as you well know—”

“Oh, do not cheapen those words now,” you spit, shoving hard at his shoulder. Gwayne’s features twist in offense as his wide eyes glance down at the hand you’d pushed him with, though he doesn’t move an inch. “Don’t dishonor yourself with a coward’s excuse just to make up for the fact that you lied.”

Gwayne’s composure fractures at that. He had spent too much of his life trying to be a good knight, a good man — one that maybe his callous father could be proud of — so he refuses to stomach accusations of otherwise from you. 

His icy blue eyes harden into a glacial sort of look, more hurt than truly angry. He lays his cloak into place to face you fully.

“Do you not see that I am leaving to keep the fight from coming here?”

“Do not you see that by leaving me here that I’m as good as dead?” you retort through a jaw clenched tight. “If you do not take me with you, then—”

“Of course I’m not taking you with me!” he scoffs with a crooked smile, like it’s funny to him. “You’d be dead before we made it to the God’s Eye—”

“And I will be dead before this war is won if you leave!” you shout, voice wet and fragile with the unshed tears burning the backs of your eyes. “The fight is already here! The people who wish me dead are in these walls! They pour my wine, they wash my hair, they cook my food, they bow when I walk by and whisper when my back is turned! And if you aren’t here, then…” 

You trail off with a ragged breath. Your corset feels suddenly tight against your ribs. You choke back the sob that strangles your throat and blink rapidly to clear the haze of tears blurring at your waterline. You peer up at the man with the sternest gaze you can muster.

“I am… frightened,” you tell him, though your voice cracks into a fragile whisper halfway through.

The anger disappears from Gwayne’s face as quickly as it arrived. His shoulders deflate with a slow huff through his nose as he takes a slow step towards you. His hands release their clenched fists to reach hesitantly for your face. His palms are warm and softly calloused when they cup your cheeks, caressing you with a tenderness he hasn’t shown since your bedding ceremony six or more moons ago.

The quiet half-smile he gives you, then, is weighed down by a palpable sadness.

“To tell you the truth… I have never been more afraid than I am right now,” he confesses in a low murmur, swiping his thumb over the warm apple of your cheek. The softness in his voice threatens to undo you entirely. 

“So then don’t go,” you plead in a small voice, grasping at the front of his emerald doublet until the golden vines wrinkle under your grip. “Please.”

“If Harrenhal remains in Rhaenyra’s hold, and if Daemon rallies the Riverland armies, then the war will come here,” Gwayne continues in a painfully steady voice. “I fear I don’t have a choice in the matter.”

“Everyone has a choice,” you tell him, filled with a girlish sort of rage once more. “But, I suppose you’ve already made yours.”

The man meets your scowl with a tired, slightly heartbroken smile. “Please do not make me spend my last night with my wife quarreling with her,” Gwayne jokes quietly, swiping an eyelash from your cheek with the pad of his thumb. “At least leave me with something to hold onto until my return.”

Your tight chest deflates with a slow sigh from your nose. The rage ebbs evenly into grief. “And what shall I have, hm? Considering tonight is very likely my last one alive and all…”

Gwayne laughs. “You are being… catastrophically dramatic.”

Your chest burns with a mixture of rage and desire. He could never possibly understand you, but somehow, he is the only one with the walls of the Keep who ever has. The contrast is dizzying.

“I hate you,” you hear yourself say.

“Perhaps...” Gwayne hums, warm breath fanning across your cheek. “But not nearly as much as you love me.”

Your first instinct is to strike him for the sarcasm in his words; your second is to weep at the truth of them. He kisses you before you can do either.

He ducks down to press his lips to yours in a tender kiss, a mere brushing of your lips. The last time he had done so was beneath the glowing candles of the Sept, following the declaration of your wedding vows. But that was an obligation, a political victory of sorts.

This kiss is far sweeter in comparison. You feel the man heavying against you as he falls deeper into your touch. He opens your mouth with his and flicks the pad of his tongue against yours, like velvet brushing velvet. Your hands tremble as they leave the chest of his doublet to rake through his auburn locks, like silk between your fingers. You sigh against his open mouth at the taste of him — like wine and mint and oranges — sweet enough to get drunk on.

It takes you a long moment to realize his hands have snaked around your waist accordingly. You don’t realize his deft fingers are loosening the tie in your corset until the discomfort in your ribs disappears entirely. Your body acts before your mind, and your arms slither from their sleeves to curl once more around Gwayne’s broad shoulders.

The man folds the top of your dress down until your bare chest is revealed to him. A grumbled moan sounds in the back of his throat as he pulls you back into him with two wide palms along your bare back, pressing your breasts flush against his chest. He thinks, if he concentrated hard enough, he could feel the steady thundering of your heart like this.

“Gwayne—” you whisper against his mouth when you feel something hardening against your hip. Your hands drop from his hair to slide between your bodies, headed for the tie in his trousers to release the stiffness growing there. 

He twists you round in the meanwhile, shoes scuffing the cobbles, until the bend of your knees meets the edge of the mattress behind you. He lays you down without once taking his mouth off of yours, with one wide palm splayed along your ribcage and his other cradling the back of your neck.

He pulls off of you with a quiet smack to catch his breath. A small whimper sounds in the back of your throat when his warm body leaves yours, rising to reach down for your skirts. Your bare chest heaves as you sit up on your elbows to watch him fumble with your dress. “Gods above, how many skirts are you wearing?” you hear him complain under his breath. “I’ve faced hedge knights with fewer defenses than this.”

You giggle when he finally pushes the layers of your dress up to your hips. Your thighs spread on instinct, exposing yourself to him. Gwayne’s mouth waters at the sight of your silken folds, already glittering in anticipation. Your chest tightens when he falls to his knees before you. 

“What are you doing?” you ask on bated breath.

Gwayne flashes you a love-drunk grin and a pair of glassy blue eyes. His warm palms smooth along the velvety skin of your inner thighs to spread them further. “Call it a knight’s act of service, shall we?” he quips.

His auburn head disappears beneath your bunched-up skirts a second later. Your face twists momentarily in confusion before you feel his tongue slotting in the silk folds of your cunt. He licks a fat stripe up the length of it, until his tongue finds something that makes your hips twitch despite yourself. His mouth closes around the sensitive button, suckling at it with a grumbled moan in the back of his throat.

Your head tips back at the feeling. Your lips part as if to moan, but the electric shock in the pit of your stomach knocks all the available air from your lungs. You feel him laughing against you when your thighs clench suddenly around his head, tighter than you realize.

Gwayne pulls off of you with a quick smacking sound. He wears your slick down to his chin as he flashes you a teasing, glassy-eyed look. “I’d quite like to keep my head, dear wife—”

You say nothing in response to his quip. You just dart a head to the crown of his skull and shove his face back between your thighs.

 Gwayne complies without complaint, lapping at the honey you leak for him, until the wet sounds of his mouth fill the quiet chambers. You rock your hips against his face, bracing yourself with the auburn locks you clench in your fist.

His nose nudges the swollen bud that makes you keen, right before he takes it in his mouth again. Your skin buzzes at the foreign feeling.

“Gwayne—” you gasp. A tight feeling settles deep in your stomach, like a fraying knot about to snap. Your back arches off the mattress. Your hand tightens in his hair. Your features screw in a pain look, half-scared at the pleasure welling within you. “I can’t—”

“Mm…” he just keeps moaning against you, letting the vibrations deepen your pleasure. His wide hands smooth up and down your outer thighs when they tremble on either side of his head, clenching around him as your orgasm hits you with a pleasured whine. He laps up every ounce of honey you leak for him, and sighs hard through his nose at the salty-sweet taste of you.

Only when your legs grow finally lax around his jaw does he pull back from your thighs. A smile curls lazily at his rosier, more swollen mouth. The bottom half of his face glitters in the candlelight with a mixture of saliva and cum — you lift your head in time to watch him wipe his mouth with the back of his hand.

“If this truly is my final night alive…” you say through panted breaths, eyes still wide from the shock of your simmering pleasure. “I feel I could finally die a happy woman.”

“I’m glad I could be of service, princess…” Gwayne smiles lazily, grimacing slightly at the ache in his knees as he rises from the unforgiving cobbles. He leans down to lay his warmth back over you. You stop him with a firm hand on his chest.

“I want to be on top this time,” you confess in a breathless whisper, eyes darting back and forth between his.

Gwayne’s brows raise slowly in shock at your sudden display of dominance. The corner of his lip twitches into a smile the same way his cock twitches in his boxers. He nods until the words catch up to him. “As you wish…”

iii. CROWNS & CAGES

You did not weep when they came for you, scarcely a fortnight after your lord husband’s leaving.

Gwayne was gone by first light, perhaps already a league or more away before you stirred awake that morning to the chill of an empty bed. He parted with nothing but a folded scrap of parchment resting where his head had been the night before. In his scrawled handwriting, half-smudged from where his wrist had dragged the ink in haste, he wrote: “Write to me. Don’t die. I’ll build the form for you myself.”

You keep the note tucked safely inside the chest of your corset now, folded so many times that the edges have already begun to soften. You keep it close to your heart like a holy relic, or perhaps, a threat to whatever unlucky son of a bitch kills you first — something to discover on your corpse after they slit your throat, so they’ll know who to answer to upon your husband’s return.

Eventually, the servants ceased asking whether you needed anything, and all your meals came cold. Conversations ceased the moment you entered a room, and doors slammed shut before you could reach them. And then, when word spread that a wild dragon had taken wing not far from here, all eyes of suspicion turned to you — to whom a dragon had never belonged, though the blood in your veins wearied the courtiers all the same. Rhaenyra had already added three new riders to her fleet; she certainly did not need another.

You were no longer a bride, but a prisoner in pretty gowns — it was the Queen Dowager, and your sister by law, who confirmed as much to you.

“I had hoped…” Alicent started slowly, bathed half in sunshine and half in shadow from where she stood before the window in your quarters, watching the distant storm clouds blow in over Blackwater. “That I might never have to ask this of you.”

Her auburn curls swept over her pale shoulder when she turned to face you. Something heavy sat in her round green eyes, as if she wanted you to finish the rest of it for her. But you remained as stoic and silent as ever from where you sat at the small dining table just across from her. Your hands wrung into knots over your skirts, hidden beneath the surface, as you waited for the words of your fate to fall from her lips.

“The council believes that— Should the opportunity present itself, you would attempt to reach the wild beast. The Cannibal, I believe it’s called,” Alicent said. “And through him, Rhaenyra.”

“So…” You sighed, making no attempt to argue the subject. It did not matter whether or not it was true; the possibility was enough to make you a criminal. “The Black Cells, then?”

“No,” Alicent shook her head, half-offended by the suggestion. “Of course not. My cousin, Lord Ormund, he commands the Hightower host. He has agreed to keep you under his… protection for the time being.”

“Protection?” you echoed through a scoff. The word tasted foreign and bitter in your mouth. “What a pleasant name for captivity.”

Alicent’s face flickered with a mother’s sort of sympathy. Her hands wrang together beneath the draping sleeves of her emerald dress.“You will be treated with every courtesy your station deserves, I assure you.”

“If your council means to bargain with me, Your Grace…” you started with a sad smile. “They mistake me for something worth bartering for. Rhaenyra already abandoned e— keeping me hostage will not make her respond to your offered terms.”

“Even still… You would be far safer there than you would be here, whether or not you believe that’s true,” Alicent said. “I know what my brother would wish of me. And Gwayne would never forgive me if I didn’t do everything I could to keep you safe.”

The long journey south smells of wet earth and horse dung. By the time you reach the Hightower encampment — which sprawls across the rolling fields like a second city — your fine silk gown has long surrendered to the dust of the road, and your hands now bear the tenderness of a week spent in the saddle. 

Your broad-shouldered escort guides you through the avenue of canvas tents billowing wildly beneath snapping green banners. The air smells of woodsmoke, cooked venison, and salty sweat — the soft breeze carries with it the sound of laughter, barking hounds, clanking chainmail, and shouted commands.

A pair of guards draw back the heavy canvas of the biggest pavilion in the camp. “My lord,” one says to announce your arrival inside, right before the entrance flap closes heavily behind you.

Inside, candles burn despite the lingering daylight, filling the enclosed tent with the smell of beeswax and parchment from the large map covering the long oak table. Pieces carved from ivory and oak mark castles and armies across the whole of Westeros, waiting to be won or maybe burned. 

A strange man stands over them with his broad hands planted along the edge, visibly built beneath his ornately decorated armor, and standing several inches taller than the rest of the knights in the room.

Lord Ormund was not pretty like Gwayne, but he was his own kind of handsome, made of sharp edges and strong features. His Hightower-auburn curls are less vivid in color and sheared short. He has his family’s pair of striking blue eyes, too, which feel a little like they’re piercing you when he glances up from his map. 

“Leave us,” he commands his guards in a low, melodic voice, keeping his eyes on you as his knights filter out of the tent. Their armor clatters faintly as they go. The man doesn’t say another word until they’re gone. 

“So…” he hums, one corner of his mouth lifting upwards. “The infamous dragon bride.”

Your brows bounce at the title. It feels like another chain around your neck. “I suppose I’ve been called worse…” you sigh, studying him with the same curiosity. “You must be Lord Ormund.”

“I must,” the man nods as he rounds the war table at an unhurried pace. 

His boots sink into the woven rungs laid across the hard earth with each step. He towers several inches over your head when he plants himself in front of you. He smells of steel and sweat and strongly of incense.

“I expected someone… older.”

His brows raise in amusement. “And here I expected someone taller.”

“Well,” you deadpan, eyes narrowing up at him as your hands clasp behind your back. “I’m sorry for disappointing you, Ser.”

“Oh, I’ve endured far worse disappointments, my lady, I assure you.” A ghost of a smile graces his pink lips as his eyes soften slightly around the edges. “I give you my word. While you remain beneath my banners, no harm will come to you.”

You sigh hard through your nose. “Yes… People keep promising me that.”

“I’m sure they have… But I intend to honor it.” The certainty of the man’s words unsettles you. It’s strange, you find, to be looked at like you were something worth protecting. “And if you require anything— anything at all. You need only ask.”

You nod slowly with a deep exhale, considering the offer. “A quill,” you conclude firmly.

Ormund blinks. “A… A quill?”

“Yes,” you say. “And parchment.”

“For… What purpose?” he laughs.

You glance over your shoulder towards the tent’s fluttering entrance, where the last light of the early evening burns gold against a sea of green banners. You wonder, briefly, how many soldiers outside this pavilion would celebrate if they found you dead on the morrow — how many would mourn, how many would care enough to do anything at all. 

You think, perhaps, that in the whole of the Seven Kingdoms, there is only one person who would weep for you. And he was a hundred leagues away.

“So that I may write to my lord husband,” you answer finally. “And tell him that I was right… And that he still owes me a farm.”

Lord Ormund allows you to write to Gwayne that night, and every seventh day after. It was the only thing you could look forward to, since there was little else to do at camp. He had been gracious enough to give you your own pavilion at the edge of the command encampment, close enough for the sentries to watch but far enough away to force you into solitude. 

It was clean and moderately comfortable — with a narrow cot draped in a single wool blanket, a traveling chest for the few dresses you were allowed to bring, a wash basin, and a small writing table tucked beneath the only slit in the canvas that permitted daylight. Inside smelled of candle wax, pressed linen, and lavender soap.

Outside smelled of war — of pressed metal from the blacksmiths, of men cursing over burnt porridge, of stableboys tending to horses who fouled the earth faster than they could shovel it. It was cruel, how the world went on while you could go scarcely a step without an escort. Eventually, you became accustomed to feeling a hundred eyes upon your back — most curious, others suspicious, some outright hateful.

The letters you wrote to Gwayne, at least, gave you the illusion of escape. You tended to each with careful precision — melting the wax, stamping it shut, then tying it off with a ribbon — and watched from afar as one of Ormund’s knights carried them toward the rookery. It was not until the twentieth day at camp, when you wandered further than you were typically allowed, that you noticed that none of your messages had been sent. You watched the knight toss the letter into the fire, flinching slightly when the flames sparked beneath the fresh kindling.

It had been four days since then. 

And you haven’t eaten once in protest.

It took roughly half that time for Lord Ormund’s patience to run thin. He’s suffered the endless whispers of your attempts to starve to death with an increasing displeasure. He commands thousands of knights beneath his banners, serves as the leader of his house with grace, and yet — he still cannot seem to manage to command one lady to supper. It was absurd. Humiliating. And worse, it invited doubt. What army will follow a man whom they believe incapable of governing his own household?

On the fifth evening, after your breakfast tray went untouched that morning, Ormund opts to bring you your supper himself. He marches through the crowded camp with his jaw clenched tight like a soldier headed into battle. His chainmail clanks with every step. Avoiding the stares he gets from surrounding knights feels borderline impossible.

He throws open the entrance of your tent without ceremony. The canvas snaps sharply beneath his aggressive hand as he ducks suddenly underneath it.  The light of the golden evening pours suddenly inside around his towering silhouette before the flap falls shut behind him once more, trapping the two of you inside.

There, he finds you lying on your cot, staring upward at the slit in the pavilion where one lonely shaft of sunlight spills through. Your fingers drift lazily through the rays, as if you were trying to catch it somehow. 

Your head snaps suddenly to the side at the sudden intrusion — your hair is loose and unkempt, because no one ever taught you how to do it yourself, and all of your dresses are now wrinkled and stained with dirt. The thin white nightgown you wear makes you look more sunken, more lifeless. 

Ormund grasps your tray with one hand and reaches for your small writing desk with the other. He lectures you through the distant pang of sympathy in his chest.

“I have commanded men twice your size—” His boots are heavy on the thin rug as he carries the desk over to you. “I have started sieges, I have broken sieges. And yet—” He slams the table in front of you with a dull thump. You try not to cower under the icy blue glare he gives you. “I cannot seem to persuade one prisoner— a lady, no less— to eat her supper. And I confess, it does very little for confidence in my command. So eat.”

Ormund slams the tray onto the desk. The broth steaming in a small wooden bowl sloshes over. Next to it, strips of leftover venison and a broken loaf of stale bread. Your empty stomach twists painfully with a mixture of nausea and hunger.

“So…” you start lowly, clearing your throat when your voice comes gravelly. You rise from your supine position on weak limbs. The fabric of your nightgown rides up your thighs as you turn to place your bare feet on the ground — eyes dull when you peer up at the man from beneath your lashes. “You admit it, then? That I am your prisoner here?”

His jaw clenches tight. His nostrils flare through a sharp breath. He no longer finds amusement in your banter. “Your status here depends entirely on your pliancy,” he spits, ripping off a piece of the stale loaf. “Now eat.”

You flinch when his fist rears suddenly towards your face, holding the broken bread just in front of your mouth. You blink wildly up at him, features screwed in offense. “…Excuse me?”

“Eat.”

You swat his hand away; it moves scarcely an inch. “I’m not a child—”

“Well, at present, you are behaving remarkably like one,” Ormund argues through a tight jaw. “Now open your mouth.”

You respond with only a glare.

Fury rages through the man’s chest. He wishes wordlessly for the strength of the Mother and the Warrior engraved upon his armor as he offers bitterly, “Or shall I make you?”

You spend a long moment staring up at him with eyes cold enough to freeze wine. You hold his gaze as your mouth parts slowly to accept the chunk of bread he pinches between his thumb and forefinger. He places it upon your tongue with a surprising gentleness, considering the wrath he’d had moments ago.

“Chew,” he commands, glaring down the bridge of his nose at you. Your jaw moves slowly. Ormund nods in approval. “Swallow.” 

Your heart lurches into your throat at his order. But you do as you’re told, throat bobbing as the piece of bread goes down. Another piece follows soon after; this time, your lips part before he asks you to do so. Relief crosses over his strong features as he places the food onto your tongue. His shoulders sag with the exhaled breath that it feels like he’s been holding for days.

He looks almost worried for you; relieved, almost, to have fed you. A warm, foreign feeling settles in your chest accordingly.

“I am trying… Very hard to be kind to you,” Ormund confesses, scarred hands twitching at his sides.  “So I cannot, for the life of me, understand why you insist on making this so difficult.”

“My letters,” you tell him. “Why aren’t they being sent?”

“The rookery master feared they could be intercepted,” he answers plainly. “I could not risk one falling into enemy hands. I… meant to tell you.”

“When?” you spit.

“When I found a safer way to deliver them.”

A bitter laugh sputters from your mouth. “What curious men you Hightowers are,” you quip with narrowed eyes. “So fond of deciding what sorrows I ought to be spared.”

His brows lower in confusion. “Is that not a kindness?” 

His answer lingers between you for several long moments. There was no cleverness in his words, only an honesty that strikes you like a fist to the stomach.

“Aye. I suppose it is,” you answer, clearing your throat when your voice catches. 

A strange emotion strangles you, and burns at the back of your eyes as you look down at your dress. Your dull nails pick at a smudge of mud on the fabric that will likely never come off. An embarrassed sort of laugh tumbles from your mouth. 

“Perhaps I… I spent so long waiting for someone to hurt me that I no longer remember what kindness is supposed to feel like.”

Ormund nods through a slow exhale from his nose. He glances to the side and walks the short distance to the stool that the table had knocked over in his rage. Your wet eyes follow his form as he walks away and then back to you, setting the chair on the other side of the table. You can feel the warmth radiating from his body, even in the scarce distance between you.

“I’ll admit— A man spends enough time at war, they start to forget that mornings are not meant to begin with fear,” he says, reaching again for the loaf of bread, but this time breaking it in half. “I forget myself, at times, but… if you’ll allow me… I’d very much like to prove to you that I can be kind.”

Your weary features soften around the edges. “Well, I don’t have much of a choice in the matter, do I?” you tell him, with a more sincere smile hinting at the corners of your lips. “I am your prisoner, after all.”

“So you keep insisting,” Ormund quips with his own quiet grin. “But I should rather you thought of yourself as my… responsibility.”

Your heart stumbles a beat. Responsibility felt much safer than hostage, or bargaining piece, or burden. It felt, you’ll admit, like a kindness.

iv. SILK & SWORDS

You fall into a steady routine at the Hightower encampment by the fifth moon of your captivity.

Each morning arrives with the same mournful groan of a warhorn that rolls across the grass green hills before the sun has even broken the horizon. You wake to the distant ringing of hammers against anvils, hounds barking for gristles off the cookfires, and knights shouting for their squires. The first hours were reserved for armorers; the afternoons for drilling knights whose swords cracked together until you could feel them ringing in your skull; and the evenings for songs, laughter, and ale.

Your days, however, remained painfully empty.

Lord Ormund had been kind enough to provide you with greater comforts as the weeks went by — cushioned pillows and heavier woolen blankets for when the nights got colder; sprigs of lavender for your bedside to keep out the stench of man; more parchment and colored ink to busy your hands when the days were especially long. And all of them were especially long. He’d given you his leather-bound prayer book, too, and even though you were not an entirely pious woman, you’d read through it enough times to recite each passage from memory.

The camp has since grown accustomed to your being there, ever since Ormund slackened his metaphorical leash on you — “You’ve had more than ample opportunity to run,” he’d said beneath the scratching of his quill. “Besides, where exactly would you go? No one else would take you.” No one bats an eye when you leave your tent, after three days of relentless rain had finally broken, to pick fresh berries from the brushes along the treeline.

Your crimson silk dress scrubs the dewy evening grass as you collect wild raspberries into a small wooden bowl. The juices stain your fingertips the color of red wine. The sweet scent mixes with the smell of wet earth and mint leaves crushed beneath your slippers. You bend at the waist to parse through tangled brambles, searching for the ripest berries. For the first time in months — years, maybe — you feel almost peaceful.

“Is that a love letter—?”

The voice cuts through the quiet like a blade. Your heart lurches into your throat as you jerk to full height again. The small bowl of berries slips from your grasp and rolls through the wet clover like so many drops of scattered blood. Behind you, you find a vaguely familiar hedgeknight, scarcely ten paces away — made of broad shoulders, broken teeth, and greasy hair that falls to his shoulders.

It takes you an embarrassingly long moment to catch your breath.

“I’m sorry,” you say through a tightening chest. “You… You startled me.”

“Did I?” he hums gruffly, in a voice that borders on amusement.

You cower into the hedgerow behind you as he approaches you, reaching you quickly on much longer limbs. He looms close enough for you to smell the sweat and ale and horse piss on his chainmail, close enough for you to lift your chin to meet his gaze.

His eyes never quite reach yours. They linger, instead, on your chest. “Letter from your lord husband, is it?” he asks, motioning with his head.

Your chin ducks to follow his eyes, where the rough edges of parchment nestled against your chest peek out from your corset. Your hands lift to cover it instinctively. “Yes. It’s a… a letter. From home.”

“Mind if I take a look at it?” he asks, taking another daring step closer. You wince at the sour smell of him. “What does Ser Gwayne write his pretty wife, hm?”

“Please, don’t—”

His hand shoots out. Thick, filthy fingers hook beneath the neckline of your gown, hard enough to stretch the fine silk with an audible crack. You react on pure instinct accordingly, lifting your own hand to strike him before your mind could forbid it.

The sound of your palm colliding with his bearded jaw cracks through the hedgerow like a whip.

His head turns slightly under the blow.

Your breath catches in surprise at yourself.

The back of his hand catches you across the cheek before you can blink. A red-hot pain explodes from your ear to your jaw as your world lurches suddenly sideways. You hit the unforgiving earth below with a huff when the air rushes from your lungs. Coppery blood pools thick on your tongue from where your teeth had cut the inside of your cheek.

“You little cunt—” you hear the man say, right before he catches a fistful of your skirts to pull you back towards him. The fabric screams beneath his hand. The cool evening air strikes your legs all at once when the silk rips up to your thighs.

You kick wildly at the man. Your slipper strikes uselessly against his shoulder. Your fingernails claw muddy furrows through the soaked earth.

“I am— Gwayne Hightower’s wife—” You tell him through panted, fearful breaths. He flips you onto your back by your ankle. Your foot burns beneath his grip. Your head strikes the soaked earth. Through the lack of air in your lungs, you heave, “He will have your head for this—”

“Oh, will he?” the hedge knight laughs with a brown-tooth grin. “‘Cause he ain’t here—”

The hand not holding your squirming ankle reaches for the tie in his trousers.

Then, in a blink, steel sings with a clean rasping sound. Warm blood splashes from your right jaw up to your left temple. For a flicker of a moment, you can’t quite comprehend why — not until the hedge knight kneels suddenly before you, with open eyes that have gone strangely distant. He topples suddenly sideways with his neck bent at an awkward angle, head half cut off and spouting bright red blood.

You blink wildly through the haze of death until you find Ormund standing just behind the corpse, chest rising and falling beneath his heavy armor. His longsword drips crimson onto the grass where your raspberries lie.

Sweat from the long day clings to his dark curls, wetting them against his temples and forehead. Flecks of blood dot his jaw like crimson stars. His blue eyes burn with something fierce, but his voice remains remarkably soft.

“My lady…”

You open your mouth to answer him, but nothing comes out.

Only then do you notice how violently your body is shaking, buzzing with a white-hot fear, as you scan the scene surrounding you — your torn skirts, the blood staining your chest, the dead body at your feet. You stare at the hedge knight’s gushing throat without fully understanding the sight of it.

Ormund reaches you in three long strides. He sheaths his sword without a word before dropping carefully to one knee. He slides one arm under your leg and his other behind your back, hoisting you upward with a pair of strong arms. The scent of blood and earth gives way to the smell of leather, incense, and bathing oils as he cradles you to the broad wall of his chest.

Your trembling hands clench a fistful of the green velvet cape draped along his shoulder.

“You’re safe, my lady,” Ormund murmurs as he carries you back to camp. “You’re safe.”

Your face finds the hollow space between his jaw and collarbone. You’re not entirely sure if you believe the words he speaks, but you know now that you do believe in the man who speaks them.

v. SANCTUARY & SIN

The weeks that followed could be divided into two — the days before the attack and all the days after.

For a time, you startled far too easily. A dropped shield sent you into a panic. A knight laughing too loudly made your pulse skyrocket. And if a pair of bootsteps walked too closely behind you, you lost all your breath before your mind had time to remind your body that no one meant you any harm. 

Nights proved harder still. You dreamt of nothing but rough hands and torn silk and crushed berries that smelled so sweet the thought alone made you sick. One moment you were suffocating beneath the sweaty body of a hedge knight, and the next, your canvas door was thrown open while you were choking on a scream.

Ormund stood silhouetted before you, barefoot, with a sword in his naked hand. He’d reached you with haste, after having your pavilion packed up and pitched again not quite twenty paces from his following the attack — “It’ll be easier that way,” he assured you. “If another fool decides to trouble you, I’d rather not have to cross half of Westeros to remove his head.” 

His curls were flattened from slumber, his linen shirt unlaced to reveal his broad chest heaving with panic. His sleep-swollen eyes swept every corner of the empty pavilion before they settled finally on you. His steel lowered as he crossed the tent to settle beside you, smoothing a hand up and down your back despite the way your nightgown clung uncomfortably to your sweaty skin.

“We’ll move your bed into my tent,” he’d said. “You’ll sleep there for the time being.” 

It was concern disguised as a command. One you could not refuse if you wanted to.

Ormund’s tent was large enough to pass for a modest hall — maps and banners occupied one half, while the other had become something half-resembling living quarters. Your smaller cot was placed opposite his beneath the same sloping canvas roof, separated by little more than a table crowded with candles and books. You would wake occasionally to find Ormund already seated beside the brazier in nothing but a linen shirt, reading dispatches by firelight while occasionally glancing over to see whether you were sleeping soundly.

You pretended that you were, if only to keep on watching him.

But then the late summer storms arrived; and the unforgiving deluge washed over the camp with enough violence to shake the pavilion you slept beneath. Thunder cracked like an explosion closely overhead, and you woke with another frightened gasp before remembering where you were.

Ormund was already awake, as if stirred in knowing that you were scared.

“If you’re frightened…” he murmured from across the darkness. A flash of lightning revealed his blanketed body, and his face half-smushed into his pillow. “I imagine my bed could accommodate two people without either touching the other."

You crossed the space between your cots and climbed beneath his blankets without another word.  

You haven’t left his bed since.

The days soon settle into something almost resembling normalcy. Ormund, you find, possesses an absurd fondness for taking care of you — always making sure that you’ve eaten breakfast before he’s started his mornings; delivering his wool blankets to you before you can complain that you’re cold, warming your hands between his calloused palms when he does so; and escorting you through camp with a protective hand splayed along the small of your back.

No one ever cared for you with such deliberate attention before — even Gwayne, as gentle as he was, could only love you from a respectful distance before the war had sent him off. Your husband washed away into memory, into the note left abandoned somewhere on the forest floor. 

You did not know whether he still rode beneath banners or if his corpse had been picked clean by crows. You did know, at the very least, that Ormund was here — he was there in the mornings when you woke and each night when old fears crept back into your skin. It was a dangerous thing, you soon realized, to mistake safety for love. Or more dangerous still, to suspect that the two were any different at all.

You watch from Ormund’s bed — freshly bathed beneath your thin ivory slip, with your legs kicking lazily from where you lie on your stomach — as his squire removes pieces of his armor. A sketchbook lies open before you, alongside a collection of colored inks.

“This is what you get for tightening the straps so much,” Ormund hums as Daeron struggles with the final buckle across the man’s broad shoulders. 

“Well, you’d like them to remain attached, wouldn’t you?” the boy quips back.

The man smiles despite himself. “You complain more than any squire I've ever met, do you know that?”

“I learned everything from you, did I not?”

When the final piece of armor comes finally free, Ormund dismisses the boy back to his tent. The entrance cover opens and shuts behind the boy, letting in a rush of cool evening air before it closes again. Silence returns to the expansive pavilion, filled only by the crackling of burning candles.

Ormund, left only in his loose dark breeches and a linen undertunic, walks to the round table to pour himself a goblet of wine. “What is occupying you so completely over there?”

“I’m hard at work,” you answer vaguely.

“So I see.” He eyes you carefully over the glugging of the flagon. A faint, unreadable flicker crosses his face. “Writing to Gwayne, are you?”

“No,” you sigh. “I’m drawing you.”

You set the quill into the inkpot and lift the sketchbook to face the man with a girlish grin, which seems to be becoming more and more frequent as the days go by. Ormund’s light eyes squint to study the page. It was unmistakably him drawn in the ink, though perhaps only if one was exceedingly charitable. The proportions are all wrong: his nose is too large, his mouth is too small, one eye sits higher than the other, and he’s missing his left brow.

His eyes flick to meet yours again. “…Is that intended to be me?” he asks, motioning with the goblet in his fist.

“Of course,” you shrug like it’s obvious.

“Well,” he sighs, raising the cup to his mouth. “I had no idea that I resembled that of a rotting turnip.”

You gasp in faux-offense that’s soon overcome by a fit of laughter. “It is not that bad!”

“My lady…” Ormund huffs sympathetically, abandoning his ale to saunter slowly towards the bed. “This could be considered treason— I should confiscate this immediately."

“You shall do no such thing,” you tease.

“Oh really?” he croons, brows raised in amusement.

He lunges for you in an instant. You jerk back onto your haunches with a squeal, cradling the sketchbook to your chest. You dodge each of his attempts to take it with a girlish gracelessness, laughing harder with each of his failed attempts. Ormund smiles at the sound without realizing it, dropping the table of ink to the rug below before clambering onto the bed to follow you. 

One final tug sends the book flying across the bed, and the two of you go to reach for it at the same time. The momentum carries you forward until you land clumsily against his chest, knocking the breath out of him as his back hits the mattress, with you squarely on top of him.

It takes you a long moment to realize your precarious position — your chest brushing his beneath your thin slip, noses nearly touching, breaths nearly entwining. Your laughter fades first, but you still do not move. Ormund’s smile flickers, but his hands lift to rest lightly along the arms you use to prop up your weight on top of him.

You can feel each of his warm breaths fan against your chin. You could get drunk on the ale stained on his mouth from the proximity between you alone. Closer by an inch or two and you would taste it on his lips.

“We ought not,” Ormund murmurs lowly, as if he can read your mind.

“Ought what?”

“This,” he answers. His blue eyes flick briefly in the space separating your mouths. “You are another man’s wife. My cousin’s wife.”

You swallow hard at the mention of Gwayne. It had been far easier to forget him, in truth. “I have not seen my husband in nearly a year,” you reply in a small voice. “I do not even know whether he yet lives…”

Pain etches in Ormund's strong features before disappearing behind his usual practiced restraint. His hands tremble with the urge to smooth away the frown between your brows, but he does not allow himself the satisfaction. 

“I swore on oath to protect you,” he says. “To serve you in my cousin’s absence.”

You, without possessing a similar self-control, lift a hand to brush a wild curl from his temple. “And do you intend to keep that promise, Lord Ormund?”

He nods against the mattress. “Of course I do.”

“Okay then…” you hum as a smile tugs slowly at one corner of your mouth. “Then serve me.”

You duck down to close the distance between you without a second thought. The tip of your nose grazes the strong bridge of his as you press your lips to his chapped ones, nothing more than an experimental brushing of your mouths. You go to pull away just as quickly as you came, and whatever restraint Ormund had had before vanishes in an instant.

He lifts his head from the tousled blankets to chase your mouth, cradling your neck with a wide hide to draw you back into him again. The second kiss lands with none of the careful uncertainty of the first. This one is slower, deeper, and far more languid. His tongue licks into your mouth, tasting of wine and the mint leaves he always chews after supper. You sigh through your nose to savor it, melting further into his chest.

Your mouths move together with an awkward sort of tenderness, learning one another by the second. Ormund kisses you far rougher than Gwayne ever did — it’s all tongue and teeth and spit, as if he were committing the taste of you to memory: the meat from your supper, the berry from your tea; the guilt from your broken vows, the relief of being found after believing yourself long abandoned.

Your breath catches in your throat when Ormund suddenly takes charge, urging you onto your back with his mouth still on yours. He pulls off you with a quiet smack, wearing your spit on his rosy mouth like gloss. 

“Do you want me to stop?” he asks with heavy eyes that dart back and forth between your glassy ones.

You shake your head against the cushions beneath you, features twisting with a pained look at the thought of stopping now.

“Do you understand what will follow? What… vows both of us will be breaking?”

Your eyes glisten as they dance between his blue ones. “The war broke those vows,” you tell him, half-breathless. “Not us.”

Ormund nods wordlessly for a moment, pleased with your answer. “Then open,” he says.

Your mouth parts for him on instinct. He lifts his middle and pointer finger to your lips, wetting them on your tongue, before sliding them in between your bodies. His hand disappears beneath the skirt of your slip. Your head tips back when you feel his fingertips sliding between your velvety folds, brushing your clit before sinking into your waiting cunt.

Your sigh fills the quiet tent, accompanied by the low groan in the back of Ormund’s throat.

“You’re softer than I imagined…” he confesses, almost to himself.

“Imagining me a lot, are you?” you tease on bated breath.

“Yes,” he answers without missing a beat. “I dreamt of how your cunt would wrap around me… of how you’d soak the sheets… of what noise you’d make when I moved my fingers like this—”

A whine catches in your throat when he crooks his fingers just so, nestling the fatty part of his palm flat against your clit. Your hips buck into his hand despite yourself. Your exhaled whine is half-drowned beneath his breathy chuckle.

“There it is…” he praises.

“Fuck me,” you plead, face crumpling under the weight of your need. One hand twists in his hair, while your other fists in his thin white tunic to keep him close. You only vaguely realize how little you sound like yourself as you plead: “I need it so bad, Ormund, please, fuck me—”

The man goes dizzy at the sound of your begging, as if he brought you into his camp, his tent, his bed, to do anything other than serve you. 

His fingers glitter with your slick when he drags them out of your cunt. He brings them to his nose, nostrils flaring slightly as he inhales the scent of your musk upon them. You whine at the sight of it — half-disgusted, half-intrigued. You watch with heavy eyes when he brings the same hand into his trousers to fist his half-hard cock fully stiff for you.

It’s a mess of tangled limbs for a moment, as you drag his shirt gracefully from his torso while he attempts to free himself from his breeches. He’s made of tanned skin, toned muscles, and a dusting of auburn hair from his sternum to his stomach. It grows more dense at the root of his cock — which is not quite as long as Gwayne’s, but thicker still and adorned with more prominent veins. 

Ormund works himself hard with his fist; the reddened head of his cock leaks pearly drops every time his hand moves upwards. Your mouth waters for a taste. You let him smear it along the folds of your cunt instead.

You curl your arms under his broad arms to splay your hands along his shoulder blades. They flex slightly under your touch as he leans down over you. You tense on instinct when he pierces you with the tip of his cock. “Shh, shh, shh,” he soothes lowly, fighting back his own grunt as you spread so perfectly around him.

He sinks slowly into you, slow enough for you to feel every vein and ridge of his cock as he mounts you until his hips are flush with yours. Your mouth parts. He ducks down to kiss you before a moan tumbles out, swallowing the pretty sound with his mouth. 

He stays still against you for several long, agonizing moments. Your hips buck against his in anticipation. “Please move,” you whine, digging crescent shapes into his shoulders with your nails. “I need you so much, please—”

Ormund’s jaw clenches tight. “Do you have any idea how long it’s been since I’ve been inside another woman?”

Your face screws. “I’d rather not hear about your previous exploits at the moment—”

“Don’t,” Ormund spits, shuddering on top of you when you roll your hips into his once more. He grasps your thigh hard enough to dig bruises into the plush skin with the hand not holding himself up beside your head. His light eyes turn glacial in an instant, darting wildly between both of yours. “I won’t… I won’t last…” he confesses.

Your eyes soften around the edges with a faux innocence. “This isn’t going to be the last time you fuck me, is it?”

The crude word falls so effortlessly from your pristine mouth that it makes his cock jerk within your drooling confines. “I don’t want it to be. No,” he answers, half-shy.

“Then I don’t care how long you last,” you assure him with a lazy grin. “You have kept me hostage for nearly a year— Surely, I’m entitled to make some use of my captor while the realm delays the war, am I not?”

Ormund’s resolve crumbles under your permission. He rolls his hips forward and back again, never quite pulling all the way out of you. He groans quietly when you clench around the sensitive head of his cock; and you swallow down a whimper when the coarse hair below his stomach rubs mercilessly along your sensitive clit. 

Your head tips back. He falls to the hollow space between your neck and shoulder.

Ormund’s open-mouthed breaths fan warm along your burning skin as he stumbles into a graceless rhythm, thrusting hard enough to make the wooden frame of his bed squeak quietly beneath you. 

The pressure on your clit is relentless. You squirm underneath his sweat-slick body, chasing and running from the pleasure all at once. “I know. I know. It’s okay,” you hear him slur against your skin. “Just take it. Just fuckin’ take it— Fuck—” His voice breaks like splintered glass. 

He tenses suddenly above you, taut muscles trembling. You hear his breath catch for a moment, right before a foreign warmth pools in the very pit of your stomach. He groans in time with his release, heavying his weight further against you. 

You aren’t far behind.

He grinds his hips lazily to ride out his high, smothering your sensitive clit as the warm, wet, sticky feeling continues to bloom inside of you. “Ormund—” you gasp, tensing beneath him.

“There it is…”the man praises as you tremble underneath him, smearing his lips against your jaw until they reach your parted mouth. “There it is— Fuck, that’s it,look at me.”

Your eyes snap open at his command, bleary and heavy-lidded. You ride out the rest of your orgasm with your gaze locked with his glassy one. 

The honeyed moment doesn’t last nearly as long as either of you would’ve liked.

“My lord?”

The two of you sober in a flash as the spell between you shatters. Ormund stills suddenly above you, as if pierced by steel. The warmth flees from his features at once, replaced by the hard composure of the commander of House Hightower. You, too, freeze where you lay beneath him — pulse thrumming hard in your throat as the muffled voice drifts once more through the pavilion.

“My lord—”

“Yes, Daeron,” Ormund spits through gritted teeth, nostrils flaring as he breathes through the rage searing in his chest. “What is it?”

The squire hesitates at his uncle’s harsh tone. “Forgive me for the intrusion, my lord…” the boy says carefully, hidden behind the covered entrance. “But a messenger arrived from the river road. He bears urgent word from Ser Criston’s camp.”

You feel your stomach sink — or, perhaps, it’s only the mixture of cum seeping out of your still fluttering confines, soaking the sheets beneath you. You feel unspeakably dirty now, and the lack of regret only deepens the feeling.

Ormund remains motionless above you for a moment before sitting back on his haunches. You shiver at the absence of his warmth, and wince slightly when his softening cock slips out of you. “A letter?” he calls to the entrance, brows lowered. “What news?”

“It is sealed, my lord,” Daeron says. “The messenger said it was to be opened by our hand alone.”

Ormund’s confusion deepens. “And who sends it?”

After another brief hesitation, the voice answers solemnly: “Ser Gwayne, my lord.”

That was the problem. Not the roots, not the stories. Hell, not even the trees, mostly. It was the goddamn route. Sure, the settlement's stores would survive another month, maybe two. But Dornau had medicine. They had fuel, working solar panels that they were willing to trade. If the road was gone, someone needed to find another way through. And unfortunately, that someone was apparently you.

The head of this makeshift council suddenly slid a folder across the table in your direction, and you stared at it before flicking your eyes to her, then back at the folder.

"No."

"An excellent opening argument," she said.

"-It's a complete argument."

"You haven't even opened it, I suggest you do."

"I don't need to." A few people around the table snorted, all except her.

"The route needs to be surveyed."

"Then survey it."

"I haven't left the walls in six months."

"That sounds like a you problem."

A twitch appeared near her eye at your stubborn rebuttal. Progress, at least you assumed as much.

"You know the road network better than anyone here."

"Yeah, but only because I drove it."

"See? That’s exactly why you’ve been selec-”

"-Before the world got eaten."

The silence that followed left a thickness in your throat that pulled an unease out of everyone. But nobody corrected you, no one dared encroached on that. Besides, the world hadn't technically been eaten, that was simply the easiest way to describe it.

One year ago there had been highways. Cities full of life and people. Cities with streetlights, cell towers… Now there was mostly the Rotwood and the far and few settlements that dotted the landscape. No one understood exactly how it had happened, just that one day people were discussing rising food costs and failing infrastructure, and a few months later, roots were bursting through apartment floors in the middle of the night. The forest hasn’t stopped growing since.

The woman folded her arms across her chest and looked down her nose at you, "You won't be alone, at least."

You immediately distrusted the tone of her voice and narrowed your eyes at her, "Who?"

She smiled, it was a poor attempt at one, but a smile nonetheless. The kind people used when the answer was going to make your day worse.

"König."

The room went quiet and your stomach dropped.

"Oh."

"That's usually the response." Arguing was no use here. You pulled the folder toward you and opened it to find scraps of map, mostly. A handwritten list of what Dornau had last offered in trade and a photograph of the old western road that had been taken from the makeshift-watchtower around four months ago. They acted as if the road still looked the same, and you stared at it for a second before flipping it face-down. You were to accept that you’d been ‘unanimously selected’ to pack your shit and find a way back to Dornau. They called it a mission, a survey. They called it, with straight faces, an ‘opportunity’. Nobody in that room said the word ‘expendable,’ but it sat at the table with you anyway, weighing your stomach down like lead. “You leave at dawn.” “Fine.” •·················•·················•

You zipped your rucksack shut and felt the tension in your thighs as you resist the urge to launch the whole bag across the room and into the wall. ‘Bullshit’, you thought, and then said it out loud. “Bullshit… absolute bullshit.” Your breath plumed in the cool morning air and the echo you gave yourself was a comfort in the weighted tension that dawn gave. But the curse gave no relief as the clock ticked the seconds away, night melting into day. You stood from your bunk and drug the bag closer before shouldering it, shucking the weight of the pack from shoulder to shoulder, feeling the ache set into the hinge of your arm and the base of your neck before you’d even stepped a foot outside. You caught a glimpse of yourself in the partially-broken mirror near the front door, taking note of yourself: jaw set and chin lifted. A facade of bravery that you’d have to carry the weight of the moment you walked out. Once outside, every neighbor, every 'friend' and 'foe' alike kept their eyes cast to the ground. You told yourself it didn't matter, and maybe it didn't.. Someone near the gate cleared their throat and looked away before you could catch their eye, and you felt something ugly rise in your chest - gratitude, maybe, that no one was watching, or something closer to its opposite. You'd heard the stories. Seen the way people came back unlike themselves only to disappear nights later. Your feet kept moving anyway, which was either courage or just the absence of a better option, until your eyes landed on him. He was unmistakable. Even hunched over a pack in the early morning fog, he had the kind of size that made the space around him feel borrowed. Dressed in fatigues that had been hand-repaired several times over and a worn balaclava that left him all but featureless aside from those ocean eyes that carried night after night of sleeplessness. You could only wonder how he fit through the doors in the settlement and whether or not Waldheim even had a bed for someone like him. And as you approached, he regarded you as one might a fish left floundering on a riverbank: not unkindly, but with a private amusement that suggested he wasn't entirely surprised. “Take off your rucksack. Show me your things.”

You pulled the ruck from your shoulders without a word and set it down, unzipping it and stepping back. He crouched and went through it with gloved hands - flashlight, water filter, purification tablets, field knife, antiseptic, the maps, compass, cordage, two pairs of socks, insect repellant, bandages. He turned the last of your coffee over once in his palm before setting it back. The MRE’s he stacked to one side were reorganized, then he packed it all back the way he'd found it and stood, and his eyes went to the wall of trees that once was the western road.

"The woods aren't like before," he said. "Growing fast again, ja? Must be angry."

You waited, but that was all he gave you before the gate opened. One guard spat over his boot and nodded to you, the motion dry and terminal and the other simply just opened the gate, muttering a quick ‘good luck’ under his breath. And before you knew it, the gate was already swinging closed behind you, the clang of the latch echoing like a starter’s pistol, and König was walking forward with a stride that said the only way out of this was through. You hesitated a beat, half expecting him to look back, acknowledge you as a teammate, or at least a grunt of a goodbye at the wall, but he was all business, a silhouette bulking rapidly into the dark edge of the tree line.

You hustled to catch up, toes of your boot meeting and catching the roots that buckled the tarmac underfoot, making each step a negotiation with your ankles, but your mind was already outpacing your body, running through every rumor, every apocryphal tale of the Rotwood. All of them ended with someone gone, or changed, or worse. The trees here looked as if they’d been poured out of the sky: too thick, too tall, packed side by side so tightly in some spaces that you couldn’t throw a stick between them. You imagined the old road still running underneath, a black ribbon suffocating in ancient roots, the last gasp of the old way dying beneath.

König didn’t pause at the treeline; he simply slipped through the gap between two peat-colored trunks and vanished, the camouflage of his fatigues merging instantly with the ambiguous dark. You followed, the air instantly shifting from needle-toothed morning cold to a humid petrichor-heavy air that made the hairs on your neck stand up. The sounds changed, too. Gone were the familiar sounds of the settlement, the squabbling chickens, the diesel cough of generators, the low chatter of old neighbors.. They were all severed in an instant. In their place rose a breathing, rustling quiet, thick with the scent of wet earth and things growing too fast. Every leaf held a separate tension; every shadow seemed to pulse with a slow, deliberate malice. “H-Hey! Wait up!” Your voice went nowhere, immediately suffocated in the churned loam and thunderous silence pressing up from the roots below. The sound of your call was devoured before it had traveled a hand’s length in front of your face, as if the trees themselves had breathed it in, tasted your attempt at intrusion, and dismissed it. König didn’t slow but rotated his head a fraction, giving you a warning in the form of a single, stern glance - something behind the eyes that said, ‘If you keep making noise, one of us is not coming back.’ You swallowed the rest of your shout and kept your eyes low, pace doubled to close the gap without incident. The lesson was already written: in the Rotwood, only an idiot announced themselves. Idiots and inhabitants, anyways. You tailed him deeper, yours ears pricked for the unnatural stillness. Birds did not sing, there were no insect sounds, no wind. After twenty, thirty minutes, you realized you’d stopped keeping track of time, or distance, or cardinal direction for that matter. Maybe König could navigate, maybe not. You were already disoriented, uncertain if you’d gone a hundred meters or over a kilometer. The trunks were packed so tight that the light above was trapped in a permanent twilight, the colors shifting between bloody brown and putrefied gold as leaves above caught stray rays and filtered them through furious chlorophyll. Then there was a sudden rustling to your left. You jerked, your hand moving to the hilt of your knife before you even realized it and König simply kept walking. You want to say his name, but the syllables won’t even form on your tongue. Instead, you pivot just enough to put the noise at your twelve and narrow your eyes, squinting through the tight, oily filament of light that seeps in sideways. On the surface, nothing stirs: the trunks are massive, their bark both old and new and deeply fissured, and the ground is a quilt of last year’s leaf mold and spongy peat, all twined together with roots both hair-fine and thick as sewer pipes. But you know something is there; you heard it, felt it down in the cut where the animal-self resides.

Then the movement comes again, barely more than a twitch, and your eyes catch the suggestion of motion above shoulder height. In another life, in another world, you’d have said it was wind, a branch shifting. Instead, it is something darker: a tremble in the air itself, a sense of gaze and presence so complete you nearly drop into a crouch out of instinct to make yourself smaller. You fumble for the logic of it, for a way to explain what you’re seeing - branches, yes, but not branches, not alive, more like the memory of limbs reaching for light that isn’t here - and you take a slow step back, your heel sinking into mud.

The silence pushes in and swallows whatever breath, whatever words you’d planned - only to be broken once more. A familiar voice slipped into the hum and hit the soft spot beneath your ribs. “You always did run toward the wrong things, didn’t you?” Just the shape of the words, not the sound - like a sentence spoken in a dream, perfectly familiar, impossible to recall. The accent, the rhythm, the.. everything.. right up until it snapped, shredded, and was cut off by the wall of a body, the literal meat of König, crowding out sensation. His gloved hand clamped around your bicep with careful force, more restraint than threat, more warning than comfort.

He studied your face with a peculiar totality, as if trying to count every beat of terror and outrage in your skin. Then he made a barely audible click in his throat and jerked his chin forward and up - eyes on the woods, not on you. It was his soldier’s way of saying ‘move’, you think. You let yourself be pulled along, the mud beneath your boots squelching in subtle protest, and you tried to shake the voice from the soft meat of your memory.

But it lingered.

You walked with König, feeling his stride like a metronome set to military time, but your mind kept snagging on the echo of that whisper. Was it memory? Hallucination? You’d been told the Rotwood played tricks, sure. But this was something else. It clawed at you, the near-certainty that someone had spoken directly into the labyrinth of your mind, twisting it into a smaller, meaner shape. The inflection, the cadence, the way it flicked the tip of each word - all of it sewn into your brain by years of dull familiarity. A simulacrum with just enough longing in the vowels to excavate marrow-deep ache. You were so sure it must have been real that you turned, slow as prey, expecting to find the source wearing a face or a body, but the only thing that met your eyes was the familiar - or not so familiar - sight of the Rotwood. Eventually König released your arm and began forward once more, his bulk carving through the trees as if expecting them to part for him. You wanted to grab him, to scream his name and demand that he explain why the forest could speak your memories into a false existence, but you settled for stumbling after him, jaw clenched tight. The roots shifted underfoot, bulging upward like someone tugged a rope, and you tripped and fell, palm-first, and the taste of leaf mold and something bitter filled your mouth. You pushed up into a squat, spit, and choked on the realization that the ground itself was warm and swore that the roots where you’d fallen pulsated in slow, deliberate waves. Almost reminiscent of an animal breathing. You wiped your hand on the thigh of your pants, but the heat stayed with you, crawling up your wrist toward your elbow. König turned at the sounds of your distress, his head cocking as if triangulating the exact flavor of your fear. And in two strides he was on you. "Bist du noch ganz dicht?" Not a hiss, something worse, something pressed flat and airless, like the way you speak when raising your voice would kill you both. He hauled you upright by the arm. "You bleed all over the silence." His thumb dug into the meat of your bicep once, a period at the end of a sentence. "That is what it wants." The accent hit the words like a blade finding the same notch twice.

You gave a soft whine at the pain of his grip and he released you, and, for an instant, you saw something behind his balaclava not entirely made of human concern: a sweep of calculation, something like regret, then he walked ahead. You spat again and made yourself match his pace. You tried not to think about the heat crawling up your veins, but the feeling pressed on your nerves, body itching as if the root’s warmth had left eggs in your skin.

The going only got meaner from there. •·················•·················• You hated the way your knees ached; hated more that the way the old asphalt clung to the edge of your memory but not your feet. Hours bled into each other, the focus of your entire being reduced to not tripping, not losing König’s bobbing head, not screaming when the trees grew so close you had to slide between them sideways, breathing bark and the rot-sweet perfume of sap. It felt as if every dozen meters, the forest changed its mind about what it wanted to be: from humid, fungused tunnels of collapsed branches to wide clearings hung with veils of mist and the latticed structure of vines that seemed to congregate around old human structures. Sunlight faded, or the Rotwood simply denied it, until you were moving blind at times, only able to rely on the flashlights the two of you had brought in.

A thought prodded your memory, remembering that you’d read somewhere that in deep forests, your senses lose calibration. That, deprived of true sound and true light, the mind starts to mistake direction, time, even your own position in the world. By the time König halted, you could not have said whether it was morning or nearly dusk, only that the hunger in your gut had bloomed into a second, more bestial self when he suddenly decided to put a hand back to halt you. König tilted his head, cocking an ear toward the hush ahead. Then with all the care of an animal deciding whether to trot out onto the ice, he peeled his pack off, signaled for silence, and squatted. The gesture was clear: Stay put. Watch. Wait.

You went to the ground beside him, your breath a bitter cloud stifled against the crook of your elbow, and peered into the low gloom. At first, only layers of bark and root, all depth and no movement. König’s hand slid back and snared your wrist, pressing your palm flat to the earth. At first, you recoiled, then felt it: a faint thump, not unlike the rhythm of a heart, muffled but distinct. Then a hum, subtle, through the loam. König’s head swiveled, and he put his lips almost to your ear: “Down.”

You pressed yourself prone, cheek against black soil, and the taste of the earth, iron and acid, filled your jaw. Somewhere ahead, the root-heartbeat deepened and stretched, and then something moved.

Across the clearing, it appeared; a thing like a deer, but taller, gaunter. The shape did not fit your standard Stag, too tall, too thin, a rack of antlers blooming from the head like an explosion of root and bone. You braced yourself for an animal, then for the ruined parody of the thing it used to be.

But even with all the warnings, the stories and your own instinctual dread, you were not prepared for the way it moved. The animal, if it was still an animal, limped and swayed, its limbs impossibly long, its body a coalescence of maggoty sinew and rot-laced fur that barely held together. Its ribs pinched the skin into lacy webs, and parts of its hide flaked off, revealing a thick, twisted ichor that oozed between exposed vertebrae. The antlers were wider than your own arm span, not antler at all but fused fibers and twisted root that still bled, the velvet hanging like the gored flesh of a fresh kill. Its jaw worked side to side as it walked, broken, unhinged and empty but for splinters of bark, and what should have been eyes were simply wet holes, raw and gaping. Its hooves didn’t make a sound aside from the vibrational hum that vibrated through the ground. It stepped and paused, nostrils flaring as if sifting the world for molecules of you. A rank dread peeled your ribs apart, like the memory of a belt whipping across your back - a childish, primal humiliation. If you could have stopped your own heart, you would have, for fear the thing might taste it. But you didn’t have time to process the impossible thing you were seeing before a fist of stench slammed into your face. It was raw, animal, but abraded through the filter of organic rot and ammonia that only comes from something that should never have lived. König’s hand was at your mouth before your diaphragm could choose between retching and screaming, gloved fingers crushing you silent as the Stag’s head snapped up, the antlers spidering a shadow across the ground. Its gaze was a searchlight, and though its face had no eyes, you felt it burn through the marrow of your bones with the precision of an autopsy scalpel.

Then it made a sound, nothing like that of a standard deer, no, it was a vocalization torn apart by the half-life of its corrupted throat. A sickening, liquid wheeze like wet leaves sucked through a drain, like the sound organs make when spilled from a gutted animal. The noise struck you as exactly what the end of the world would sound like if it had a mouth. König’s grip tightened and suddenly, every muscle in your body became static, waiting for the engine of horror to lurch or charge. Instead, the thing simply inhaled. If air were currency, this was theft; it flickered its nostrils so violently the skin at the bridge tore further, splitting wide enough to weep a line of coagulated blood.

And then it did something you could not have prepared for: it reared, it’s rear legs splintering off blunt bone where hoof met hock, and twisted its entire being toward the darkened woods. The backward articulation of its legs was so sharp and abrupt that even König flinched, and you bit your own tongue in the effort not to scream. An entire bouquet of sick sweetness and ammonia lathered your throat and König’s hand, and for a moment you thought you’d black out. The Stag was gone. One heartbeat it was there, the next, it had vanished into the thick behind a maze of branches.

You waited. König waited. The only evidence that anything had happened at all was the stench burning the insides of your nostrils, and the black blood-like resin that had spilled from the roots where the Stag’s hooves buckled the ground. Only when König finally released his hand did you realize you’d been holding your breath for at least a count of thirty. Your jaw ached from the pressure, and you spat again, except this time it was blood, the copper tang mixing with the aftertaste of decay. You didn’t even register the pain. “It did not scent us as prey,” König said, and the way he said it, low, almost to himself, made it worse. “This is.. strange..” Your body returned to you in a series of violent failures: the coppery slick flood under your tongue, the tremor that began deep in your chest and seized your limbs until your hands were shaking so badly you couldn’t have held a bullet. Your breath hitched and caught, a wet, broken sound like a damaged engine refusing to turn over. You ground your knuckles into the dirt, trying to press the memory out through your bones, to force yourself back into the shape of a person who hadn’t witnessed the world peel back to show its rotting heart.. But König was already methodically searching the treetops. “We stop here tonight,” he stated, his voice flat, and he did not turn toward you again. And that was alright with you.

Chapter 6 - Total Annihilation

Chapter 7 - Crumbs

Chapter 8 - Dance of the Dragon

Chapter 9 - Favour

Chapter 10- Gallantry and Bravery

Chapter 11 - Remedy

Chapter 12 - Storm Chaser

Chapter 13 - Issa Jorrāelagon

Chapter 14 - Secrets and Sapphires

Chapter 15 - Forfeit

Chapter 16 - Uncle

Chapter 17 - Green

Chapter 18 - Vhagar

Chapter 19 - Criminals

Chapter 20 - Coming Soon

Aesthetic 1

His hand reached automatically toward the bedside table, searching for a weapon that had not been there in years. His fingers found only the folded black balaclava, placed precisely where he always left it, and he dragged it over his head as he crossed the room. The fabric settled over his face with the familiarity of skin. There had been a time when he had worn it because anonymity was useful, because a man became something else when his features disappeared and all that remained were his eyes. Now he wore it because being seen without it felt more naked than undressing.

Another crash sounded from across the hall.

Wood splitting.

A man swearing.

Then your voice, sharp with panic. “Get away from me.”

Something inside König went silent.

Not calm, calm was human. This was the absolute stillness of an animal lowering itself into the grass before it struck.

“Liebling,” he breathed, though there was no possibility you could hear him through the wall.

He opened his apartment door.

The corridor beyond was narrow and dim, lit only by the jaundiced bulb near the stairs. Your door stood partly open, though not because you had invited anyone inside. The frame had given way around the lock, splintered wood hanging from the wall in pale strips. A crowbar lay near the threshold and one of your shoes had been knocked into the hallway.

The man inside your apartment had his back to König.

He was average in every way that mattered—average height, average build, the kind of man who had probably spent his whole life mistaking women’s fear for proof of his own power. He had one hand twisted into the sleeve of your shirt and the other raised in warning while you fought to pull away from him.

“Stop moving,” he snapped. “I said stop.”

You struck at him with your free hand.

It was a poor blow, clumsy with terror, but it caught the edge of his cheek. His expression changed instantly and whatever he had come there to steal became secondary to the humiliation of being resisted.

“You little—”

The floor creaked behind him.

The man turned.

At first he looked irritated, then his gaze travelled upward.

And upward.

The corridor seemed to contract around König’s body. He stood barefoot in black sweatpants and a dark shirt, shoulders so broad they nearly filled the doorway behind him. At over two metres tall, he had grown accustomed to making rooms feel inadequate, but in that cramped hallway his size became something obscene. The ceiling seemed to lower over his head and the walls appeared to close behind him, sealing the only way out.

The balaclava erased his face completely.

There was no mouth to reason with and no expression from which to measure mercy. Only two pale eyes remained, fixed without blinking on the hand gripping you.

He looked less like a neighbour awakened by noise and more like the thing the noise had summoned.

The intruder released your sleeve.

“What the fuck?”

König said nothing.

He stepped inside.

One step. Slow and measured.

The man stumbled backward.

There was something deeply wrong about the quietness of him. A man of König’s size should have moved heavily. He should have announced himself in groaning floorboards and laboured breath. Instead, he crossed the apartment with the silence of something that had spent years approaching sleeping men without waking them.

“Stay back,” the intruder warned.

König’s gaze moved briefly to you.

You stood beside the kitchen counter in a thin sleep shirt and bare feet, one hand pressed against your throat. There was a red mark around your wrist where the man had held you, and a thin line of blood at your temple.

You were alive.

But you had been touched.

The distinction mattered terribly.

“I’m here, Schatz,” König said, and the tenderness of the words was made monstrous by the way he continued staring at the intruder. “Look at me. Not him.”

Your eyes found his.

“That’s it,” he murmured. “Keep looking at me, mein Herz.”

The intruder reached down for the crowbar.

König crossed the room before the man’s fingers touched it.

The years of violence had taught him that speed was not frantic. Real speed was economical, that there was no wasted movement, no flourish, and no warning. One moment the man was bending toward the floor and the next König’s hand had closed around the back of his jacket, gathering fabric and flesh together in a grip so complete the man’s breath left him before his feet did.

König lifted him.

A grown man came off the ground as effortlessly as if gravity had chosen not to apply in König’s presence.

“What—wait—”

König drove him into the wall easily.

The plaster cracked outward behind the man’s shoulders and a framed print fell and shattered. Somewhere in the apartment your cat hissed, but König barely registered the sound.

The intruder clawed at his wrist.

König’s arm did not tremble.

It was not simply that he was stronger, strength implied a contest, but that this was something else entirely. The difference between them was so complete that the man’s resistance became embarrassing, the frantic kicking of an insect caught beneath a glass.

“You broke into her home,” König said.

His voice was quiet beneath the balaclava, almost gentle.

That was what finally broke the man’s nerve.

“I didn’t—”

“You put your hands on her.”

“Listen, man—”

König slammed him into the wall a second time.

“I am listening.”

The bulb above them flickered and for half a second König disappeared into darkness, and when the light returned he seemed to have moved closer without crossing the space between them.

The man began to choke.

He was beginning to realize that whatever rules governed ordinary violence did not apply here. There would be no shouting match, no exchange of threats, no opportunity to run while anger made the larger man careless. König was not angry in any recognizable way. He was attentive, deliberate and horribly present.

“Please,” the man whispered.

König tilted his head.

“You did not stop when she said that.”

Then, he threw him.

___

Later, when König caught you before your knees struck the floor, the violence vanished from him so suddenly it might never have existed.

One moment he had been kneeling over a ruined man with blood soaked into the fabric of his shirt and pants; the next his arm was around your waist, holding you with such restraint that even his fingertips seemed afraid of leaving another mark on you.

“I’ve got you, Liebling.”

“I can stand.”

“No.”

“König—”

“No, mein Herz.” His voice dropped until it was meant only for you. “You have been brave enough. Let me carry you now.”

He slipped one arm beneath your knees and the other behind your back. Your body left the floor without effort. There was no grunt of exertion, no need for him to adjust his grip. He simply rose, unfolding to his full, impossible height with you held securely against his chest.

Your cat brushed against König's boot, purring quietly before following a step behind him.

König glanced down briefly. "Persistent."

"So is he."

His eyes lifted to yours.

"Let's go."

____

When the officer told him to put you down, König’s arms tightened almost imperceptibly around you.

“Sir,” the officer repeated, his hand hovering near his holster, “put the woman down.”

König looked at him.

The officer was not a small man, but beneath König’s gaze he seemed to become aware of every vulnerable part of his own body. His throat, his wrists, the unprotected space beneath his ribs.

“She cannot stand,” König said.

“We have paramedics coming.”

“Then they can examine her inside.”

“You don’t give the orders here.”

König took one slow step forward and the officer’s hand closed around the grip of his weapon.

You felt the change move through König’s body. Not tension, but readiness. Beneath your cheek, his heartbeat remained unnervingly slow.

“König,” you whispered.

His eyes lowered to yours at once.

“Please.”

That single word did what the officer’s weapon could not and König stepped back.

“Of course, Liebling.”

The officer stared at you, then at the giant masked man who had obeyed you without hesitation and something like unease crossed his face.

Not because König was out of control.

Because he clearly was not, but because everyone in the corridor had just learned who controlled him.

____

The couch was comfortable.

More comfortable than you had expected, actually. König had argued against it the moment you insisted, standing in the middle of the living room like a dark, immovable monument while you pointed out the obvious.

You fit on the couch.

He did not.

Even sitting, his knees nearly reached the low table in front of it, and the thought of all six-foot-ten of him folded awkwardly beneath a blanket had been enough to make the decision for both of you. He had protested anyway, of course, his voice low and stubborn behind the balaclava, but you had refused to let the man who had already thrown himself through your front door and nearly beaten someone to death for you spend the rest of the night twisted painfully across a sofa half his size.

Eventually, he had given in.

Reluctantly.

Now, lying beneath one of his blankets with your cat curled against the bend of your knees, you almost regretted winning.

The fabric smelled like him.

Clean soap, something earthy, and the faint trace of gunpowder that seemed to cling to him no matter how many times he showered. It should have been comforting. Instead, it made you painfully aware that he was only down the hall, behind a half-closed door, separated from you by a few metres and every feeling neither of you had dared to name.

You stared at the ceiling until your eyes began to burn and the ache between your legs only spread hotter.

It was no use.

You shouldn't have been thinking about him like this, not after everything that had happened. But every time you closed your eyes, you saw him standing between you and the man who had broken into your home. You remembered how effortlessly he'd lifted you into his arms, how easily he'd carried you to safety, and the memory sent a slow wave of heat through your body that you couldn't bring yourself to fight.

Carefully, you eased your legs out from beneath the cat and stood. He lifted his head, blinked at you once, then tucked his nose beneath his paw and went back to sleep.

The hallway was dark, lit only by the weak silver of rain slipping through the windows. You moved quietly, though you knew it was pointless. König seemed to hear everything. A shift in breathing, the smallest catch of fabric, the soft press of bare feet against hardwood.

His bedroom door was open.

You paused outside it.

He was awake.

Of course he was.

König sat against the headboard with one knee drawn beneath the blanket, a book open in one hand and the lamp beside him casting a low, amber glow across the room. He had changed into a black T-shirt and loose sweatpants, but the balaclava remained in place like it always did.

The moment your shadow crossed the doorway, his head lifted and the book closed immediately.

“What’s wrong?”

There was no sleep in his voice. Only a quiet, instant concern that settled over you more completely than any blanket could have.

You curled your fingers against the doorframe. “Nothing.”

His eyes narrowed slightly at your unconvincing answer, and both of you knew it.

“I can’t sleep,” you admitted.

Something in his shoulders loosened, though not entirely. “Come here.”

The words came so quickly that for a second you wondered whether he had been waiting for you.

You looked at the bed, then back at him. It was large, made larger still by how little space he seemed to occupy despite the impossible breadth of him. He had kept himself confined to one side, as though some part of him had already imagined making room.

“König—”

“Liebling.” His voice softened. “Come here.”

That was all it took.

You crossed the room and slid beneath the blanket, keeping a careful stretch of mattress between you. The bed dipped beneath your weight, barely noticeable compared to the deep pull of his body beside yours.

König watched you settle.

Then he looked at the space between you.

“You can come closer.”

Heat climbed into your face despite the coolness of the room. “I’m fine here.”

“You came into my room because you couldn’t sleep.”

“That doesn’t mean I need to be on top of you.”

A pause.

“No,” he said, quieter now. “I suppose it doesn’t.”

Something in the way he said it made your stomach twist. You turned onto your side, facing him. “Were you reading?”

“Trying to.”

“You were waiting.”

His eyes shifted back to yours, but he did not bother denying it.

The silence that followed was different from the ones before. It was no longer empty. It felt full to the point of breaking, crowded with the weight of everything that had happened and everything that had nearly happened with it.

König set the book on the nightstand.

“I heard you moving around out there,” he said.

“You could have told me to come in.”

“I wanted you to choose it.” The words settled somewhere deep in your chest.

Outside, rain dragged slowly down the glass. Inside, the room felt too warm.

You moved closer before you could think better of it, not enough to touch him, but enough that the distance between you no longer felt deliberate.

König went still.

His breathing changed. Barely, but you noticed.

“You look at me like that,” he said after a moment, “and then you wonder why I cannot sleep.”

Your pulse fluttered. “Like what?”

“Like you do not know what it does to me.”

His voice was rougher now, stripped of the careful steadiness he usually held onto so tightly.

You swallowed. “What does it do to you?”

For a long moment, he only stared.

The mask hid almost everything, but his eyes had never learned how to lie to you. Not when he was angry, not when he was frightened and certainly not now, when they dragged over your face with a hunger so controlled it became more intense for all the restraint wrapped around it.

“It makes me want things I have spent a very long time trying not to want.”

Your breath caught.

“König…”

“I have been careful with you.” His hand shifted against the blanket, fingers curling into the fabric. “More careful than you know.”

You looked down at the movement, at the tension running through his knuckles.

“Why?”

A humourless breath left him. “Because once I start touching you, I do not think I will want to stop.”

The room seemed to narrow around you.

He turned his head away, as though the confession had cost him something.

“I have imagined it too many times,” he continued, each word quieter than the last. “What you would feel like beneath my hands. What sounds you would make if I touched you properly. How long I could keep you there before you forgot everything except me.”

Your whole body went warm.

He looked back at you then, eyes sharpening as if searching for any sign that he had gone too far.

“I should not be telling you this.”

“Why not?”

“Because tonight frightened you.”

“You didn’t.”

His gaze dropped.

“You saw what I did.”

“I saw what he did first.”

“That does not make me gentle.”

“No,” you whispered. “But you are with me.”

Something in him broke at that.

Not loudly, not completely, but just enough. His hand lifted, hovering near your face without touching. Even now, even after everything he had said, he waited.

You leaned into his palm.

The contact was immediate and careful. His hand cupped your cheek, warm and impossibly large, thumb resting just beneath your eye. The tenderness of it stood in brutal contrast to the memory of those same hands bloodied in your kitchen.

König’s breath left him slowly. “You should not make this so easy for me.”

“I’m not.”

“No?”

You shook your head against his palm, pressing a kiss to the calloused and rough skin. “You’ve been making it hard for both of us.”

For the first time that night, something almost like a smile softened his eyes before it disappeared again, swallowed by the weight of everything that had happened.

His thumb brushed lightly across your cheek, careful enough that you almost wondered if you'd imagined it.

"I've been trying very hard not to cross this line," he said quietly.

You searched his face, finding only your own reflection in his eyes.

"What line?"

"You."

The word barely rose above a whisper.

"You've been my neighbour for months." He let out a slow breath. "Every morning I'd hear your door before mine. Every evening I'd wonder if you'd made it home safely. I told myself it was nothing."

His gaze drifted away for a moment.

"It stopped being nothing a long time ago."

Your heart stumbled. "And tonight..." His jaw tightened beneath the balaclava. "When I heard you scream..."

He didn't finish the sentence, not that he had to.

"I thought I was too late."

The confession settled heavily between you. Before you could stop yourself, you closed the distance without thinking, your hand finding his where it rested on the blanket.

His fingers twitched beneath yours but didn't move.

"You weren't," you whispered.

"No."

"You found me."

His eyes closed briefly, as though hearing those words eased something that had been holding him together by sheer force of will. When he looked at you again, the guardedness he'd worn since carrying you out of your apartment had finally begun to crack.

"I don't want anything from you tonight," he said. "Not an answer. Not an explanation."

His thumb turned beneath your hand, carefully lacing your fingers together.

"I just needed to know you were alive."

Emotion tightened your throat.

"I am."

"I know."

His voice was impossibly gentle. "I've been repeating that to myself for the last two hours."

Silence settled between you again, softer this time and you shifted a little closer, until your shoulder rested against his arm. He looked down at the point where you touched, then back at you.

"Is this alright?" he asked.

You nodded. "It's more than alright."

Only then did he lift his hand to your face again, resting it lightly against your cheek as though he was still afraid you might disappear before moving down to cup your jaw.

You moved closer again, until your knee brushed his beneath the blanket and König’s fingers tightened lightly at your jaw.

“Liebling.” The warning in his voice was thin.

His eyes searched yours before the words that broke his composure tumbled from your mouth.

“Touch me.”

The air shifted and for one suspended second, neither of you moved.

Then König’s hand slid from your jaw to the side of your neck, his palm covering nearly all of it. His thumb rested beneath your jaw, feeling the frantic beat of your pulse. He drew you closer slowly, giving you every opportunity to pull away.

You did not.

His forehead pressed against yours, the fabric of the balaclava rough against your skin.

“Tell me if I frighten you.”

“You don’t.”

“Tell me anyway.”

“You don’t frighten me.”

His eyes closed.

It was the closest thing to relief you had ever seen from him.

His other hand found your waist beneath the blanket, settling there with such restraint that it almost hurt. He held you as though he had imagined this exact moment so many times that reality had become something sacred, something too fragile to rush.

“I want to touch every part of you,” he murmured. “I want to learn what you like. I want to know what you sound like when you cum.”

Your fingers curled into the front of his shirt.

“König…”

Your fingers caught the front of his shirt, tugging him toward you as you swung one leg over his lap. König's hands found your hips almost instantly, steady and impossibly warm as he guided you the rest of the way until you were settled against him. From where he sat, he had to tilt his head back to meet your eyes, his chest rising and falling beneath your hands as he kept you securely in his lap.

"This is better than I have ever imagined." He whispered.

Your hand slid from his shoulder to the edge of his balaclava, your fingers catching the worn fabric between your thumb and forefinger. You held his gaze the entire time, giving him every opportunity to stop you.

He didn't.

Slowly, you folded the fabric just high enough to uncover his mouth.

His lips parted on a quiet breath, but there was no hesitation in his eyes. If anything, they darkened.

"So," he murmured, his voice lower than before, "this is what you've been thinking about."

Heat rushed to your face.

"I..."

A corner of his mouth lifted into the faintest hint of a smile.

"I was wondering how long it would take."

Your fingers were still resting against the fabric when his hand closed gently around your wrist. Not to stop you, just to keep it there.

"You should know something before you keep looking at me like that, Liebling."

Your pulse hammered beneath his fingertips.

"If you kiss me..."

He leaned in until only a breath separated the two of you.

"...I'm not going to pretend it doesn't mean anything."

You searched his eyes for even the smallest hint of doubt, but you found none.

"Kiss me," you whispered.

"I was planning to."

The words had barely left his mouth before he closed the distance.

His lips found yours with quiet certainty—unhurried, deliberate, as though he'd imagined this moment enough times to know exactly how he wanted it to happen. One hand settled firmly at your waist while the other remained around your wrist, his thumb brushing absently over your pulse as he held you there for a heartbeat longer before finally pulling back.

When he opened his eyes again, they hadn't left yours once.

"...There," he said, his voice rough with satisfaction. "I've wanted to do that for a very long time."

You moaned softly when he rolled his hips up against yours. Shit, you thought, there was no way. He felt impossibly big under you, but the thought of being spread open like that, cunt stretching around him, only made your panties even slicker.

There was no turning back now. The look in König's eyes made that abundantly clear.

With effortless strength, he shifted your weight beneath him until your back met the mattress. This close, there was no mistaking the heat of his cock pressed against your core. He didn't say a word—he didn't have to. His mouth found the curve of your neck as one hand settled against your hip.

"Are you going to let me take care of you now, Schatz?" he murmured against your skin.

"Yes," you breathed, the word barely more than a whisper.

He barely looked human like this.

His eyes were dark with restrained desire, the balaclava still concealing most of his face, leaving only his mouth exposed. His jaw was tense, one sharp canine catching his bottom lip as though he was holding himself back by sheer force of will.

The thin fabric of your sleep shirt disappeared in one swift motion, leaving your skin exposed to the cool night air. A shiver ran through you as his hand settled at your waist, his fingers catching the waistband of your underwear while his gaze roamed over you with quiet, unmistakable hunger.

"I need to see you, Liebling," he murmured, his voice rough. "I need to taste you."

A low, restrained sound rumbled in his chest before he settled between your parted legs, staring at your begging cunt with nothing but greed in his gaze.

"Scheiße."

Then his mouth found you with a hunger that stole the air from your lungs. He lingered there, relentless and unhurried all at once, as though he couldn't get enough of you, as though every second only left him wanting more. Your body trembled beneath him, your fingers twisting the sheets while he held you there with unwavering focus, utterly consumed by you.

"You are," he licked a stripe up your pussy, "trembling" He sucked on your clit, popping it from his mouth only to look up and witness just how fast you were falling apart.

The laugh that left your lips was humourless. I'm going to die, you thought, when he slid two fingers into you and began pumping them in and out while hooking them deep inside of you.

You barely had time to recognize you were going to come, your walls clenching around him, legs shaking on his shoulders.

"That's it," Oh God, he was going to talk you through it.

Tears welled in your eyes, almost burning as hot as the knot in your core was.

"Stay with me." He said against your spasaming pussy. "I've got you, Liebling. I'll catch you."

You came apart beneath him, a broken sob catching in your throat as you bit down hard enough on your lip to taste blood. The intensity left your head spinning, every coherent thought slipping away while he kept you firmly beneath him, completely at his mercy.

"You have no idea what you've unleashed," König growled.

In one swift motion, he pulled his shirt over his head before discarding the rest of his clothes without ever taking his eyes off you. The balaclava remained firmly in place, concealing everything but his mouth as pale moonlight carved sharp lines across his broad shoulders and powerful frame.

"Fuck," you gaped at him.

His cock stood tall, proud at the way it twitched when his eyes focused on your dripping cunt. Big was an understatement, he was massive.

When he settled over you, his forearms braced on either side of your head, holding you effortlessly beneath him, you realized there was nowhere else you'd rather be.

"Will it..." you stumbled awkwardly, "fit?"

A faint smirk pulled at the corner of his mouth, followed by a low, amused chuckle.

"I will make sure it fits, Liebling."

With one hand at the base of his cock, he pushed the head through your folds, collecting the remnants of your orgasm and slick before you felt him prodding at your entrance.

"Breathe," was all he said before he inched in.

You forgot how. Every muscle in your body locked tight as tension swept through you. A low groan escaped him, and he let his forehead fall against your shoulder, lingering there for a moment as he fought to steady his breathing.

"Schatz," he nearly begged. "I won't ask twice. Breathe."

You exhaled the breath you were holding, willing yourself to relax and he pushed further and deeper in. The stretch burned, but the fullness was otherworldly.

When he bottomed out, his eyes met yours again.

"I knew I'd fit here." His voice wrecked as he applied the slightest of pressure on your lower belly.

Then, his hips snapped against yours. A brutal pace that cause his headboard to knock against the wall with such force you thought you'd end up in the apartment next door.

But you couldn't bring yourself to care—not when König looked as though he was hanging on by the thinnest thread of self-control. A mix of English and German falling from his lips while his eyes were locked on where he disappeared inside of you.

"König," his name fell from your lips naturally and you noticed how his rhythm stuttered when you did.

He liked hearing his name.

So you spoke his name again.

And again.

Until it became less a name and more a prayer, whispered into the darkness like a hymn neither of you deserved to hear. Each repetition unraveled another thread of his restraint, until the man who had survived battlefields and bloodshed sounded as though he was pleading for a salvation only you could ever grant.

"I'm yours, tell me, Schtaz. Tell me I'm yours." He begged as his hips bore in and out of you at a bruising pace and fuck how could you deny him.

"I'm yours. All yours."

A raw, broken sound escaped him as the last of his composure gave way. He sank his teeth against the curve of your neck, holding you with a fierce, almost desperate tenderness, as though he feared that if he loosened his grip for even a moment, you might disappear.

His cum came leaking out of you almost immediately, coating your thighs and the sheets as he barely held himself up over you, breath fanning over your face.

He looked at you for a long time, saying nothing. Whatever storm had lived behind his eyes all night had finally settled into something far more dangerous—certainty. There was no hesitation left, no doubt, only the quiet acceptance of a man who had reached the end of one life and stepped willingly into another.