#soulmark

Niklaus sat on a low, three-legged stool near the secondary hearth, a whetstone held in his palm as he rhythmically scraped it against the edge of a iron hunting knife. He was a creature of contradictions in this space smaller than his brother Elijah, lighter of foot, his hair the color of autumn leaves under a gray sky, curling wildly where the others wore theirs in severe, grease-braided plaits. His hands, though calloused from the plow and the bow, were different. They were the hands of a boy who spent his stolen hours scratching charcoal figures onto smooth river stones or carving intricate wooden birds for his sister Rebekah.

Across the fire pit, Elijah sat with a posture that belonged more to a chieftain than a youth who had not yet seen twenty-five winters. A tallow candle guttered on the heavy oak table beside him, and by its greasy light, Elijah had rolled back the heavy sleeve of his wool tunic. His eyes, dark and heavy with a quiet, solemn reverence, were fixed upon the flesh of his inner forearm.

There, etched into the pale skin in lines as dark and precise as a monk’s ink, were the words of his destined one. They were beautiful, sweeping characters in a tongue that none of them spoke a dialect their mother, Esther, had muttered was old even when the Roman Empire fell. Elijah traced the letters with a long, clean finger, his expression soft, detached from the harsh reality of the frozen village outside.

"Still staring at the ghost-script, brother?"

The voice was a sharp, mocking crackle that cut through the low rumble of the hall. Kol slid onto the bench beside Elijah, a carved horn of mead swinging carelessly from his fingers. Kol was barely seventeen, his eyes bright with a manic, restless energy that the mundane chores of the settlement could never quite tame. He wore his tunic loose at the collar, deliberately exposing the base of his throat where his own mark resided.

Kol’s mark was a jagged, aggressive script, written in letters that looked like broken twigs or shattered bone. It had appeared the previous winter, and he had spent the subsequent months boasting to anyone who would listen vassals, thralls, and the village girls who gathered by the streamnthat his woman would clearly be a shield-maiden of unmatched ferocity.

"Let him be, Kol," Niklaus muttered without looking up from his knife. The whetstone made a sharp shhhk-shhhk against the metal. "At least Elijah’s words do not look like they were carved by a blind woodcutter during a fit of the sweating sickness."

Kol laughed, a loud, barking sound that drew an irritated grunt from their father, Mikael, who sat at the far end of the hall cleaning a massive bearded axe. At the sound of Mikael's movement, a heavy, suffocating silence momentarily rippled through the immediate circle of brothers. Niklaus felt his shoulders instinctively tense, his fingers tightening around the hilt of the knife until his knuckles turned the color of lard.

Mikael did not look at them, but the mere presence of the patriarch was an anvil sitting upon Niklaus’s chest. To Mikael, the marks were an annoyance—a distraction from the grim business of survival, a weakness of the flesh that Esther’s magic or the old gods had saw fit to inflict upon men to make them soft.

Once Mikael returned to his scraping, Kol leaned closer across the table, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper that still carried plenty of sting.

"At least my words are legible, Niklaus. At least I have a name to dream of. Tomorrow is the solstice. The turn of your eighteenth winter. The eve of your naming by the ink." Kol leaned forward, a malicious grin baring his teeth. "Are you not eager? Or are you afraid the gods will look upon you and forget to give you a mark at all? A man without a word is no man at all in the eyes of the village. Just an empty vessel."

The words hit exactly where Kol intended them to. Niklaus’s jaw tightened so hard a muscle twitched in his cheek. He didn't answer. He kept his eyes on the iron blade, his heart hammering against his ribs like a trapped sparrow.

He was afraid. He was terrified.

Every night for the past month, he had lain awake under his wolf-pelts, his skin prickling with a nervous, sweaty dread. In their culture, the soul-mark was everything. It was the only objective truth in a world full of lies, disease, and sudden death by the teeth of the wild beasts that roamed the woods during the full moon. It was proof that you belonged somewhere. That you were seen by the cosmos.

Elijah looked up from his forearm, slowly pulling his sleeve down with his characteristic, deliberate dignity. He cast a warning look at Kol before turning his gaze toward Niklaus. There was kindness in Elijah's eyes, but it was a heavy, patronizing kindness that Niklaus often found harder to bear than Kol’s outright mockery.

"Do not let him provoke you, Niklaus," Elijah said softly, his voice smooth like oil on water. "The transition is different for every man. When my eighteenth winter came, the ink took three days to fully rise. It is a sacred weight. When your time comes tonight, you will receive the words that will anchor your spirit to this earth, just as we have."

And what if they are the words of a hag?" Kol chimed in, snickering into his mead horn. "Or a woman from across the salt-sea who speaks only in the clicks of frogs? You’ll be spending your life building a boat just to find a girl who wants to know if you've fed the swine."

"Enough, Kol," Elijah said, his tone sharpening with a hint of the authority he would one day inherit.

Niklaus stood up abruptly, the stool scraping loudly against the hard-packed dirt floor. He shoved the hunting knife into its leather sheath at his hip and grabbed his heavy woolen cloak from the peg.

"Where are you going?" Elijah asked, his brow furrowing. "The snow is falling thicker now. The wolves will be moving."

"To the stables," Niklaus said shortly, his voice tight. "The mare needs her legs greased against the frost. I would rather spend

my evening with an honest beast than the two of you."

He didn't wait for a response. He turned and strode out of the great hall, his boots thudding against the heavy timbers of the threshold before he plunged into the freezing, dark womb of the winter night.

The air outside was so cold it felt like a physical slap across his face. Niklaus drew his cloak tight around his throat, his breath exploding from his mouth in massive, white plumes that vanished into the darkness. The settlement was quiet, the small, turf-roofed hovels of the villagers looking like frozen mounds of earth under the pale, watery light of a half-moon.

He did not go to the stables. Instead, he walked toward the perimeter of the village, near the wooden palisade where the shadows of the pine trees grew long and tangled. He leaned his back against the rough cedar logs, staring up at the stars that looked like shards of ice scattered across a black velvet sheet.

He pulled his left hand out from beneath his cloak and stared at his bare wrist. The skin was smooth, pale, and entirely empty.

Within a few hours, midnight would strike. The solstice would arrive, and with it, the exact moment of his birth eighteen years ago. He felt a strange, deep-seated ache in his bones—a marrow-deep throb that had been growing since the sun went down. It felt like his blood was thickening, heating up like water in a bronze kettle.

"Let it be something grand," he whispered into the freezing wind, his voice small and stripped of the bravado he forced himself to wear in front of his family. "Let it be the words of a queen. A woman who looks upon the world and sees something more than dirt and blood. A woman who will look at me... and see a king."

He closed his eyes, his mind drifting to the hidden drawings he kept in a hollow tree trunk deep in the woods. Drawings of things he had never seen—vast cities of stone, ships with sails like white clouds, women with hair like spun gold and eyes that held the secrets of the stars. He wanted his mark to reflect that. He wanted it to be the poetry Elijah boasted of, or the fierce promise Kol claimed to possess. He wanted to be special. He wanted to be loved.

A sudden, sharp spasm of pain shot up his arm, so intense that he gasped, dropping to his knees in the crisp snow.

It had begun.

The ache in his bones turned into a white-hot iron rod driven straight through his wrist. Niklaus bit down on the sleeve of his cloaks to stifle a scream, his eyes watering as he fell onto his side in the drifts. It didn't feel like the gentle, gradual rise Elijah had described. This felt like a brand. It felt like a curse.

The skin of his inner left wrist began to blister and peel beneath the heavy wool. The scent of scorched flesh rose into the cold air, sickeningly sweet and thick. It felt as though a invisible knife was digging into his meat, carving out characters with slow, agonizing deliberation. He writhed in the snow, his fingers clawing at the frozen earth, his chest heaving as the heat spread up his arm, settling deep into his chest until his heart beat in time with the excruciating throbbing of the wound.

For what felt like hours, he lay there, the cold of the snow fighting against the unnatural fire in his veins. Slowly, mercifully, the heat began to recede, leaving behind a dull, throbbing ache that made his hand tremble uncontrollably.

Panting, his face covered in a sheen of cold sweat despite the freezing temperature, Niklaus pushed himself up onto his elbows. He dragged himself back into the deeper shadow of the palisade, his heart hammering with a frantic, desperate anticipation.

He rolled back the heavy sleeve of his tunic, his eyes straining in the dim, blue moonlight to see what the fates had gifted him.

The skin was red and raw, the outer layer having peeled away to reveal thick, dark black lines that sat beneath the surface like charcoal ground into an open wound

The characters were entirely unlike anything he had ever seen. They weren't the graceful, looping runes of Elijah's mark, nor were they the sharp, jagged points of Kol’s. They were blocky, precise, and arranged in neat, perfectly even shapes that looked almost mechanical—as if they had been stamped onto his skin by a giant iron press.

He squinted, his mind working furiously to decipher the strange language. Thanks to his mother’s teachings and his own secretive studies of the old parchments she kept hidden in her chests, he could read many scripts. He traced the first block of letters, his brow furrowing as the sounds formed in his throat.

"If... you... are..." he whispered, his voice trembling.

He moved his finger to the next set of runes. The word was bizarre. It didn't fit the tongue of the Northmen, nor the language of the native tribes who lived across the river, nor the Latin of the Southern empires.

"...here... about... the... gum-bo..."

Niklaus stopped. He blinked, rubbing his eyes with his clean hand, convinced that the moonlight was playing tricks on his vision or that the pain had driven him mad. He looked again. The runes remained unchanged. Gumbo.

He continued, his throat dry as dust. "...I... am... about... to... break... your... heart."

The full sentence lay bare upon his skin, a dark, permanent brand against his flesh:

If you’re here about the gumbo, I’m about to break your heart.

Niklaus sat frozen in the snow, the wind whistling through the pines above him, the sound mocking the absolute, crushing silence in his soul.

Gumbo.

What in the name of the high gods was a gumbo? Was it a weapon? A legendary beast? Was it a type of shield? No, it sounded soft. It sounded ridiculous. It sounded like the gurgling of a marsh-toad or the noise a infant made when it choked on its porridge.

And why would this woman this supposed soulmate, this grand destiny he had spent years dreaming of break his heart over it? Was she a threat? Was she an executioner? Or was she simply an idiot?

The romantic illusions he had cultivated for eighteen years shattered into a thousand jagged pieces. He had expected a declaration of eternal loyalty, or at least a warrior's greeting that he could display with pride before his father and brothers. Instead, the universe had carved a piece of nonsensical gibberish onto his flesh.

A deep, hot wave of humiliation washed over him, turning his

face redder than the raw skin of his wrist. If Kol saw this, he would never let him hear the end of it. The whole village would laugh. Mikael would look upon him with even greater disgust, seeing the bizarre, un-warrior-like phrase as ultimate proof that Niklaus was a defective, soft-hearted bastard who didn't belong in their lineage.

"No," Niklaus muttered fiercely, his teeth grinding together until they clicked. "No one can see this. Never."

He frantically reached for his leather hunting wraps the long, thick strips of hide he used to protect his wrists when drawing his bow. With trembling, desperate movements, he began to wind the leather tightly around his left arm, starting from the palm of his hand and working his way up past his forearm. He pulled the leather so tight it restricted the blood flow, turning his fingers pale, but he didn't care. He bound it until every single letter of that wretched, insulting phrase was buried beneath layers of dark, weathered hide.

He pulled his wool sleeve down, shaking out his cloak, and stood up. He felt altered. The vulnerability that had made him weep in the snow was gone, replaced by a cold, hard shell of bitter resentment. The universe had played a joke on him. The fates had looked at Niklaus, the son who never quite fit, and decided he deserved a riddle that tasted like ash.

He walked back to the great hall, his face a mask of iron neutrality. When he pushed the door open, the warmth of the fire hit him, along with the immediate, sharp gaze of Elijah.

"You were gone a long while," Elijah observed, his eyes instantly dropping to Niklaus’s left arm. He noticed the heavy leather wraps immediately. "Niklaus... did it happen?"

Kol leaned forward, his eyes bright with malice. "Let us see it, brother! Show us the words of your grand maiden! Does she promise to bake you bread, or does she tell you to clean the dung from the barn?"

Niklaus walked past them without stopping, heading toward his corner of the sleeping platform. He didn't look at either of them.

"It did not happen," Niklaus said, his voice flat, devoid of any emotion. "The ink did not rise. I am an empty vessel, Kol. Just as you said."

Elijah stood up, his face falling into an expression of deep, profound pity. "Niklaus, that cannot be. Mother said—"

"Mother was wrong!" Niklaus snapped, turning around with a look so fierce, so full of sudden, feral rage that even Kol recoiled slightly. "There is nothing on my skin but dirt and scars. I have no word. I have no one. And I do not wish to speak of it again."

He threw himself onto his sleeping mat, turning his back to the hall and pulling the heavy wolf-pelts over his head. Beneath the furs, he pressed his right hand against the leather wraps on his left wrist, feeling the dull, rhythmic throb of the hidden ink. He hated the words. He hated the woman who would one day speak them.

The winters came and went, and then the world ended in blood and magic.

They were dragged into the dark by their mother’s spells and their father’s pride, turned into monsters that fed upon the living. When Niklaus took his first breath as a vampire, the beast inside him awoke, and the truth of his heritage was revealed. He was a hybrid

half wolf, half vampire

a creature of pure, unadulterated power

And yet, the ink remained.

Even after his mother sealed his werewolf side away, even as they fled across the seas to the old lands of Europe, fleeing the wrath of Mikael, the blocky, precise letters on his wrist never faded. They were a permanent fixture of his eternal flesh, a mockery that refused to rot away.

In the early centuries of his immortality, during the heavy, dark years of the 11th and 12th centuries, a desperate, hidden hope still flickered within him.

He was a creature of vast wealth now, a lord among men, and he used his influence to search.

Whenever the Mikaelson siblings took over a new court in France, in England, or the Italian principalities, Klaus would spend his evenings wandering the dark alleys, the bustling market squares, and the high courts of the nobility. He would compel scholars, poets, and travelers from distant lands, dragging them into his chambers by their throats.

"Tell me what this word means," he would hiss, peeling back his leather cuffs just enough to show them the single, bizarre word: Gumbo.

The scholars would scratch their heads, trembling beneath his dark gaze, reading the letters over and over.

“It is not Latin, My Lord,” they would whisper. “Perhaps a dialect of the East? Or a curse from the dark continent?”

None of them knew. No one had ever heard it.

He looked for her in the plague-ridden streets of London. He looked for her in the grand libraries of Spain. He searched every woman he took to his bed, forcing himself to listen to their first words to him, hoping against hope that some twist of fate would make them utter the ridiculous phrase.

“Mercy, Lord Niklaus,” they would say.

“You are so beautiful, My Lord,” they would whisper.

Never the words. Never the heart-breaking promise.

By the time the 12th century was drawing to a close, the hope had soured into an intolerable, poisonous rage. He was tired of looking for a ghost.

Then, they arrived in the South of France, in the kingdom of Marseille, and Klaus met the De Martel family.

The court of Count de Martel was a place of decadent luxury, silk banners, and endless wine. It was there, amidst the glittering farce of the high nobility, that Klaus first saw Aurora de Martel.

She was magnificent. A creature of pure fire and porcelain skin, with eyes that held a dangerous, fractured brilliance that matched the chaos in his own soul. She did not look at him with the fear that ordinary humans possessed; she looked at him with a predatory, intense fascination.

When they first spoke, her first words to him were beautiful, sharp, and entirely unrelated to his mark

Klaus had frozen, looking down at her. Her words did not match his wrist. He knew, with absolute certainty, that she was not his destined one

The leather wrap beneath his velvet doublet pressed against his skin, a cold reminder of his failure.

But as he looked at Aurora at her beauty, her madness, and the effortless way she slipped into his arms a dark, liberating realization washed over him.

The universe had abandoned him in the snow eight hundred years ago. It had given him a defective, meaningless mark that would never find its match. Why should he care what the fates wanted? Why should he remain a prisoner to a line of black ink?

If the universe refused to give him a queen, he would choose his own.

That night, in the privacy of his chambers, Klaus pulled the leather wraps from his wrist for the first time in centuries. He stared at the blocky, mechanical letters that had tormented his youth. If you’re here about the gumbo, I’m about to break your heart.

He let out a short, sharp laugh a sound full of mockery and ancient pride.

"Let it break," he whispered to the empty room. "I have no heart left to give."

He took a heavy, ornate silver cuff, thick with rubies and sapphires, and clamped it firmly over his wrist, snapping the lock

The heavy crystal chandeliers of the newly rebuilt Mikaelson mansion gleamed with a blinding, superficial brilliance, casting sharp fractals of light across the polished oak floors of the grand ballroom. The air was thick with the scent of fresh wax, expensive floral arrangements, and the faint, underlying ozone of ancient magic.

Niklaus Mikaelson stood near the edge of the mezzanine, his fingers curled so tightly around the balustrade that the thick, dark mahogany groaned beneath the silent, crushing force of his grip. He had discarded his modern jacket for a moment, standing in his stark white dress shirt, the silver cufflinks gleaming like small shields. Beneath the tailored fabric of his left sleeve, tucked neatly under a thick band of protective leather he still wore out of an ancient, unbroken habit, his wrist throbbed. A dull, rhythmic, agonizing heat that had not ceased for ten centuries.

Down below, the ballroom was a hive of activity. Service staff—all thoroughly compelled, their minds scrubbed clean of any free will scurried back and forth, setting up silver trays, adjusting heavy velvet draperies, and polishing champagne flutes. The matriarch of the family, Esther, was returning to the world, and she demanded a spectacle. A grand ball to welcome the Original family back into the social fabric of a world they had helped shape.

But to Klaus, the entire affair felt like a meticulously staged execution. Not of his life, but of his pride.

"Look at them, Tony," Klaus muttered, his voice a low, gravelly vibration that barely carried past the railing.

A few paces behind him, standing rigid and pale in a poorly fitting tuxedo, was one of his newly turned hybrids. The boy, a miserable former football player from the local high school whose mind was caught in a perpetual loop of sire-bond devotion and sheer, unadulterated terror, flinched at the sound of his master's voice.

"Sir?" Tony stammered, shifting his weight nervously from one foot to the other.

"My family," Klaus said, his lips curling back into a sneer that was more wolf than man. He gestured with a dismissive, elegant wave of his hand toward the floor below, where several of his siblings were overseeing the decorations. "The great, intrepid Mikaelson lineage. Lords of the Old World, scourges of the New. A thousand years of spilled blood, burned villages, and broken empires... and what do we have to show for it? A comedy of romantic errors so pathetic it would make a court jester weep."

Tony didn't answer. He simply stared, his eyes wide, praying to whatever gods he had left that he wouldn't say the wrong thing and end up with his heart ripped out before the champagne was even poured.

Klaus turned his gaze to the far corner of the ballroom, where Elijah stood. His older brother was precisely as he always was: immaculate, spine perfectly straight, adjusting a silver serving platter with the agonizingly slow, deliberate dignity of a man who believed the universe still owed him respect.

An unholy, bitter laugh escaped Klaus’s throat. "Look at the noble Elijah. The paragon of virtue. A man who has spent five hundred years pretending he is superior to our baser instincts. And yet, he is nothing more than a dog on a leash. A leash held by a ghost."

Klaus’s mind flashed to the sweeping, elegant script he had seen on Elijah’s collarbone when they were boys in the snow. Those poetic, ancient words had doomed his brother to an eternity of pathetic pining.

The moment Katerina Petrova had stumbled into their lives in England, speaking those exact words with her treacherous, lying lips, Elijah’s fate had been sealed. It didn't matter that she had manipulated them, fled them, turned into the deceitful, conniving Katherine Pierce, or worn a dozen different masks across the centuries. Elijah was still hopelessly bound to her. Even now, in this miserable little Virginia town, Elijah’s eyes still tracked her shadow, his heart still beating to the rhythm of a woman who had spent five hundred years running from them.

"A millennium of wisdom, Tony, and my brother is enslaved by a signature on his skin," Klaus hissed, his eyes flashing a dangerous, volatile gold. "He would let the world burn if it meant Katherine Pierce looked at him with an ounce of sincerity. It’s disgusting."

But Elijah’s pathetic devotion was nothing compared to the insufferable spectacle that was Kol.

Just then, Kol sauntered into the ballroom, his hands shoved carelessly into his pockets, a loud, whistling tune bouncing off his teeth. He looked entirely too pleased with himself, his loose collar deliberately exposing the base of his throat where his jagged, jagged mark resided.

Klaus’s jaw clenched so hard a sharp pain shot up into his temple. Kol had spent the last three days entirely insufferable, practically floating through the mansion because he had finally met his match. The universe, in its infinite, mocking cruelty, had decided that Kol’s brutal, chaotic soul belonged to none other than Bonnie Bennett the modern descendant of the very witch line that had imprisoned them, cursed them, and bound Klaus’s werewolf side for a thousand years.

"And then there is Kol," Klaus whispered, his voice dripping with venom. "My foolish, arrogant brother. He returns from his decades of daggered slumber, and what does he do? He falls straight into the lap of a local witch. A Bennett witch, no less! The very bloodline that has spent centuries trying to put us in the ground.

And Kol won't shut up about it. He struts around my house as if he has conquered a kingdom, all because some teenager with an attitude and a bad haircut muttered the exact words written on his throat. He thinks it’s a victory. He thinks the universe has smiled upon him, when in reality, it has made him a slave to a girl who still has homework to finish."

Tony swallowed hard, nodding rapidly. "Uh, yes, Mr. Mikaelson. Sounds... sounds rough."

"You have no idea," Klaus snapped, turning his eyes toward the grand entryway of the mansion.

Through the double doors, he could see Rebekah. His sister, an Original vampire who had survived the fall of civilizations, a woman who could tear a man's head from his shoulders without breaking a sweat, was currently standing on the porch. She was leaning against the stone pillar, her head tilted, batting her eyelashes with the desperate, hollow hope of a lovesick schoolgirl.

And who was the object of her immortal affection?

Matt Donovan.

Klaus actually had to stop himself from laughing out loud at the absolute, staggering absurdity of it. Matt Donovan was a lowly, completely unremarkable human boy. He smelled of cheap truck oil, stale high school gym sweat, and the greasy, fried food of the local grill where he worked for minimum wage. His only notable quality was a square jaw, a profound lack of imagination, and an uncanny ability to not die despite being surrounded by apex predators. He was the definition of ordinary. A blank canvas of a human being.

Yet, because Rebekah’s skin bore a mark that matched the dull, uninspired greeting the boy had offered her when they met, she was ready to throw away her crown. She was pining after him, bringing him ancient artifacts, and desperately trying to secure his validation as if he were a king and she were a peasant begging for scraps.

"Rebekah is lowering herself to the dirt," Klaus said, his voice dropping to a dangerous, low snarl. "She dotes on a human boy whose greatest achievement in life is throwing a leather ball across a field of mud. She looks at him with those wide, pathetic eyes, hoping he will love her, forgetting that in less than fifty years, he will be a rotting, wrinkled corpse in the ground, and she will still be standing here, weeping over his grave. They are all fools. Every single one of them. The universe gives them a line of text, and they strip away their dignity, their power, their sovereignty, just to crawl into bed with whatever creature the fates threw at them."

He stood straight, pulling his shoulders back, his chest heaving with a deep, suffocating anger. The envy was a physical weight in his throat, choking him, turning his blood to fire.

They all had someone. Even in their misery, even in their dysfunction, his family had their anchors. They had their definitions. They had their proofs that they belonged to the fabric of reality.

And what did Klaus have?

He had a riddle. He had a line of absolute, mechanical gibberish that had burned into his eighteenth winter and had never once, in a thousand years, been spoken by a single living soul.

Gumbo.

The word was an insult. A phantom. A ghost sentence meant for a man who didn't exist. He had traveled the world, conquered nations, accumulated mountains of gold, and yet he remained a solitary king in a court of coupled fools.

He was sick of it. He was utterly, completely sick of being the lonely king.

"Well, I am done," Klaus said softly, a dark, manic grin slowly spreading across his face, though his eyes remained entirely cold. "I am done waiting for a destiny that has clearly forgotten me. If the universe refuses to give me a match, I will simply build one myself."

He turned his eyes away from his siblings and focused on a single, vibrant image in his mind.

Caroline Forbes.

The local vampire barbie. The sheriff’s daughter. She was neurotic, obsessive, organized to a fault, and entirely, fiercely vibrant. She had light in her eyes a bright, blinding gold that didn't care about the darkness of the world. And more importantly, she had absolutely nothing to do with his mark.

Klaus knew the absolute, staggering absurdity of what he was doing. He wasn't stupid. He was a thousand-year-old mastermind, and he knew, down to the very marrow of his bones, that Caroline Forbes was not his soulmate.

When he had looked at her pristine, untouched skin, he hadn't seen the blocky, strange characters that were buried beneath his own silver cuff. When she spoke to him demanding he leave her friends alone, yelling at him about his hybrids, or ordering him around with her manic town planning energy she didn't say the words. She had never mentioned a gumbo. She had never threatened to break his heart over a bowl of soup.

She had no idea his mark even existed.

It was, by all accounts, a completely mismatched pursuit. He was a ruthless, ancient warlord trying to force himself into the life of a teenage girl who was more worried about the theme of the upcoming decade dance than the politics of the supernatural world. It was a bizarre, almost comical delusion.

He was drawing her pictures of horses, gifting her diamonds that cost more than her mother's house, and writing her letters with the grand, sweeping theatricality of an Old World poet.

And why?

Out of pure, unadulterated spite.

He was pursuing her aggressively because she wasn't his mark. He didn't care about the ink anymore. He wanted to look the universe in the face, spit on its grand design, and prove that Niklaus Mikaelson was the master of his own fate. If the fates wouldn't give him his destined queen, he would take this bright, stubborn girl and force a connection through sheer strength of will. He would build a palace of diamonds and gold around her until she had no choice but to look at him. He would overwrite the cosmic laws with his own desire.

"She thinks she can resist me," Klaus murmured, a small, dark chuckle escaping him as he thought of Caroline’s sharp tongue and her constant, defensive walls. "She thinks her little hybrid boyfriend, Tyler, is her world. A boy who is bound to me by blood, a boy who belongs to me body and soul. She looks at me with such beautiful, righteous anger, Tony. She thinks I am a monster. But she will learn. I will make her see that a king doesn't need the permission of the fates to choose his queen."

Tony shifted uncomfortably, clearing his throat. "Sir... if she's not your soulmate... won't that... you know... complicate things if you ever actually hear your words?"

The air in the room instantly turned sub-zero.

Klaus turned his head slowly, his eyes locking onto the hybrid with a look of such lethal, frozen violence that Tony’s breath hitched in his throat. Klaus stepped forward, his movements so fast they blurred, closing the distance between them until he was standing a mere inch from the boy's face.

"My words are a dead end, Tony," Klaus whispered, his voice a terrifying, quiet promise.

"They are a lie. A ghost sentence carved by a mother who hated me and a cosmos that feared me. I have waited a thousand years. I have searched every court, every city, every hidden corner of this wretched earth, and no one has ever spoken them. I am done being a prisoner to a line of black ink. Caroline Forbes is alive, she is real, and she is here. I will have her because I choose to have her, not because some cosmic hand dictated it on the night of my birth."

He reached out, his hand patting Tony’s shoulder with a force that made the boy's knees buckle slightly.

"Now," Klaus said, his voice instantly reverting back to that smooth, charming, British cadence as if the violence of the previous second had never happened. "Go downstairs and ensure the catering staff has not ruined the vintage wine. If my mother’s ball is to be a farce of family unity, at least the alcohol must be flawless."

"Yes, sir," Tony choked out, bowing his head quickly before turning and practically sprinting down the mezzanine stairs, eager to escape the suffocating presence of his creator.

Left alone once more, Klaus reached up with his right hand, his fingers slowly tracing the outline of the heavy silver cuff that covered his left wrist. Beneath the metal, beneath the leather, the words lay silent, a permanent insult against his skin.

If you’re here about the gumbo, I’m about to break your heart.

"Let it break," Klaus muttered to the empty balcony, his eyes burning with a dark, stubborn resolve as he looked down at the glittering ballroom.

The heavy, wet heat of New Orleans in the spring was nothing like the crisp, clean air of Virginia. It was a suffocating wool blanket that smelled of mud, river rot, stale beer, and the dark, thick tang of ancient magic that had been left to fester in the swamps for centuries.

Niklaus Mikaelson walked down Bourbon Street, the collar of his dark jacket flipped up against a sudden, heavy drizzle that made the neon signs of the French Quarter bleed into the slick puddles of the pavement.

He had left Mystic Falls behind in a cloud of dust, driven south by a single, desperate riddle a letter from a witch named Jane-Anne Deveraux claiming that a faction of New Orleans witches were plotting a rebellion against him.

But the moment his boots hit the cobblestones of the Quarter, the city had begun to push back.

Anxious to shake the irritation from his bones and find a witch who would actually give him answers, Klaus veered sharply off the main strip. He accelerated his pace, his boots clicking a rapid rhythm against the brick walls before he slipped into the side entrance of a dimly lit, weathered establishment called Rousseau’s.

The bar inside was relatively quiet compared to the chaotic tourist traps down the street. The air smelled of old wood, stale chicory coffee, and fried food. A low blues track hummed from a jukebox in the corner, providing a melancholy soundtrack to the handful of locals scattered throughout the room.

Klaus bypassed the empty tables and approached the long, polished wooden bar, aiming for the old woman working behind it. He leaned his hip against the mahogany wood, letting his standard, charmingly lethal smile slide into place.

"I'm looking for someone," Klaus said, his smooth British accent cutting through the low background hum of the room. "A witch. Perhaps you might be able to help me find her. Jane-Anne Deveraux."

The woman paused her work, looking him up and down with an entirely guarded, unimpressed expression. "Sorry. I don't know," she replied flatly, turning back to her tasks.

Klaus’s smile tightened, a cold edge bleeding into his eyes as he leaned just a bit closer across the counter. "Well, now, that's a fib, isn't it? Now, you see... I know that you're a true witch amongst this sea of poseurs. So, enough with the fabrications. I've quite a temper."

The woman stiffened, the defensive wall around her shooting up instantly. She looked around the room nervously before lowering her voice, her tone laced with a hard, unyielding fear. "Witches don't talk Outta School in the quarter. The vampire won't allow it. Those are the rules. I don't break Marcel's rules."

Klaus’s jaw clenched, his eyes flashing with a sudden,

dangerous curiosity at the mention of the name.

"Marcel's rules?" he murmured, his voice dropping to a gravelly whisper. "Where do you suppose I might find Marcel?"

The answer led him straight into the beating heart of the Quarter's supernatural ecosystem.

Klaus stepped into a raucous, brightly lit tavern where the bass of a sound system vibrated heavily through the floorboards. The bar was packed to the gills with vampires dozens of them, all young, strong, and completely unafraid, drinking openly and laughing. And there, standing on the small wooden stage at the back of the room under a spinning disco ball, was the center of the universe.

Marcel Gérard.

Klaus froze near the doorway, his heart stopping for a fraction of a second as he watched the boy he had raised, the orphan he had loved like a son and wept over for a century, belting out a song on a karaoke microphone. Marcel was alive. He hadn't perished in the fires of 1919. He had survived, and he had built an empire that ran like a perfectly oiled machine.

When the music finally stopped, a roaring cheer went up from the crowd. Marcel stepped down from the stage, a wide, confident grin on his face as he headed toward the bar. He slowed down, his eyes locking onto the unfamiliar figure standing in the shadows, before a look of profound, staggering recognition crossed his features.

The reunion was a calculated whirlwind of old affection, but the illusion of a warm welcome evaporated the moment they stepped out into the streets to handle business.

The rain had slowed to a steady drizzle by the time Marcel’s minions dragged Jane-Anne Deveraux out into the center of the public square, throwing her onto the wet cobblestones. A crowd of vampires quickly formed a tight, suffocating circle around her, their eyes gleaming with a predatory hunger as they watched the spectacle unfold. Klaus stood just behind Marcel, his arms crossed over his chest, his expression an impenetrable mask of iron neutrality as he watched his former protégé command the room.

Marcel walked a slow circle around the kneeling witch, a theatrical, easygoing smile on his face that didn't match the absolute authority in his stride. He gestured to the crowd with a grand wave of his hand.

"Jane-Anne Deveraux," Marcel announced, his voice booming across the quiet square. "Give it up for Jane-Anne. Come on."

A few mock applause and jeers rippled through the gathered night-walkers. Marcel stopped directly in front of her, leaning down slightly as his tone shifted into something colder, something heavy and unyielding.

"Jane-Anne Deveraux, you have been accused of the practice of witchcraft beyond the bounds of the rules set forth and enforced by me. How do you plead?" Marcel paused, tilting his head with a smirk as he looked over his shoulder at his crew. "Oh. Was that convincing? I studied law back in the fifties. It's all I know. Seriously, J, tick tock. You know the drill. How do you plead?"

Jane-Anne looked up, her face pale, her chest heaving with terror, but her jaw remained set in defiance. "I didn't do anything," she whispered hoarsely.

"That's a lie," Marcel shot back instantly, his voice sharp and cutting through the damp air. "You know it, I know it, and you hate that I know it. It drives you witches crazy that I'm aware of your every move. That you can't do magic in this town without getting caught. So, why don't we just cut to the chase, huh? You tell me what magic you're brewing. Tell me. I'll grant you leniency. Hey, I am, after all, a merciful man."

Jane-Anne stared up at him, her eyes burning with a deep, generational hatred for the monsters that controlled her home. "Rot in hell, monster," she spat.

Marcel’s smile faded into a cold, disappointed grimace. He sighed, shaking his head as he stepped back. "I'll tell you what. I'll give you one more chance. Or not."

Before the words had even fully left his mouth, Marcel blurred forward. The movement was a violent, lightning-fast strike. He slashed her throat with a brutal, effortless efficiency, letting her body collapse onto the wet pavement as the gathered vampires cheered at the display of absolute power.

Klaus watched the life drain from the witch's eyes, his blood boiling with a quiet, furious resentment. He stepped out of the shadows, rejoining Marcel as the crowd began to disperse into the night.

"What was that?" Klaus asked, his voice low, a dangerous undercurrent running beneath his British accent.

Marcel didn't look bothered at all. He wiped a stray drop of blood from his hand, turning to Klaus with a casual, easygoing grin. "Hey. Come walk with me. Witches aren't allowed to do magic here. She broke the rules."

"I told you I wanted to talk to her," Klaus hissed, his eyes narrowing as he forced himself to keep his temper in check.

"Hey, I'm sorry," Marcel said, raising his hands in a placating gesture, though his eyes remained entirely steady, entirely sovereign. "I got caught up in the show. Those witches, they think that they still have power in this town. I have to show them that they don't. I never waste an opportunity for a show of force. Another lesson that I learned from you. And besides, anything that you could've gotten out of her, I can find out for you, and I will. I promise."

Klaus looked down at the dead witch, the single lead he had to the plot against him completely severed. He swallowed his rage, his face smoothing back into a detached, indifferent mask.

"Well, whatever it was, doesn't matter anymore, does it?"

"Good," Marcel said, clapping Klaus on the shoulder with a booming laugh. "Then let's eat, because all that spilled blood makes me hungry."

Marcel turned and strode away down the street, his inner circle falling into step behind him. Klaus lingered for a fraction of a second, his eyes tracking the remaining vampires scattered around the square. His gaze locked onto a sturdy, dark-haired vampire who was keeping a watchful eye on the perimeter.

Klaus walked over, his stride slow and predatory.

"Hey," he murmured, stopping right in front of the man. "Thierry,

isn't it? Any more Deveraux witches where she came from?"

The information took him to a quiet, dimly lit kitchen tucked away in the back of a small building. The air inside smelled of garlic, chopped herbs, and the heavy, damp scent of incoming rain.

Sophie Deveraux stood by the counter, her back to the room as she furiously chopped vegetables, her movements frantic and trembling with a profound, vibrating grief. The news of her sister's public execution had clearly reached her, and she was using the manual labor to keep from collapsing entirely.

Klaus stepped out of the shadows, his footsteps completely silent against the floor.

He didn't say a word, merely standing there until the atmospheric shift in the room made her freeze.

Sophie turned around slowly, her eyes wide and red-rimmed with unshed tears as she took in the sight of the ancient hybrid standing in her kitchen. She swallowed hard, her voice trembling but steady. "You're Klaus."

"I am," Klaus said, his voice a smooth, dangerous purr as he took a slow step forward, pinning her with his gaze. "And you're upset. Sophie, isn't it? I assume this is because of what I just witnessed with your sister on the corner of Royal and St. Ann."

Sophie let out a bitter, hollow breath, her hands gripping the edge of the cutting board behind her. "Did you enjoy the show?"

"It was a little melodramatic for my tastes," Klaus replied dryly, his brow furrowing as he leaned in. "What did your sister want with me? Why did Marcel kill her?"

Before Sophie could answer, her eyes darted past his shoulder toward the darkened hallway leading to the outer room. Her posture went rigid with a sudden, suffocating terror. "I see you brought friends."

Klaus didn't even bother to look back, his ears tracking the heavy, rhythmic heartbeats of the two vampires who had been shadowing him through the streets ever since he left the square. "They're not with me," he said flatly.

"They're with Marcel," Sophie whispered, her voice cracking as she backed away toward the wall, her eyes fixed on the shadows where the day-walkers lurked. "That's all that matters. I know you built this town, but this is his town now. He killed my sister because she broke the rules. So, I talk to you in front of them, I'm next.

Klaus’s jaw tightened, the realization of Marcel's absolute surveillance wrapping around his throat like a vice. He gave Sophie a single, tight nod, acknowledging the dead end, before turning on his heel. He strode out of the kitchen and back into the main room, rejoining the two men who were waiting for him at the bar, their eyes tracking his every move with a quiet, insufferable arrogance.

Klaus walked out from the back hallway, his footsteps measured and silent, his jaw tightly set. The two day-walkers Marcel had assigned to tail him were leaning casually against the polished mahogany bar, their postures lazy but their eyes sharp, tracking his every movement with an infuriating, smug confidence.

They thought they had him cornered in a neat little box. They thought Marcel’s rules applied to a god.

Klaus stepped up to the counter, flanking them, his presence instantly dropping the temperature in his immediate vicinity. He turned his head slowly, his eyes locking onto the first vampire with a terrifying, frozen stillness.

"Are you two gentlemen following me?" Klaus asked, his British accent dropping into a low, gravelly vibration.

The man on the left let out a short, dismissive chuckle, unbothered by the ancient predator standing inches away. "

"Marcel said we're your guides."

Klaus’s lips curled back into a sharp, venomous smile, his dimples flashing like small blades in the dim tavern light. "Oh, he did, did he? Well, then, let me be exceedingly clear about something." He leaned in closer, his voice dropping to a harsh, lethal whisper that made the air in the room turn to ice. "If either of you follow me again, you'll do so without the benefit of a spine."

The two vampires went rigid, the smiles completely vanishing from their faces as they realized exactly who and what they were dealing with. Klaus stood straight, his chest rising as he prepared to either tear their heads from their shoulders or walk out into the rain to plot Marcel's absolute ruin. His patience was entirely gone. He had traveled a thousand miles only to find his city stolen, his leads murdered, and his dignity insulted by a couple of modern day-walkers.

Then, click of a heel sounded behind the counter.

The side door to the kitchen swung open, and a young woman stepped out, wiping her hands on a dark apron. She had a halo of golden hair that caught the amber light of the hanging lamps, curling softly around her shoulders. She looked exhausted, her green-blue eyes clouded with the distinct irritation of a person who had spent the last eight hours dealing with demanding tourists and a broken ice machine. She completely ignored the thick aura of violence radiating from the three men, stepping up to the bar with a sharp, heavy sigh.

"Sorry for the wait," Camille said, her voice a crisp, "If you're here for the gumbo, I'm about to break your heart. We just ran out."

The universe died.

The low hum of the jukebox in the corner vanished into a black hole. The scent of the rain outside, the stale smell of chicory coffee, the heavy, panicked heartbeats of Marcel's day-walkers—all of it collapsed into an absolute, suffocating void.

Beneath the tailored sleeve of his dark jacket, tucked securely under the thick band of protective leather hide he had worn for ten centuries, Niklaus Mikaelson’s left wrist exploded into a violent, white-hot, searing fire.

It wasn't a dull throb anymore. It wasn't the phantom ache that had tormented his dreams for a millennium. It was an electric shock that shot straight up his arm, piercing through his chest and wrapping around his heart like a vice. The sheer, unadulterated heat of it made his breath catch in his throat, his lungs freezing as the blocky, precise characters hidden beneath his silver cuff seemed to expand, burning themselves into his modern flesh all over again.

If you’re here about the gumbo, I’m about to break your heart.

The words.

The ridiculous, nonsensical, mechanical gibberish he had wept over in the snow of the New World when he was eighteen years old. The phrase he had spent eight hundred years trying to decode before burying it beneath diamonds and rubies in a fit of bitter, spiteful rage. The sentence he had convinced himself was a defect a cosmic lie meant for a man who didn't exist.

She had just said it.

She had said it while holding a bar rag, wearing an apron, and

looking at him as if he were a minor inconvenience on a rainy Tuesday night.

A profound, staggering wonder washed over him first, a dizzying wave of pure shock that made his knees feel weak for the first time in ten centuries. It was real. The mark wasn't a curse. The universe hadn't abandoned him in the woods. His soulmate existed. She was alive, she was flesh and blood, and she was standing right in front of him, her fingers tracing the edge of the wooden counter.

But as the initial shock cleared, a sudden, blinding tide of absolute, feral anger rushed in to take its place.

A bartender. A human waitress with a bad attitude and grease stains on her apron.

Klaus’s mind flashed back to the ballroom in Mystic Falls—to the raging envy that had consumed him as he watched his family. Elijah was bound to the centuries-old, elegant tragedy of Katherine Pierce. Kol was matched with a powerful, ancient witch lineage. Even Rebekah, in all her pathetic desperation, had a boy who looked at her with wide, worshipful eyes.

And what had the cosmos saved for the King? What grand, poetic destiny had the fates carved into the flesh of the world's most powerful hybrid?

A girl pouring cheap liquor in a dive bar in the French Quarter. A mortal creature who would wither and die in the blink of an eye, who didn't even have the decency to speak her words with a hint of reverence.

She had thrown his destiny into the air like a piece of stale bread, completely oblivious to the fact that she had just shattered a thousand years of his existential torment with a sentence about soup menu availability. It was an insult. It was an absolute, mocking joke. The absurdity of it made his blood boil, his inner wolf snarling against his ribs at the sheer indignity of the situation. He had spent weeks aggressively pining after Caroline Forbes, trying to force a royal connection out of pure spite for this very mark, and now the real thing was standing here looking at him like he was a tourist who couldn't read the menu.

The volatile gold of his eyes threatened to bleed through his irises, his fangs aching to drop, his muscles tensing with a violent, chaotic urge to smash the bar to pieces just to make the universe pay for the joke.

But he was an Original. He was a master of the theatrical, a creature who had spent centuries masking his deepest vulnerabilities behind a wall of dangerous, deceptive charm.

Through a monumental effort of pure, unadulterated will, Klaus forced the monstrous rage down into the dark corners of his soul. He clamped his teeth together until his jaw ached, his face smoothing out into a cold, perfectly composed mask of iron neutrality.

He forced a slow, dimpled smile onto his face, his voice returning to its smooth, melodic British cadence, though a sharp edge of malice still vibrated beneath the surface.

"

Your oldest scotch for my two friends here, love," Klaus replied, his eyes locked onto her face, burning with a sudden, intense scrutiny.

He waited.

He stood entirely still, his heart hammering a frantic, desperate rhythm against his ribs as he watched her. He waited for the atmospheric shift. He waited for her green-blue eyes to widen in sudden, breathless realization. He waited for her to drop the glass, for her to gasp, for the heat of her own mark to burn through her skin and force her to recognize the ancient king standing across from her. In every story, in every family myth, the recognition was supposed to be instantaneous. The soulmate was supposed to know.

Camille didn't even blink.

She simply reached under the counter, pulled out a dusty brown bottle of mid-tier scotch, and poured two heavy slants into clean glasses without a single hint of hesitation. Her heart rate remained perfectly steady a dull, rhythmic human thud that held no panic, no wonder, and absolutely no recognition. She slid the glasses toward the two stunned day-walkers, wiped the counter with her rag, and turned her back on him completely to check the register.

She didn't know. She hadn't felt a single thing. She had just spoken the most monumental words of his entire immortal life, and she was currently adjusting a stack of dollar bills as if he were entirely invisible.

“I think that’s obvious.”

“Yeah but, she’s a woman.”

“What do they care? Man, woman, we’re all just slaves - ”

“Oi! Table five.” Kino barks from behind you. He stalks over, meeting everyone’s eyes with a glare. “Is there a problem?”

“Yeh’ve given us a woman,” the redhead says. “No offence, love, but why are you here? Shouldn’t you be with the other birds?”

“Shut it,” Kino growls. “It doesn’t matter why she’s here. She is. Now stop wasting my time and get back to work. Unless you want to get fried.”

Your feet shift nervously at the memory. Hot, electric pain. Everyone else stiffens too, a shared sense of dread filling the sterile air.

He takes you by the shoulders and pushes you towards one of the men. “Keef.”

A man with dark hair and even darker eyes looks up at the sound of his name, his gaze falling on you as he pauses mid-crank.

Your lips part, and your gaze lingers on the sight of his sleeves rolled up, his arms tensing with each push so hard, that, in any other circumstance, you might find it appealing.

“Show her the ropes.” Kino lowers his voice to a menacing growl. “And make sure she understands what’s at stake.”

The man gives him a subtle nod.

“You’re down four now, boys,” Kino says, his gaze shifting to you, “... and girl. No more distractions. Let’s get this done!”

They get back to work - a synchronised effort that you struggle to follow, only adding to the chaos happening around you. There are lasers and cranks and drills and pieces of machinery that they have to manually fit together. And the sounds are overwhelming - hardened voices overlapping with the whirring and clanking of the machines.

“I’m Jemboc,” the older one next to Keef says. “This is Ham, Xaul, Melshi, and Taga.” He goes around the table, pointing at each one.

You say your name in return, but it comes out feeble, your throat still not working properly. Xaul, the redhead, pins you with a look. Melshi mutters something to himself, shaking his head.

“Here,” Keef grunts to get your attention, beckoning you to his side. There's a lilt to his voice that pleases your ears. “Watch what I do closely. You have to pull your weight around here, or we all get fried, you understand?”

You manage to nod.

He removes the crank from the machinery and sets it aside, his hands moving deftly from one task to the next. You’re drawn to his hands, the display of skill and strength sending heat down your spine. His brows are lowered, his gaze focused.

Each part requires something different - to pull, crank, lift, reach, press, load. It's heavy labour, but he proves himself more than capable.

"It's easy once you get into the swing of things," Jemboc's voice taking you out of your trance as he steps beside you.

"Right.” You’re not sure you want to get into the swing of things.

The older man frowns at you, but there's a kindness in his eyes.

"Are you getting it?" Keef growls to you as he lifts his hands and backs away from the table.

You nod.

He draws near and ducks his head down, a patient look in his eyes. "Any questions, you can just ask me."

Your heart flutters. Heat rises to your face, though you're not sure why. "Thanks."

With a nod, he turns back to the table and starts loading alongside the others, letting you stand by his side and watch.

No more words are exchanged apart from the occasional barked order from the others - push!, lift!, and hands away!

They get more frantic as time passes. Kino calls something out and your table groans in response.

You realise that they're falling behind.

Get back to work. Unless you want to get fried. Shit. There is no way you're taking that punishment again if you can help it.

Stomach in knots, you step up beside Keef. "I've seen enough, let me help."

He eyes you, a muscle feathering in his jaw, before handing you the crank. As your hand closes around it, he mutters, "Be careful."

A shiver runs down your spine. His voice is low and smooth and it does something to your body that momentarily distracts you from this hell.

Hesitantly, you take the crank from his grip and fasten it to the piece of machinery.

"Table five, your productivity levels are unacceptable. Proceed to the centre of the room and remain on program."

The soles of your feet tingle with each step on the floor. Your head is spinning, heart pounding, mouth drier than a desert.

The others at your table stand with you in the centre of the floor. For a second, you allow yourself a glance over at Keef.

He’s staring straight forward, a dead look in his eyes, but the tiniest shuddering expanse of his chest betrays his fear.

You close your eyes and wait.

No no no no no no no no no -

It slices through your body and your muscles seize with pain. A cry escapes your lips. Your knee hits the floor painfully hard as your legs give way, and the cries of the others violates your ears, inescapable.

It's over in seconds, but it feels like hours.

Your lungs draw ragged breaths. Tears leak from your eyes, and you wipe them away before anyone sees.

Stand. The others are already getting up - you need to follow, quickly, before they decide to punish you again. But your legs are too weak.

A familiar outstretched hand enters your vision.

Your gaze trails up the veins in his forearm, to the sleeves bunched up over his biceps. "Come on," Keef urges softly. "You have to get up."

With all your willpower, you reach up and grab him by the forearm, his hand closing around the inner side of your forearm, bracing you there to help you up.

"Ah!" you hiss, pulling away as a sudden burning sensation flares where his hand touches you.

“Shit!” He grits out, exchanging a confused look with you, and then looks down at his own arm, where you touched him.

Your breath halts as you see it - the symbol burned into your skin, on the inner side of your upper forearm. It’s a simple slashing of lines, but the meaning it carries is far more significant - a soulmark.

He’s staring at the same symbol on his own skin in stunned silence.

“Keef,” you breathe.

Then the deep warped voice of the prison interrupts.

“Prisoners on program. Proceed to your quarters.”

He takes one frantic look at you, and then turns his head forward, following the prison directive and raising his hands behind his head on program. The sleeve, you noticed, he pulls down to hide the mark.

You quickly do the same, assuming the position, even though every fibre of your being is flooded with shock.

As you file through the doors with the others, you can barely hear anything over the pounding of your own ears. Your mind struggles to make sense of what just happened, let alone process everything else that’s happened to you in the last twenty-four hours.

Keef falls in line behind you.

Instantly, you feel his eyes on you, the heat prickling at the back of your neck.

The line of prisoners shuffles along through a long corridor, passing the night shift, stopping and starting up again until you're at your quarters.

"Jemboc, give her the orientation," Kino directs the older man, before leaving you behind to deal with another group of men.

Jemboc turns to you. "Come on, I'll show you your cell."

As he takes you down through the hallway, you see Keef emerge out of the corner of your eye, and when he reaches his own cell, so do you. Directly opposite from each other.

Your eyes meet.

Stars. Finding a soulmate is rare, practically unheard of for most. But he’s here, and the mark is burned into your flesh, still throbbing with fresh pain as you run your fingers over it.

Jemboc starts explaining what the lights on the floor mean, but you can’t seem to take your eyes off of Keef, raking your gaze over his tense form, brown hair mussed and grown out, dark eyes you could lose yourself in, even as you listen to Jemboc listing all the various rules.

“You understand?” Jemboc asks you.

Not really. “Yes,” you reply with a nod, dragging your eyes away.

“What are you in for, anyway?”

“Loitering.” You’ve grown numb to the anger.

“I see.” Jemboc pats you on the shoulder. “You’ll be okay, sister. We all will be, soon.”

“Hey!” The bark of another prisoner cuts him off.

It’s Xaul, pushing past the others, stalking towards you with a deadly glare.

You take a step back on instinct, and Jemboc folds his arms defensively, but it’s Keef who gets in his way.

With a growl, he pushes off the wall, getting in Xaul’s face before he can reach you. “What’s your problem, huh?” he growls. “You’re scaring her.”

Xaul growls, jabs his finger in your direction, and shifts his glare to Jemboc. “Not her.”

They exchange unreadable glances.

Jemboc scowls and takes him by the shoulder, leading him out of earshot from you. The two of them begin talking in low, urgent tones, Xaul shooting you another glare.

Your hands curl into fists at your side.

Hesitantly, Keef turns to you, his head ducked low in sincerity. “Are you okay?” he asks, his voice coming out softer than you’ve heard before.

“No,” you say, even as warmth fills you at the concern in his devastatingly brown eyes. Stars, but the sight of him pleases you. “I think we need to talk.”

“Agreed,” he nods, holding his forearm with his other hand, his eyes briefly glancing down, “but we don’t have the time or the privacy in here.”

You draw nearer. “How long is left on your sentence?”

“No,” he shakes his head, “That doesn’t matter anymore.”

“I don’t understand.”

His eyes dart to Xaul and Jemboc. “I wish I could tell you. I - ” he cuts himself off as the floor lights start flashing.

In seconds, the hall clears as the rest of the inmates scramble to get into their cells. Keef pushes you towards yours. “Go.”

With his push, you step up into your cell before the lights can turn red. What was it Jemboc said? Seven seconds when the lights start flashing, then they turn red. And if you’re caught in the red light, you die.

On instinct, you turn back around to see Keef again.

Your soulmate.

He stands in his cell across from you, an unreadable expression on his face, his mouth in a grim line, as the lights begin to dim.

The floor lights turn red a second later.

There is no way to get to him now, and no way of talking across the hall without everyone in the surrounding cells hearing you. That’s not an option.

He lingers at the edge of his cell, and so do you, for a time, struggling with this new feeling inside you - this urge, compelling you towards him. Even if you don’t know him yet, you want to.

So you’re paralysed in silence; staring at each other across several feet of deadly flooring.

The murmurs of the other inmates eventually peter out, and as the snoring starts to rise, you feel your eyes growing heavy.

You curse beneath your breath.

Keef must hear it, because he raises his chin and nods in understanding, retreating from the edge of his cell and into darkness.

Grimly, you turn away from him, towards your bunk.

They're everywhere. They're watching you. They know what you've done. You're going to be punished -

You wake up in a cold sweat, gasping for air.

"Hey, hey, breathe." Keef's hushed voice carries across the cell.

Your eyes dart around until you see him, a broad mass in the shadows, sitting on the edge of his bunk across the way.

The soft sound of the other men snoring in their cells settles over the silence.

"It was just a nightmare," he whispers across the corridor. "I'm right here."

You blink back tears, and push yourself up by your elbows. “Did I wake you?”

“No,” he shakes his head. “I couldn’t sleep.”

You run your hand down over your face. There’s been a lot of that lately.

A few shifts in, you found yourself staring at the ceiling of your cell counting the seconds going by, running your fingers over the soulmark on your arm, unable to stop thinking about him.

You’ve memorised his form and features with almost no effort - the cut of his jawline, occasionally peppered with stubble if he hasn’t shaved, being your latest obsession.

And you can feel when he looks at you, too. Devouring glances out of the corner of your eye that set your cheeks aflame.

It’s like your body is on high alert at all times. Working alongside him throughout the day, barely able to exchange a few words without anyone overhearing, passing by each other, brushing past each other so close your skin hair raises, but not touching, never touching, just savouring the few small moments in his presence and then trying to go to sleep every night knowing he is a only few feet away from you.

But it’s worse, somehow, when you do manage to turn your brain off. That’s when the nightmares come.

It’s relentless and repetitive; nothing but the Empire and memories of pain, torturing you through your sleep.

Keef’s been developing shadows beneath his eyes as well. You wish you could talk to him about it, but he doesn’t seem to want anyone else to know about your soulmarks, and shit, neither do you. It's hard enough to even admit to yourself, let alone have the others staring at you, judging you more than they already do for being the only woman here.

And if the prison ever found out, they could take you away from each other. Your gut clenches at the thought.

Fuck. Trying to drag your emotions out of the gutter before you break is becoming harder everyday. The weight on your shoulders is crushing you, and you can’t see any light at the end of this tunnel.

“I don’t know how much longer I can do this,” you confess, wrapping your arms around yourself.

He stands, coming to the edge of his cell in the low, red lighting. “Don’t say that,” he whispers. “Don’t let them break you.”

You fiddle with your mattress. Don’t let them break you? They already are, and it isn’t your choice.

“Listen to me,” he says, raising his voice to a low growl.

You look up at him, drawing in a shaky breath.

“You had a nightmare, but you woke up from it.” The urgency in his baritone voice calls to you, and you stand, approaching the edge of your cell as he continues. “That’s all this place is. It’s a nightmare. You don’t realise it while you’re inside, but you’re in control. All you have to do is wake up.”

“What are you saying?”

He meets your gaze, an intense, unreadable look in his eyes. “I'm saying, hold on. Just a little while longer. Can you do that?”

“Yes,” you breathe, before you realise what you’re saying. You blink and look away from him, frowning. “I can.”

His words paint a picture in your mind, one of you, years from now, out of here. On some beach planet or forest town, enjoying the sun on your face. This place, a distant memory in the back of your mind.

Just a nightmare.

A slight smile finds its way onto your face at the thought. You meet Keef’s gaze again, the fierceness in his eyes amplified by the red of the floor, and nod in gratitude.

“I’ll try.”

His shoulders relax slightly, and he nods. “That’s all we can do.”

You sleep.

There’s a warmth in you when you wake, a buzz from the memory of last night. That was the longest conversation you’ve had yet, and even if you couldn’t talk openly, it still felt real.

When you first open your eyes, you’re drawn to his cell on instinct, drinking in the sight of him every chance you can get.

But it’s like he hasn’t moved all night. He’s leaning one shoulder against the wall at the edge of his cell, arms still folded, and he’s staring at you, his dark brows furrowed, the slight stubble peppering his clenched jaw telling you he hasn’t shaved since yesterday. Movement draws your gaze to his arm, where his knuckles shift back and forth, running over that small mark on his arm.

Heat slowly rises to your face.

The floor is still red. The others are awake too, the few you can see from your cell having breakfast or pacing around their small cell. The slight murmur of muted voices blending together.

“Did you sleep?” you ask him.

He gives the subtlest shake of his head.

Your heart sinks.

It’s not just being around him that you can’t bear, it’s also seeing him suffer and not being able to help. You have to keep holding back these strange, rising urges to comfort him. It doesn’t help that he has those big, soulful brown eyes that could melt you down into the cracks of the floor.

You’re not in love, but he matters to you more with each passing day, and that feeling is killing you.

Damn, you thought you’d grown numb to everything, but suddenly the despair is back with a vengeance, and you have to look away to blink back sudden tears.

“Hey,” he calls to you. “You okay?”

Shaking your head, you blow out a breath and chant in your head, don’t break, don’t let them get to you.

He curses, and then he’s pushing of the wall to pace his cell. His shoulders tense with each breath.

You draw near the edge of your cell, watching him try to walk out the tension in his body, your heart caught between desire and despair.

It’s a vicious cycle of suffering between the two of you.

Then the floor lights shift from red to white.

“On program!” Kino calls out.

Prisoners load out of their cells, slowly getting into their line with murmurs and sluggishness.

Keef is already on the floor when you tentatively step down, enduring that moment before your feet touch the metal with your heart in your throat every time. White lights means it’s safe, but -

He approaches you suddenly, closing his hand around the nape of your neck, tipping his forehead against yours. Warm electricity floods through your veins and over your skin at his touch.

“Keef,” you stutter out, shocked at his public display, even as you sink further into his touch. The sounds of shock and angry voices from the men around you start kicking off, but you ignore them.

“Please,” he breathes, his forehead pressed firmly against yours, his face inches away, “it’s killing me. I know you’re scared - I know. What can I do?”

You shake your head. “I - ”

“What the fuck are you two doing?”

Kino.

You pull him off you and step away.

He shudders at your touch, and you realise with a jolt that you took his arm right at the soulmark. For a brief moment, he cradles his arm, before Kino approaches and the two of you join the others in line.

“Hm?” The man raises his eyebrow at the both of you. “Don’t make me repeat myself.”

“It was nothing,” Keef responds. “Just making sure she’s okay.”

Kino glances at you, an unreadable look on his face. “Are you?”

“I’m fine,” you say, but even you can hear the shakiness in your own voice.

He blinks, searching your gaze. Then he grabs Keef by the arm and leans in to whisper something in his ear.

As Keef listens, he sets his eyes on you, before giving Kino a firm nod.

Apparently satisfied, the older man steps away and raises his voice to the rest of the men.

“Time to face another day. Everyone, move.”

As you begin walking forward, you turn your head to whisper back to him, “what was that?”

“Don’t worry,” Keef whispers. “He’s on our side.”

The tension is high at table five.

“I don’t think they should be next to each other today,” says Taga, eyes darting nervously between the two of you.

“Why?” Keef growls.

“Does he really have to say why?” Xaul interrupts. “You like her.”

“It could be a distraction,” Ham mutters.

“No.” Keef glares. “She stays by my side. Kino’s orders.”

“Oh, ‘Kino’s orders’? Fuck that. We don’t want to get fried 'cuz of you,” Xaul growls.

Keef turns his ire on Xaul. "And when was the last time that happened? If memory serves, not since she started here, under my guidance."

A mutter goes around the table.

"Table five, get moving," Kino warns as he passes by.

"Let's get this done," Keef growls, and that's the end of the discussion.

The next days feel different, and the same.

You try to hold on, like you promised him, but the nightmares and the sleepless nights are getting worse.

You touched each other for the second time ever, felt the warmth of his hands on you, breathed the same air, the memory of seeing the depths of darkness in his brown eyes up close is carved into your mind, and now the yearning inside of you has developed; a deep ache in your bones.

The others can sense something more is up between you. You feel their eyes follow you; but you can't bring yourself to care whether they notice the way he always rushes to your aid, or the soft exchanges of words, or the way the two of you never move too far apart. You can't fight this growing need to be around him. You're soulmates. Whatever that means.

"Doctor! We need the doctor!"

Your ears prick at the commotion at table two. Everyone keeps working, but out of the corner of your eye you watch as Kino goes over to investigate.

"Is it another panic attack?"

You push down on the drill.

"...he's not breathin'"

You lift it up and inspect the results.

"Shit. I’ll call the doctor."

Your table begins to lift the cog off the table to load it on the rack. You step away, watching them move. Out of the corner of your eye, you see the man keeled over on the floor.

A little bit of your soul cracks.

Keef returns to your side, and it’s brief, but his arm brushes against yours.

He doesn’t even need to say anything - you meet his brown-eyed gaze and all the hurt in your lungs evaporates.

“Unit Five-Two-D on program.”

He flicks his gaze up to the entrance, a gleam in his eyes.

You put your hands behind your head and turn to face them as the doctor is lowered onto the floor.

The man is dead.

There’s a strange anticipation in the air, like the way the air gets dry before a storm hits.

You watch them carry the man away in a bodybag. You catch Xaul and Jemboc exchanging a look. You catch the way Kino nods subtly to Keef as he walks past.

Everyone goes silently to their quarters - not even a whisper.

“Fall out!” Kino yells.

You turn to Keef. “What is going on?”

He pulls you aside, leaning in with his voice down low. “Do you trust me?”

“Why?”

“Tomorrow, whatever Kino says, I want you to follow immediately. No hesitation. You understand?”

“What - ”

“I can’t explain. I wish I could, but - ” His eyes catch on someone over your shoulder, and his mouth closes in a grim line.

You glance back and see Xaul, watching from a distance, arms folded, jaw tense. He’s never seemed to trust you, and you don’t blame him, but the way he watches you at all times is hard to get comfortable with.

“I don’t understand,” you turn back to your soulmate and search his eyes, “but... I trust you.”

An unreadable expression flashes in his eyes, and then everything is swept away as he takes you by the waist, cups your chin, and sweeps you into a gentle kiss.

For a nanosecond you freeze, before the rush of adrenaline fills your veins and you melt against his lips. The soulmark pulses on your arm, and the most amazing feeling overtakes you, of drifting high up in the clouds and watching the sun rise. You pull him closer, threading your fingers through his hair. The bristle of his five-o’clock shadow makes itself known with each movement, desire pooling in your core as you move your body against his. He feels so real, solid and alive, and it’s breathtaking.

The sounds of the world around you only vaguely registers in your head. Men, shouting at you.

Fuck them. Nothing else matters. You’re in the arms of your soulmate and you never want to leave again.

Then one voice, Kino’s, pierces through your haze. “Oi! The floor!”

Your eyes fly open as Keef breaks off the kiss and pushes you towards your cell with a growl.

You barely have time to react. Between the flashing lights, you lunge for the safe zone, leaping up into it seconds before the place is bathed in red.

“Fuck!”

You turn around.

He stands in his cell across from you, panting, his hair mussed from your attention. His eyes are wild, staring at you like he’s waiting for you to drop dead.

The instinct to reassure him overwhelms you. “I’m okay,” you say, stepping away from the edge. “I made it.”

He closes his eyes, running a palm over his mouth, and his shoulders rise and fall with a deep, shuddering breath.

You look down at your soulmark. That heightened feeling is fading, fast, each second you’re not back in his arms. A vision enters your head, of you, throwing yourself across the hall, even though you know that ends in death.

“You two lovebirds have a death wish?” Kino yells from his cell.

Shit.

“I told you they were distracting each other.”

“Gonna get us killed.”

Murmurs ripple down the hall. Heads, poking out of their cells.

Keef shakes his head, eyes swimming with anger. His voice is low, but you still hear it above the din. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have taken that risk.”

His words should fill you with regret, but a part of you, a small, stubborn part, thinks that maybe it was worth it anyway, just to touch him again, to feel his arms around you, the dominance of his kiss.

You close your eyes, a hand going to your mouth on instinct, fingertips trailing where he had his mouth on yours.

“Enough!”

Kino’s bark gets everyone’s attention instantly. The chatter dies down.

You open your eyes, and Keef is staring at you, a hungry look in his eyes. Heat rises to your face.

“Everyone knows what the plan is. Yes?”

Mumbles of men in agreement echo through the hall. You tilt your head, trying to discern any information you can, but pick up nothing. Nothing except that Keef looking towards Kino’s cell with fire in his eyes - tense, almost like hope, but darker.

Anger.

“Good. Now’s the time to rest. Tomorrow, we fight.”

A chill runs down your spine.

He’s shirtless in the morning.

Instantly pushing yourself up, your gaze locked on his chest, his stomach v, his arms, you catch his attention with the sudden movement.

He snaps his gaze to yours, pausing mid-stretch. His arm pulled across his chest, braced against his other arm to stretch his shoulder, the ropes of his biceps on full display for you.

“Hi,” you say.

Your swear his mouth curves just slightly, a twitch in his face, and he nods at you.

“Hi.”

All the blood in your body has left your brain. You continue to stare at him like an idiot while he does some basic stretches, before the lights flick to white, and Kino yells his daily on program! while Keef slides his shirt back on.

You fall in line in front of him.

He stands closer to you than normal, pressing his up front against you, his breath fanning against the back of your head as he leans in. His lilting voice sounds lowly in your ear, a lilting, baritone sound. “Remember what I said?”

Your eyes flutter shut at the sensation. “F-Follow Kino,” you manage to stutter out.

He hums in approval. “Good girl.”

Your thighs clench together.

He’s getting more bold in front of the others, more playful, and you can’t help but feel excited and nervous by the shift. Why has he stopped hiding?

The line starts moving forward, and you follow the person in front of you to the showers as normal, trying to focus on anything but what he just said.

He thinks there’s a chance you could both escape, you think, and then immediately regret that line of thinking. But it’s too late. That future you imagined - the one that he planted in your mind with his words, shifts, and suddenly he’s there beside you in each vision, relaxing, laughing, grinning like an idiot.

Fuck.

The shift begins, the men exchanging knowing glances that have anticipation and dread growing in your belly. You know what this is by now, you’ve put the pieces together despite their weird reluctance in telling you.

This escape plan is really happening.

The new prisoner arrives shortly after your shift begins, and when Keef returns from the bathroom soaking wet, you barely have time to react before shit hits the fan.

Obeying Kino’s orders, you watch as together the other prisoners hijack the lift and short out the entire system - no more hot floor.

As he reaches the top, Keef turns back to pin you with a wild, furious look in his eyes that fills you with fire. He jerks his head for you to follow him.

So you do.

You climb. You run. You follow.

A guard catches you and tries to pull you away, but Keef is there in a flash of red and the smell of burning flesh, grabbing you by the hand and telling you to run as the man slumps to the ground.

The loading platform ends in a sheer drop to the sea. Your stomach drops as you pull back, glancing around as others begin to jump.

This is insane.

“I can’t swim!”

You barely hear Kino say it over the sound of the wind and the other prisoners, but then he says it again, and there is no doubt.

You step up beside him. “Me neither.”

Keef stares at you in shock.

And then he’s gone.

One of the men drags him off the edge by accident, and a shriek escapes you. “No!” but you can only watch as he disappears from sight.

A second goes by, then two. More men rush past.

There's nothing but the sound of blood pumping in your ears. No matter which way you think about it, if you follow, you're dead. There's no way you can swim that far, and if Keef tries to help you, he'll probably just die with you.

You fall to your knees.

Others race past you still, flinging themselves off the edge one by one. Kino stands by your side, watching them with an empty gaze.

“What do we do now?” you ask, and find yourself subconsciously cradling your arm, the soulmark on it beginning to throb painfully. Follow Kino, he said, but you’re not sure Kino has any moves left. There’s none you can see; no way to survive.

Maybe you should just jump anyway and let fate decide.

“Nothing.” Kino looks down at the gun in his hand. “We’re going out, one way or another.”

You nod and take in a deep breath of salty ocean air. “Agreed.”

He says nothing.

“Ah!” Your soulmark throbs again, and you grip your arm, hissing through your teeth. “Fuck off!”

“Sorry?” Kino growls.

"It’s uh,” you pull back your sleeve to him, “my soulmark.”

He blinks. “Damn. Keef?”

“Yeah.”

“That explains you two then.” He nods, casting his gaze out to sea. “I... I have a family.”

You peer up at him.

“I just wanted to see them again.” He looks down at the gun in his hands again.

“At least you know you tried,” you offer. “Sometimes...” Keef’s words ring true, pouring from your lips even as you hear the memory of his words spoken in your mind. “...that’s all we can do.”

The two of you linger in silence. Below you, the forms of men swimming away from the prison spread out, reaching towards the horizon. The soulmark on your arm is aching something fierce now, calling you to the edge. But it’s the realisation that Keef must be feeling this pain too, that hurts even more.

You hope he is trying anyway, down there, despite the pain.

He’s probably thinking the same thing about you.

Damn.

You stand. “Give me the gun.”

Kino hands it to you without even looking, his eyes remaining fixed on the horizon.

You turn around, facing the inside of the prison, and point the gun at one of the panels of the wall. The sound of the blast almost deafens you.

The panels sizzle where the blast hit, but as you approach, you can see them peeling away from each other at the seam. Without hesitation, you wedge the barrel of the gun in the hole, and with all your strength, try to peel the panel off the wall.

“What are you doing?” Kino growls.

You glance back at him with a half-cocked shrug.

“Finding something that floats.”

Wet.

Cassian’s fingers close around sand. His lungs are on fire, exacerbated by the stinging salt he inhales with each breath. Everything hurts.

A shadow relieves him from the sun. He looks up and for a moment, it’s you, the beautiful image of you reaching down for him tilting this world on its axis. Then he blinks, and Melshi comes into focus.

“We need to disappear,” he’s saying, scanning their surroundings.

Cassian tries to push himself up, but there’s a terrible ache emanating from his soulmark. It was easy to ignore in the sea - everything hurt. But now it spreads through his body, an urging like no other to wade back out into the dark waves - to go back for you.

He wants to punch the man who tackled him off the edge. Whoever it was. But as soon as he hit the water, swimming was the only way to survive.

“Did ya hear me? Keef?”

With a grunt, Cassian sits up and brushes off his hands, wincing when his arm throbs with the movement. “Did anyone else make it?”

Melshi squints. “If they did, they didn’t follow us.”

Yeah, that’s what he thought. Even if, by some miracle, you did make it, you could be miles apart, with no way of finding each other.

It would be enough to know that you survived, but he’s never been that lucky. No. He thinks of you, of your tentatively hopeful expressions that get him through the day, that beautifully trusting look in your eyes right before he kissed you, and has to tilt his head back to prevent his eyes from watering.

His soulmate. Dead.

He thought that maybe, just maybe, there was a chance he could save you.

“Keef.” Melshi stoops down beside him. “We have to move.”

“What do you know about soulmarks?” he murmurs.

Melshi sighs. “You’re dehydrated, mate. C’mon.” He goes to lift him up.

“No - no!” Cassian resists, pushing Melshi away and scrambling to his feet. He shoves back his sleeve and bares his soulmark. “I need to know! I need to...” He cuts himself off with a grimace as pain pulses through the mark.

Melshi stares at the mark, wide-eyed. “No shit. The girl?”

Cassian can only nod. “She doesn’t even know - my real name.” He chokes the words out past tears. “I thought I could save her. But she’s... she’s probably dead by now.” It feels like he’s separated from his body, like someone else is saying these things.

“Wouldn’t you know?”

Cassian stills. “What do you mean?”

Melshi hesitates.

“What do you mean?!” He grips at his hair, heart thudding in his chest so hard it might burst. “How would I know?!”

“I don’t know! It was just a story, back home - people said the marks are like homing beacons. So if she’s dead, your mark would... stop working.” He cringes, muttering, “it sounds stupid when I say it like that.”

Cassian looks down at it the throbbing, aching mark. He focuses on it, and - there - the throbbing pulls towards the sea.

He looks out at the waves. “She’s alive.”

His legs carry him forward, back into the sea. The sound of Melshi yelling behind him is a distant worry over the beating of his own heart, the very blood in his veins burning to get to you.

Then arms close around him, pulling him back. “You’re insane!”

He snarls and shoves Melshi back. “Get off me!”

“You’ll die!”

“I have to go back!”

Melshi lets him go. “Okay okay, just - just think about this! You’re no use to her dead.”

“You don’t get it. You don’t understand. If she’s alive - ”

“If she’s still alive, she’ll need more than just one man swimming out to rescue her!” His gaze darts down. “Is it getting better or worse?”

“What?”

He points to Cassian’s soulmark. “It’s painful, right? Is it getting worse?”

Cassian looks down at it. “It’s been about the same for a while now.” Fucking painful, but, “...maybe a little less than before. I don’t know!”

Melshi nods. “So she could be getting closer.”

“If that is how it works.” Instinct - the mark - tells him it does, but the panic in his chest won’t go away. He needs to see you. “So what do I do then? Wait around for her to find me? She can’t swim, so how - ”

“I don’t care!” Melshi interrupts. "But if you don’t return to shore with me, I will knock you unconscious and drag you back.” There’s a deadly serious look in the man’s eyes.

The ache within him isn’t going away. He’s not sure how much more he can take. But Melshi is right - it would be a death wish to swim back.

The prison is a blip on the horizon. Could you have really made it, somehow?

Melshi eyes him aggressively, waiting for him to make a move.

Cassian raises an eyebrow. “You really care about me that much?”

“You’ve been a bloody pain in my arse, but you were instrumental in our escape, so I figure I owe ya.”

With a nod, he looks back towards land, skimming his fingers over the waist-high water. “We wait here then.”

“They’ll be sending ships looking for us.”

“I won’t go any farther inland.”

Melshi shakes his head. “Fine.” With a splash, he begins wading toward the shore. “Then we’d better find some shelter for the night.”

It’s midnight. Probably, anyway. Cassian has no sense of time here, except that it's been dark for a while.

He sits with his face tilted up to the stars. The sea breeze is a cool rush of air, swaying the tree above and rustling his hair across his face.

He needs a haircut again.

The mark on his arm has steadied to a slow, aching pulse every few seconds, nothing more than the sensation of a mending bruise.

Melshi is right - he can feel it in his veins that you're getting close.

So he's waiting.

Sleep will not come to him tonight. Like you, it eludes him, and in its place, the unnatural sense that something is missing.

It's subtle, at first. A crashing of waves that don't fit the slow, steady beat he's been listening to all night.

Then, the sound of voices out there. A man's, deep and grating, and yours.

He'd recognise it anywhere.

He peers around the tree, out towards the sea, and sees a shape floating on the water.

“Melshi.” He hisses his companion’s name, getting up. “Melshi! It's them.”

“Huh,” Melshi starts, half awake.

“It’s them. I’m going to get her.”

He groans, shifting his arms up to cover his face. “They’re actually here? Wha’ are the chances? How?”

“I don’t know.” Breathless, Cassian turns toward the sea, towards the place his soulmark has been calling him towards all night. “But I’m going to find out. Come on.”

He runs to the water.

Sand sprays beneath his feet, then water splashes, and then he’s wading, then swimming, towards it. The shape blotting out the stars on the horizon morphs into two silhouettes sitting on some kind of raft. They’re slowly paddling their way towards the shore.

Cassian wants to weep with joy when he hears their voices - first Kino, then you.

“Is that - ”

“Keef? Keef!” you cry out, your voice hoarse.

His palm collides with the raft - a smooth white panel, and there you are, sitting on one side with a salt-streaked, wind-struck, beautiful face, staring down at him in wonder.

“Well shit,” Kino croaks, glancing at you. “You were right.”

Your hand rests over your soulmark as you stare down at Cassian.

Stars. There is so much he wants to say, but none of it seems like enough for this moment. He doesn’t want to take his eyes off you - he can’t.

But as the waves gently rise and fall, Kino clears his throat pointedly. “Much as I love being surrounded by water...”

“Right, right.” Cassian grabs hold of the panel. “I’ll take you to shore.”

The soft strokes of the sea abuts his efforts as he pulls the raft behind him, until the sea floor shallows out and he can put his feet beneath him.

“You should be good now. You can stand,” he says, instantly returning to your side of the raft. “Melshi’s with me, on the shore.”

Kino nods, sliding off the edge. “We should bury the panel.”

“Agreed.”

You hesitantly dip your legs in the water, and Cassian places his hands on your waist ready to help you down. “I’ve got you.”

In the darkness he can barely see your face, but he could swear there’s a heat reflected in your eyes.

It feels good, coming to you aid on instinct. Putting his hands on you.

As he holds you steady, you gently slip off the edge of the raft and collide against him with an oof as you land.

Despite his exhaustion, his shaft hardens. To go from be denied his soulmate for so long, to this...

“Here,” he says, roughly pushing the panel towards Kino, his eyes never leaving your face. “Go see Melshi. We’ll catch up.”

The man grunts something, and begins to wade to shore with the panel, and then he’s forgotten as Cassian is drawn back to you on instinct.

His arms tighten around your waist, and he opens his mouth to speak, but nothing comes out. He’s struck.

You cup his face, gaze flitting between his eyes and his mouth, your breaths mingling, and then suddenly he’s pressing his mouth against yours.

You let out a cute little gasp against him, and his chest flutters, as you yield to him.

Yes. He burns with the rightness of this moment, and yet braces you against him as he deepens the kiss, like he’s afraid you’re going to slip away. He doesn’t quite believe you’re real yet.

Your fingers dig into his hair, and he likes it, the way you pull him into you with the same hunger and desperation he’s feeling.

“Cassian,” he breathes suddenly, pulling back for a moment, his forehead pressed against yours. “My real name is Cassian.”

“Cassian,” you repeat, and then your mouth curves into a smile - a fucking smile.

He almost groans. His soulmark pulses warmly against you. “You’re alive.”

“Yes,” you breathe, nodding against him.

“You’re my soulmate.”

You nod again, clinging tight to him. “Yes.”

A low, reverent chuckle escapes him, and you let out a light giggle in response; together relishing in the intimacy of this moment.

And then you cant your hips, and his laugh turns into a groan, a new kind of bliss making itself known in the hardening of his length beneath his pants. He thinks he’s never seen anything as beautiful as the look in your eyes. Full of passion - a beautiful, twisting flame, but also, understanding. You barely know each other, and yet it’s like your souls know each other intimately; bound together by something greater than either of you can fathom.

With a swift motion, he sweeps your legs out from underneath you and hitches your thighs around his waist so you're floating in the water, anchored in place by him alone.

You press yourself into him, arching your back and leaning forward to brush your lips against his.

He kisses you with all the fervour and unfulfilled need building inside him. His hands come around your ass and dig in, tugging your crotch against him so you can feel his hardness.

Another heady, submissive gasp escapes you against his mouth, and when your legs open further to let him settle against you, he's done for.

“I know you’re probably tired,” he murmurs, “and we should probably get to shore, but I...”

You're nodding before he even finishes the sentence, making his heart soar with the needy look in your eyes. “Yes,” you breathe. “Yes, yes, please, Cassian, please.”

With a breathless laugh, he drops your thighs and takes you by the waistband of your pants instead.

Together, you work to pull it off of you. It’s awkward, messy, not how he imagined this going, but it doesn’t matter. The mood is playful as you struggle to pull your pants off beneath the water - you, bracing yourself on his shoulders, and him, trying to pull it off your legs and getting splashed in the process.

But then suddenly you’re fully naked from the waist down, and your laughter quietens as you draw close to each other again.

He can’t see your naked lower half beneath the dark water, but he can feel when you wrap your legs around him again.

Slowly, he places his hand on your bare thigh, treating the moment with all the reverence of a ritual, his soulmark tingling in anticipation and sending a shudder through his body.

With his other hand, he cups your face, searching your gaze.

“I’m clean.”

“Same.”

“Birth control?”

Something like pain flickers in your eyes, and you shake your head. “Not since... before.”

“Right. Of course.”

He hesitates.

The two of you just escaped prison, and if he’s learnt anything, this is not the kind of galaxy he wants to risk bringing a child into. He’s not even sure if he’ll survive tomorrow.

“What do you want to do then?”

“We could die tomorrow.” You shift in his arms, pulling yourself flush against him until his hardness presses firmly between you. “Fuck it.”

He tilts his head, a slight grin curling on his face. Stars, when you say it like that... With a clench of his jaw, he pulls you down slowly and impales you on his hardness.

His head falls back. You’re fucking tight. A raw, incredulous groan rises from his throat.

Your reaction has his head spinning - fingers winding through his grown-out hair and pulling desperately against him. He loves little hiss you make.

“Look at me.”

Your eyes flutter open to meet his gaze and his seed almost spills, only holding himself back with the barest restraint. Must savour this moment. Finally being inside you - his soulmate.

He pulls you in for a hungry kiss. Heat rises between your bodies as you give yourself over to his touch, opening your mouth into his kiss and arching your back for him.

It’s too much. Unable to stop himself, his hands grip you by your thighs and he fully impales you, forcing your tight, inner channel muscles to give way and let his shaft thrust full inside you.

You brace his shoulders and writhe in pleasure. “Oh, Cassian, please, m-move - ”

That’s all he hears before his instincts take over, and he uses all his strength to thrust, desperate to wedge himself so far inside you he’ll never leave.

He plants his feet on the sea floor and braces you against him as you cant your hips for him. Your bodies are working overtime to create that toe-curling friction, thrusting into each other with bruising force, the waves splashing and breaking over your entwined forms.

Your mouths clash in a tangle of heated, desperate kisses that burn him from within. The tension is pulled taut between you, soulmarks thrumming in time with each other as you desperately unite your bodies as one.

He rocks his hips up between your open legs and hits home harder and harder with each slosh of the water. His hands grip you by the back of your shirt, fingers scrambling against the fabric to pull your body down as hard as he can.

Your head lols back in the water, a gasp escaping your throat. “Cassian! Don’t stop don’t stop don’t stop - oh!”

He grunts in approval. His hunger for you grows, seeing you so vulnerable like this for him, desperate to hold out as long as he can to pleasure you. His thrusts grow even more frantic and sloppy - a fast, brutal jerking rhythm of pounding up into your cunt.

“My hope,” he murmurs in Kenari, barely hanging on to his sanity. “Better than anything I’d ever dreamt of.” He drinks in the sight of you, wet and vulnerable and all his, and his hardness gives a heady warning pulse of heat. He groans. “You’re everything. You’re mine.”

You let out a whimper in his arms, and then you’re tensing, your thighs, clenching around him with newfound strength.

“Cassian,” you moan through gritted teeth, “Cassian!”

The first jolt of pleasure wracks through his body without warning. At the realisation that you’re climaxing, he’s had it - he can’t hold back anymore.

He groans in disbelief. His brows draw together, the deep, intense, deliberate jerking of his body against yours faltering as pleasure takes over. A sound comes out of him, a mix between a desperate plea and praise, and then he’s coming inside you.

Fierce, intense waves of heat pulse into your raw, messy, clenching cunt.

His pleasure deepens as you open your legs even farther to receive his spend inside you. With a growl, he pulls you against him and jerks his hips against you once more, finishing himself off.

“Yes,” you moan, leaning forward and pressing your forehead against his. The change in angle shields your face from the starlight, but the sound of your shuddering, desperate pants of breath are clear as day. You’re high on this shared bliss together.

“Don’t want to wake up,” he murmurs against your lips.

“You think I’m a dream?”

He traces up your arm and wraps his hand around the back of your neck. “You’re too good to be real. I’m not that lucky.”

You chuckle. “You are now.”

“We’ll see.”