"Love me like a weapon, and I'll show you the art of surrender."
Morning cracked through the cottage like it hadn't quite made up its mind. The sky outside was pale, cloudless, not yet warm. Light threaded in through the half-open shutters, hitting the kitchen in slow pieces. It caught the lip of the chipped teacup on the counter, touched the handle of the kettle, spilled across the wood table and the worn floorboards that still groaned when the wind changed.
Theo stood in the doorway with bare feet and a dried line of blood running from his ribs to his hip, just starting to scab. The skin there ached, sore when he moved, sharp when he breathed. He didn't move much. Just leaned against the frame like he didn't quite trust the morning yet. Like he was still waiting for something else to break.
He hadn't come to find her. Not on purpose. He had only meant to walk. To stand in a different room. To do anything except lie awake in the dark and think himself into a corner. But there she was, already in the kitchen, barefoot on the cold floor, her back to him, humming under her breath.
The sound barely carried, more a hum than a song, but it filled the room in a way he hadn't expected. She moved like someone who had always belonged there, one hand wrapped around the handle of the kettle, the other tucked into the pocket of the too-large shirt she'd stolen from his drawer. The sleeves had been rolled to her elbows. The collar hung off one shoulder. Her hair was a mess of curls down her back, catching every bit of light that touched it.
She didn't look at him. Just poured a second cup without speaking, without hesitating, and held it out.
Theo crossed the floor and took it.
Her fingers brushed his. That was all. Just the heat of the cup and the familiar scent of mint and something else he couldn't name. Something herbal. Old. Almost sweet. It hit the back of his throat and stayed there.
He sank to the floor without thinking, knees folding, his back coming to rest against the creaking cupboards. The cup stayed warm in his hands. It grounded him more than he wanted to admit.
Luna sat down next to him. Her thigh touched his. She curled one leg beneath her, the other stretched out in front, and sipped her tea like they had all the time in the world.
For a long moment, neither of them spoke.
The kitchen creaked. The sea murmured through the open window, soft and steady. A gull called once in the distance, too far away to mean anything.
Theo let his head tip back against the wood. Closed his eyes. Breathed.
Luna broke the silence first.
"You didn't sleep."
It wasn't a question.
He opened his eyes slowly, glanced sideways at her. "No."
She didn't offer pity. Just nodded, small and knowing, and took another sip.
He studied her in the quiet. The curve of her mouth. The way she held the cup in both hands, fingers wrapped around it like she needed the warmth to stay where she was. There was something grounded in her stillness. Something steady. He envied it.
She looked over at him, finally. "You should eat."
"Not hungry."
"Doesn't matter."
He huffed a laugh, soft and almost real. "You sound like you're in charge."
"I am," she said, without smiling. "Just for now."
They drank in silence again. The moment stretched, but it didn't feel empty.
He glanced down at the cut across his ribs. The blood had dried. The ache stayed.
"You should let me look at that," she said.
He didn't answer. Just took another sip.
Eventually, she set her cup down on the floor and reached for his. He handed it over without arguing.
Her fingers came to rest lightly on his side, just above the wound. Her touch was careful, almost reverent. He flinched when she pressed closer.
"Sorry," she murmured.
"S'alright."
She drew her wand from somewhere beneath the folds of her shirt and held it low. The tip glowed faintly. Her spellwork was always quiet, nearly invisible. The warmth sank into his skin like balm. The ache dulled. The breath came easier.
When she finished, she looked up at him.
"You should've told me it was that deep."
"You were asleep."
"That's not an excuse."
"No," he said. "But it's true."
She didn't press. Just leaned back slightly, arms folded, and looked at him like she was weighing something.
He watched her right back.
The light moved across the floor. The moment didn't end.
The silence between them had grown a pulse. It wasn't empty anymore. It moved softly through the kitchen, slipped into the corners, traced along the windowsill. It lingered between their bodies like something old and patient, something that had been there long before this morning and would be there long after. Neither of them rushed to break it. There was no need. The silence knew them.
Luna sat with her knees drawn up, Theo's shirt swallowing her whole frame. The hem brushed her thighs, and the sleeves had been rolled to her elbows with half-hearted effort.
She looked like something from a dream, sunlit and careless, one shoulder bare where the fabric had slipped. Her hair, untamed as always, fell down her back in uneven waves, touched by sleep and salt and whatever magic lived in her skin.
They held their tea like it mattered. Like the warmth of it in their hands was doing something important. Like the taste was something they needed to sit with. It was. The tea was part of the ritual now. Part of this quiet morning they were building together out of nothing but breath and heartbeat.
Luna tilted her head at the steam rising from her cup. Her voice was soft when it came. "There was a spirit trapped in the kettle."
Theo blinked. "I'm sorry?"
"I let it go last week." She said it like it was a line from a weather report. Calm. Factual. Unbothered. "It was angry. Very old. I think that's what made the tea taste like copper."
Theo stared at her, then at his cup. He took another sip. Cautiously. "That makes no sense."
She didn't respond. Just sipped her tea again, eyes closed like she was tasting something he couldn't. After a moment, he lifted his cup again. Another sip. It did taste better.
Luna's laughter broke the quiet like a ribbon snapping. It curled around them, bright and sudden. Theo scowled at his tea. "It bit me."
She leaned back on her hands, lips curling. "You mean you burned your tongue."
"Same thing."
"Do you want me to kiss it better?"
He looked up, sharp and slow. "Don't start."
"You already admitted defeat."
"I did not."
She tilted her head, all innocence. "You're sitting shirtless on the floor, growling at your tea like it cursed your bloodline."
"It's our floor," he muttered.
"Then I get to make the rules."
His knee nudged hers. "You keep talking like that, I'm going to bite you back."
She smiled slowly. "Don't threaten me with a good time."
Theo's laugh was low and warm and did something strange to the space between them. His voice dropped. "I didn't know you were into that."
"You don't know all my kinks, Theodore."
His gaze darkened. Not cruel. Just steady. Intense. Like a hand closing around something precious. "Then let me learn."
She moved without pause. Climbed into his lap like it was the most natural thing in the world. Her knees pressed against the floor on either side of his hips. Her hands slid into his hair, gentle, claiming.
She kissed him.
Her mouth was soft but sure. Her breath tasted like honey and something wilder. She kissed him like she meant to be remembered. And when she bit his lip, he didn't pull away.
His hand came up to cradle her jaw, thumb stroking just under her cheekbone. "Baby," he murmured, voice thick. "You're very lucky I need to check the wards."
She tilted into his grip, voice a whisper against his mouth. "Otherwise?"
"Otherwise," he said slowly, "you wouldn't be walking straight for a week."
She laughed. Bright and wicked. Then kissed him again, slower now. Her fingers found the scar on his ribs, rested there like a promise.
He let his eyes close. Just for a breath. Just long enough to know he would never forget the way she felt in his arms, warm and wild and entirely his.
~
The field behind the house didn't feel empty.
It felt like something had paused mid-breath. Like the wind was holding back, waiting. The air smelled of salt and old ash, the kind of scorched memory that never fully left the land. Wild grass moved in long, low sweeps, brushing their ankles as they passed through, almost as if it meant to slow them down. Or stop them altogether.
Luna walked ahead of him, silent since they'd left the cottage. Her hair was loose, catching light in streaks as the breeze tangled it around her shoulders. She hadn't once looked back. The way she held herself made something uneasy stir in Theo's gut. Her steps were quiet, but they carried something heavy. Purpose. Or fear.
The sky above was pale and shifting, caught somewhere between morning and storm.
Theo kept pace a few steps behind. His boots pressed into wet earth, the ground still soaked from the night before. Each footfall felt too loud in the hush. His fingers twitched at his sides, not out of nerves, but from the sharp, restless pull to reach for her. Not to stop her—he wouldn't do that. Just to remind her he was still here. That she wasn't doing this alone.
But he didn't reach. And he didn't speak.
She stopped when they reached the center of the clearing. Didn't turn. Didn't signal. Just stilled, spine straight, shoulders pulled tight. Like the wind had gone out of her and left her frozen there.
He didn't like the quiet. Not this kind.
Then, she moved.
Her shoulders dropped. Her knees bent. She knelt slowly, placing her hands flat on the earth, fingers spreading like she was listening through the ground itself.
Theo opened his mouth, ready to speak, to question—anything to break whatever this was turning into. But the ground beat him to it.
A pulse. Barely there. A subtle tremor beneath the soil, like something was waking.
And then the runes began to rise.
The sound came low at first, almost inaudible. A whisper, curling through the grass. Then came the hiss—sharp, high, thin as a blade. Magic, but not kind. Not gentle. Not safe.
He froze.
His breath caught. The hairs on his arms stood. Something shifted beneath his ribs, instinct catching up before thought could.
"Luna," he said, low and sharp.
She didn't look at him.
The circle blazed to life around her. He hadn't noticed the markings until they lit. Old, precise, etched into the dirt in a wide ring. A spell built from control. A boundary drawn with intent.
Not around them.
Around her.
He wasn't inside it.
The runes flared again, brighter now. A warning. And then they settled into a dull, steady glow, crackling just above the soil.
He stepped forward. The magic stopped him.
The barrier didn't lash out. It just held. Firm. Cold. Final.
His stomach dropped.
She had sealed it. Deliberately. Without him.
His heart pounded against the silence. A kind of betrayal started to bloom beneath his skin—not sharp like anger, not soft like confusion, but something harder. Something colder.
His voice was steady when it came, but only just.
"You drew it without me."
She didn't answer.
Didn't glance his way.
Didn't even pause.
Her attention stayed rooted to the runes, the slow pulse of power at her feet. Like whatever she was doing mattered more than the fact that he had been carved out of it.
He stepped closer, and the magic resisted. Not violently. Not emotionally. Just… decisively.
The circle didn't ask him to stay back. It told him.
His own magic stirred, unsettled by the rejection. By the isolation. The boundary wasn't just practical. It was personal. His body recognised that before his mind did.
"You think I'm too weak to stand with you?"
Still nothing.
No flicker of a reaction. No breath. Her focus stayed locked on the spellwork.
"Luna."
Her head turned—barely. Not enough to meet his gaze, just enough to acknowledge he had spoken. But her eyes stayed on the ground. On the runes. On the work.
On anything but him.
He stepped forward again, slower this time. One careful foot, then the next. The edge of the circle began to respond, a quiet thrum rising beneath his boots. Not loud, not dramatic. Just a low hum, like breath drawn through teeth. Like the magic knew exactly what he was about to ask and wanted him to reconsider.
It didn't stop him, but it didn't welcome him either.
"Look at me."
She didn't move right away. The silence held. Then, finally, she lifted her gaze. Not with defiance. Not with fire. She looked at him the way someone looks when they've been holding everything in for too long. Tired. Raw. Like meeting his eyes might undo her completely.
He didn't drop his gaze.
He waited. Gave her space. Let the quiet stretch between them, hoping she'd speak first. But she didn't. And when the weight of it grew too much to carry, he tried again.
"Do you think I can't protect you?" His voice was softer than before. No less serious. "Say it."
Her lips parted, like the answer was right there. But she didn't speak. Her mouth closed. And the way she did it made something twist behind his ribs.
"That's not what this is," she said after a long pause. The words barely reached him. She wasn't trying to convince him. It was just something that needed to be said, whether or not it changed anything.
"Say it anyway."
Her eyes dropped. Her spine held straight, but she drew in a shallow breath that didn't seem to help. Still, she said nothing.
His magic stirred beneath his skin, unsettled and sharp. It didn't know whether to reach for her or brace for something worse. There was no fury in him. Not really. Just that aching, hollow kind of pain that came from being let into someone's darkest nights and then shut out when the sun rose.
"You don't trust me," he said. His voice didn't rise, but it thickened. The words felt like gravel.
"I do."
"Then why would you do this?" His throat tightened. "Why would you lock me out?"
Her jaw set. Her arms folded in close. And when she finally answered, she didn't offer comfort. She didn't try to ease the sting. She told the truth.
"Because you would have stopped me."
He blinked. The words didn't hit like a slap. They settled deeper. Slower. They burrowed into the quiet between them and stayed.
"You would have told me it was too risky. You would have pulled me away, made me pause, told me to let someone else handle it. You always do."
"Because it is too risky," he said. His voice cracked halfway through. "It's not just magic. It's your life."
"And you only care about safety when it's a kind you understand."
"That's not fair."
"It's still true."
She moved then. Not toward him, but further into the circle. Her arms crossed over her chest. Not as armour. Just something to hold on to. Something steadier than him.
"You only let me be brave when it doesn't scare you."
His breath left in a rush. Not loud. Not sharp. Just gone.
"That's not fair," he said again, but the words sounded smaller this time. Like they had splintered on the way out.
"Isn't it?"
She didn't raise her voice. She didn't need to.
Theo stayed where he was. The space between them felt charged, but not with magic. With everything they had never quite managed to say.
When he spoke again, his voice was low enough that the wind nearly took it. "You only let me close when you're scared."
She shook her head.
"No."
It came out thin. Frayed at the edges. A single syllable that seemed to land too hard between them. She didn't soften it. Didn't explain. And she didn't come closer. She stood exactly where she was, as if even saying that much had left her winded.
Theo's jaw tightened. His hands hovered near his sides, unsure of where to go, unsure how to carry the ache that was pressing into his ribs. It felt like there was no shape he could give it that wouldn't betray him.
"You do," he said, slower now. "You let me in when things are breaking. When it's dark or dangerous or there's blood on the floor. But every other moment, I'm just standing there. Watching you drift through the world like nothing ever touches you. Like I only exist when you're falling apart."
Luna's arms dropped to her sides. Her hands balled into fists so tightly that the colour drained from her knuckles. She didn't turn away. Not yet.
"You think I don't want to let you in?" Her voice wasn't raised. It trembled at the edges, small and pained. She sounded more hurt than angry, like he had named something she hadn't realised she'd buried.
He couldn't answer. Not right away. He wanted to say no, to give her that comfort, but the truth held his tongue. And the silence stretched in its place.
She stepped forward, slow and sure, until she reached the line etched into the dirt. Her feet stopped just shy of it. She didn't cross, but she came close enough that he could see the full expression on her face. Her eyes were shining, not with tears exactly, but with the weight of everything she hadn't said aloud.
"I have let you in, Theo," she said. The words came out steady now, heavy with something that had lived inside her for a long time. "I let you in so deep it hurts when you leave a room. I gave you parts of me I didn't even know were still open."
His throat closed up. He felt it seize, sharp and sudden.
"Then why the circle?" He tried to ask it gently, but the edge in his voice cut through anyway.
She flinched. Only slightly. It wasn't fear. It was recognition. A wince at the sound of him hurting.
"Because I saw what happens if I don't."
The words hit low, deep in his gut. He stood still, unable to move. The air between them seemed to grow tighter, every breath harder to take. The runes beside his boots pulsed with light, soft but insistent.
He hadn't meant to raise his voice. But the truth was, he had been desperate to be heard. And now he regretted it.
Luna didn't look away. She just stared at him, wide-eyed and silent, like she was trying to memorise something she wasn't sure she'd get back.
"I saw it," she said. The whisper barely carried. It felt scraped from the bottom of her chest, too worn down to be anything but honest. "I saw what's waiting."
Theo's lungs went still. He stopped breathing without realising it.
"What did you see?"
Her eyelids lowered slowly, like even hearing the question hurt. When she opened them again, her gaze had changed. Something in her had broken.
"Don't make me say it. Please."
He took a step toward her. He barely noticed the way his magic reacted. The barrier sparked along his skin, warning him, but he didn't care. Something in him had started to fracture too, and it didn't matter if the line stung.
"I need to know."
"No."
The answer wasn't loud. It wasn't cruel. It was just broken. Her voice cracked and splintered in the middle, and she turned her head slightly, not to dismiss him, but because looking at him was too much. Saying the next part would cost her.
And everything inside Theo went quiet.
He couldn't pinpoint what froze first—his breath, his hands, the thoughts behind his eyes that had once moved too fast to follow. Now they stalled. All of it did. The world narrowed down to the shape of her voice in the aftermath, and the part of him that had always known she'd be the one to say something that would unmake him.
She had seen it. She had watched it happen in some awful vision or curse-drenched flash of the future, and she had believed it. Believed it enough to carve a line in the ground and keep him outside it.
Luna shifted her foot, barely a movement. Her heel scraped the edge of the circle. The boundary pulsed once, then faltered. The runes flickered like stars caught in a breath of wind. One by one, they dimmed. Just... quietly gone. Snuffed out like candles left too long in the cold.
She didn't explain.
He felt it as clearly as if she had spoken. She hadn't drawn the circle to banish him. It hadn't come from distrust or spite.
She had done it with tired hands, sometime in the dark, because love like hers could sometimes be more terrifying than hate. Because her fear didn't roar. It whispered. It folded over itself in the middle of the night and built walls, not to keep people out, but to stop the sky from falling in.
Now the line was gone. The earth lay bare between them. No glow. No hum. Just the two of them, standing in the stillness, with too much between them and nowhere for it to go.
He said nothing.
Neither did she.
"I'm trying to save you," Luna said after a long pause. Her voice didn't waver. It came out soft, but not unsure. She wasn't pleading. She wasn't asking him to understand. She was only telling the truth.
Theo let it land. Then he nodded once, the movement small, almost imperceptible. His voice came quieter than before, but steady.
"And I am trying to stay."
She looked at him. With a long, unreadable gaze that stretched too far to name.
Then her lips parted, like something else was coming, something final. But no sound followed. The words stayed trapped behind her teeth, heavy and unfinished.
She turned before he could call to her. Before either of them could start patching over the damage with anything neat.
Her steps weren't rushed. She didn't storm off. She just began to walk. Back toward the house. Back through the grass that hadn't stopped moving. Her shoulders carried the weight like she was used to it. Like the ache was older than either of them could name.
And Theo followed.
He followed her because she shouldn't have to carry that kind of love alone. He followed her because she still hadn't asked him to.
He followed, because in that moment, with all that silence still breathing around them, the only place he could belong was beside her. Even if she didn't look back.
~
They argued again. Not like the last time, when their words had been sharp but quiet, careful in the way that meant both of them were still hoping to avoid the worst.
This wasn't like that. There was no elegance in it now. No restraint. It had been waiting under their skin, pulsing there for days. Maybe longer.
It broke the moment Theo raised his voice. Not by much. Just enough. Enough for the air in the clearing to shift, for the tension to crack wide open.
His tone was cold, but the kind of cold that only comes after too many nights without sleep, too many things unsaid. He didn't throw the words so she would hear them. He threw them because he couldn't carry them anymore.
Luna didn't flinch.
Her answer came out jagged, her voice rising into something bright and strange. Not quite a scream, not quite laughter, but something between. The sound of a person with no more room left inside her. A sound that didn't ask for understanding, only release.
They didn't stop. They didn't slow down. The words kept coming, each sentence landing harder than the last, all of it sharp. None of it measured.
They circled each other, not with their feet, but with the heat of their fury. The clearing felt smaller now, like the argument itself had built walls around them, pressing everything in tight.
"You don't even hear yourself," Theo snapped, his fists clenched at his sides. His magic answered his temper, flickering up along his skin like static. There was no spell in it, not yet, but it was loud all the same. Wild and defensive.
Luna stood her ground. She didn't move an inch. Her hair caught the wind and tangled around her face, but her eyes didn't lose their focus. "Maybe I hear myself more clearly than you hear anything that doesn't start with your name."
He stepped forward.
"You put me outside that circle," he said, voice rough, each word dragged from somewhere near his ribs. "You chose to leave me out. Again."
Her mouth twitched. Not into a smile, not quite. Just a reaction, bitter and exhausted. "Because every time I try to explain, you don't ask why. You just ask how I could."
"You think that's fair?"
"I think it's true."
He let out a sound that wasn't quite a laugh. "You think I care about control? You think that's what this is?"
"It always has been," she said. Her voice cracked at the edges, but she kept speaking. "You want me to trust you, but only if I do it your way. Only if it's quiet. Only if it doesn't scare you."
His jaw clenched hard enough to ache. The air around them stirred again, heavy with unsettled magic. The grass leaned into the wind, and the clouds shifted just enough to cast the sun into shadow.
"You think I don't care?" he said.
"I think you care more when I'm bleeding."
Her words hit him hard.
He stepped back like something had struck him across the chest.
Luna watched the movement, but she didn't press. She wasn't trying to win. She just needed him to see it. All of it.
"I'm not trying to shut you out," she said. Her voice dropped to something gentler, but it wasn't soft. It was firm. Worn. "I'm trying to survive the weight of knowing what I've seen."
"And I'm trying to survive knowing you won't let me carry it with you."
That stopped her. Just for a second. Her shoulders lowered, not in defeat, but in grief.
The silence that followed wasn't peace. It was aftermath. Words still clung to the air, sharp and half-formed, not ready to settle. The damage had already been done.
And then everything shifted.
Just a breath. Just the way the light returned to the clearing, threading between them like it had been holding back, waiting for them to finish.
Luna took one small step forward. Not enough to close the space. Just enough to show she hadn't left.
Her voice, when it came again, was so quiet he barely heard it.
"I didn't mean to hurt you."
Theo looked at her. Really looked. And for the first time since the argument began, his shoulders eased.
"I know."
Neither of them apologized again.
Theo's magic burst out of him in a surge of silver-blue light, sudden and violent. It wasn't precise. It wasn't even meant to hit. He just needed it to interrupt her. To break her focus. To stop whatever came next before it reached her lips or her hands or the earth beneath them.
But Luna didn't stop.
Her own magic answered with a force that didn't climb—it struck. It came out of her like breath held too long, like pressure building under her skin, like it had been crouched in her bones all along just waiting for a reason.
She dropped low with a speed that defied logic. Both hands slammed to the ground, palms flat, elbows bent, head down. The soil trembled. Then it turned on him.
The earth twisted. The ground beneath Theo gave way, lifted, cracked, then heaved. Vines shot up from the rip like something furious had been buried there and wanted out. They wrapped his legs in a whip-like motion. Tight. Fast. No warning.
He fell.
Hard.
Air punched out of his chest. His wand flew from his hand, lost somewhere in the thick grass behind him, but he didn't reach for it. He couldn't. His eyes were on her. Locked.
"Luna." His voice rasped low and rough, scraped thin across his teeth. "Don't you fucking dare."
But her hands were already lifting again.
Her eyes were gone. What looked back at him now was nothing gentle. They were pale, wide, wild. Full of stormlight. Full of silence. Full of something that did not care if he understood.
She began to draw in the air. Each movement sharp. Each line exact. The runes circling the field came to life. Faint at first. Then glowing.
He ripped against the vines.
His magic tore through them in uneven bursts, shaking off the last of the green coils as they shriveled into smoke and ash. He rose fast, dirt streaked across his arms, blood on his sleeve, lungs burning from the fall.
She was preparing to cast again.
He didn't let her.
He shouted something he didn't fully register and hurled a binding spell across the space between them. It was raw. It hit her square in the chest. Her arms snapped to her sides as the spell locked in place. She stumbled backward, stunned.
Her hair whipped across her mouth. Sparks jumped from her skin as she twisted hard against the binding, her magic leaking out in sharp, angry bursts.
"I asked you to trust me," Theo shouted, his voice shaking under the weight of everything he didn't know how to say. "I begged you to stop shutting me out."
Luna's voice rose through the wind, cracking as it did. "You don't want trust. You want control."
The ground opened.
Not because of him. She hadn't even looked at him.
She had forced her magic into the soil beneath their feet. And the earth listened. It screamed. It split down the center with a deafening groan, like something ancient was being torn awake. Golden threads of energy shot through the field, ripping through the old runes like they had never mattered. The world around them vibrated.
Theo tried to steady himself.
The ground shifted beneath him, rising and buckling in strange rhythms. The air shimmered. The trees bent. There was something moving under it all. Something vast. Something buried. And it was awake now.
He raised a shield, too late.
The force of it hit him low. His knees gave. He hit the earth hard and slid through the grass—but this time, he wasn't alone. He collided with her. They crashed together, tangled in a mess of limbs and fury and breath. No distance left between them. No room to pretend they weren't both on fire.
His arm wrapped around her by instinct. Her shoulder jammed against his chest. They rolled, neither one willing to stop. Her elbow caught him under the ribs. He swore, grabbed her wrist, shoved her down into the dirt.
Her lip split. Her nails dragged across his face. His weight shifted to pin her, one knee between her legs, one hand pressing her shoulder down, the other gripping her wrist so tightly her pulse jumped under his palm.
The light around them flickered.
Their magic hovered, trembling.
And for a second, neither of them moved.
The field held still with them. Caught in the space between a spell cast and a spell broken. Their breathing was uneven. Their skin burned with magic still flickering just under the surface. And the only thing louder than the wind was the silence.
He was breathing like a man dragged back from the edge, not saved but forced to live with everything still burning inside him. Each inhale came rough, uneven, too fast, as if every breath clawed past splinters lodged in his chest.
His mouth stayed shut. Not because he had nothing to say, but because the things he wanted to hurl at her were too savage, too sharp, too much like the truth. Words that would cut clean through both of them. Not with the weight sitting between his ribs.
Luna smiled.
It stretched across her lips like something dangerous slipping free, like a warning carved into stone. Her voice followed. Quiet. Flat. A tone scraped clean of mercy, like the calm after the moment someone decides they will never beg again.
"If you lay a finger on me," she said, barely loud enough to reach him, her breath brushing his jaw, "I'll carve you open slow enough to make the seconds count."
Her magic didn't burst. It rose steady and sure, thick as fog and older than the bones beneath the earth. It curled around his wrists in a smooth, deliberate touch. Just to show him that she could. That she was not afraid of him. That he should be terrified of what she hadn't yet done.
He didn't move. He reached for her throat. Not to harm. To feel the pulse. To press his fingertips against the soft place between the breath and the storm. A question without words. A demand without cruelty.
She didn't flinch.
She looked at him the way someone looks at their fate once they've stopped fighting it. Her eyes held still, wide and full and wrong in ways that made his stomach twist. Her pulse jumped beneath his touch, but she didn't pull back.
She tilted her chin up, just slightly, like a dare. Like she was daring him to see her fully, even now. Especially now. When she was neither safe nor soft, when she wasn't made of starlight and calm, but of all the things she never said aloud. Pain. Power. Fury she had folded into silence.
"I'll still love you after I kill you," she whispered, and the words didn't shake.
They settled deep. Too deep. They hit like the heel of a boot to the chest.
"But you'll be underneath me," she said, and her voice stayed low, steady, close enough to swallow. "Bleeding. And begging."
Something cracked in him.
It wasn't the threat that undid him. It wasn't her defiance or her magic or the smell of storm-drenched grass curling around them.
It was the certainty. The promise that she would still love him even as she destroyed him. That she could burn every part of him down and still kneel in the ash with his name on her tongue.
He grabbed her face with both hands like it was the only thing anchoring him to the world and crashed his mouth into hers like prayer, like blasphemy, like salvation and ruin woven into one impossible thing.
Their teeth collided, harsh and clumsy, not searching for tenderness but claiming something that had no name. She didn't soften. She met him with equal hunger, like she'd been waiting for this collapse since the day she let him in.
Her fingers twisted in his shirt, yanking him closer until their chests slammed together. He bit her lip. She dragged her nails across his neck. It wasn't love. It wasn't anything kind. It was the aftermath of a battlefield made flesh. It was a kiss born from everything they couldn't fix.
When he groaned into her mouth, she drank the sound down like it belonged to her. Her body arched into him, not for comfort, but out of instinct. Pure and wild. The kind of response that comes when the line between love and war has blurred so far you forget it ever existed.
She tasted like blood. Like fury. Like grief that had learned to sharpen its teeth. And he kissed her like he didn't care if this was the last time they ever touched. Like he would let her devour him if it meant being close enough to feel where her soul cracked.
There was nothing soft about it.
Their rhythm never evened out. It wasn't meant to. It was jagged, frantic, like something torn from another life. Her back arched off the ground, her fingers sliding down the slope of his spine until her nails caught against the dip of his waist. He gritted his teeth at the pressure but didn't pull away. If anything, he pressed in harder.
Luna's breath hitched as he bit down just below her collarbone, not hard enough to break skin, but enough to leave a mark that would bloom dark later. Her head fell back against the grass, eyes closed, lips parted around something that sounded too much like surrender to be safe.
Theo's hand slid under the curve of her thigh, lifting it higher to fit against her properly, to take all of her. She guided him with the same violence she had fought him with, hips tilting up, breath rough and impatient. It wasn't pretty. It wasn't polite. It was everything they had held back finally breaking through.
The clearing around them pulsed with residual magic. The remnants of broken runes still shimmered faintly along the edge of the field, light catching on torn blades of grass and crumpled earth. They moved inside the wreckage like they had been made for it.
Luna opened her eyes, just barely, and looked up at him. Her lashes stuck together. Dirt clung to her skin in smudges. Her lip had split and was already bruising, but there was nothing soft in the way she looked at him. No apology. No need for it. Only hunger. Only fire. Only the kind of ache that didn't know how to heal, only how to burn brighter.
"You're shaking," she whispered.
He wasn't sure if it was from the cold or the heat or the terror still curled up behind his ribs. It didn't matter.
"So are you," he said back, and kissed her again before she could answer.
This kiss was different, slower. As if something inside him had finally given up the fight and decided to stay. She tasted like blood, like broken rules, like absolution wrapped in a storm. And he wanted all of it.
Her fingers dragged down his back, blunt nails scraping raw lines that would sting later. She arched into him, wordless now, breath caught somewhere between pleasure and pain. Her body trembled beneath his. But she never once tried to hide it.
Theo didn't think. Every part of him was inside out. His mind, his breath, his need. It was all her.
And still, somewhere in the wreckage, beneath the ruin, he knew he would do it all again. Fight her. Lose to her. Break for her.
Because this wasn't something to survive. This was something to choose.
Every time.
Again and again.
~
They didn't say a word when the door shut behind them. It was loud. Final. Like the outside world had been locked out on purpose.
Luna's hands found him without thought. She grabbed his jacket with both fists, pulled hard, hard enough to rip the stitching at the seams. It wasn't gentle. It wasn't careful.
She wasn't reaching for comfort. She was reaching for him like she was furious he'd been gone, like the space between them had been too long, too wide, too wrong. He didn't stop her. His mouth was already on hers, all breath and teeth, like he'd been waiting to fall apart the moment she let him.
They crashed into each other, into the nearest wall, into the heat that always flared too fast and too bright between them. She tasted salt and blood and sweat. His hands slid down her back, rough and greedy. She didn't want softness. She wanted pressure. Friction. Proof that he was still here. She tore at his shirt until the fabric gave out beneath her fingers. Her nails dragged down his spine, and he hissed against her throat. From knowing she still wanted him enough to hurt.
He pressed his forehead to hers like it was the only way he could breathe. His chest heaved. His voice broke in the middle of the sentence, and still he spoke.
"I'm sorry."
He didn't whisper it like a question. He said it like an oath, like it had been caught behind his teeth for days and now it was finally breaking free.
"I'm sorry, baby. I'm so fucking sorry."
She didn't ask what for.
Her mouth crushed into his again, harder this time, brutal and wet and filled with every second she'd spent wishing he would just come back. Her fingers shoved beneath his waistband.
He groaned, loud and helpless, his body jerking against hers like it couldn't take the closeness and couldn't survive without it either.
There was no buildup. Just hands pulling and mouths dragging and clothes ripping, both of them clinging like they needed to bleed to feel anything real. It was about the need to be touched by someone who already knew the worst of you and still stayed.
They didn't slow down.
They didn't stop.
Because if they stopped, they would have to talk. They would have to say the things that had been rotting between them.
He lifted her like he'd done it a thousand times, her legs curling around his hips without thought, without hesitation. Her back slammed into the wall again. A picture frame fell and shattered near their feet. Neither of them flinched. Neither of them looked.
He pushed into her in one brutal stroke, and the sound that tore from her throat was nothing short of a cry—sharp and high and raw, like the air had been ripped straight out of her chest.
Her nails dug deep into his back, carving desperate lines down his skin that would sting later, but neither of them gave a damn.
He didn't wait. He didn't ease in. There was no slow build, no gentle check-in. He moved with a hunger that bordered on violent, like he had been starved for years and this was the only thing that could keep him alive.
She clung to him like her body had forgotten how to hold itself up without his weight. Her thighs locked tighter, her hips rising to meet every thrust like she was chasing something just beyond reach.
Each time he drove into her, it knocked the breath from her lungs. Each time he ground against her, she broke open a little more, trembling under the force of it, losing herself in the sheer urgency of being wanted this much.
His mouth moved across her skin like he was trying to learn her by touch alone. Her neck, her jaw, the place where her shoulder met her collarbone—he kissed every inch like a prayer. His voice was a rasp, falling into her skin in pieces.
"I'm sorry," he said, again and again, low and broken and desperate. "I'm so fucking sorry."
She couldn't answer. Her breath came in sharp bursts. Her thoughts had scattered somewhere between the first thrust and the last time he said her name like it meant something more than just a sound. She couldn't speak. She could only feel.
He dragged his teeth along her throat. Not hard enough to break skin. Just enough to remind her she was his.
"You're mine," he muttered, lips pressed to her pulse. "You hear me? You're mine. No one else gets you like this. No one else ever will."
Her head fell back against the wall, her lips parted, her eyes glassy with heat and tears she didn't remember blinking away.
She was unraveling. Every inch of her. Each time he moved inside her, it pulled another thread loose. She felt too full, too much, her body caught in that unbearable place between surrender and explosion.
He held her like he was afraid she might disappear. His hands gripped her thighs like they were the only thing keeping her anchored to this moment, to this room, to him.
"I'm going to break you open," he said, voice raw, shaking with all the things he'd never known how to say. "And I'll hold whatever falls out. I swear to Merlin, Luna, I'll hold all of it."
Her reply was just a whisper, but it carried like thunder in his chest.
"Then do it."
So he did.
There was no rhythm anymore, just chaos. He drove into her like he was chasing salvation, like she was both the altar and the sin.
His body slammed into hers with a rhythm that bordered on brutal, but every stroke lit something holy in her, something aching and bright and alive.
Her fingers gripped his hair, yanked it when it got too much, but she didn't say stop. She said his name. Again and again. Like it was the only word left in her.
She was shaking. Her thighs quivered around his hips, her hips bucked wildly against him, and he could feel it coming, the flood just beneath the surface, the pressure in her like a rising tide.
And then she came.
She screamed, actually screamed, and her whole body jerked like she was being dragged out of herself.
Liquid gushed between them, hot and sudden, soaking both of them, slicking his thighs, spilling down. Her body convulsed as she came, harder than she ever had, muscles locking around him in waves that wouldn't stop.
He froze for a second, eyes wide, stunned and then something primal flickered in him, like awe, like worship.
"Fuck," he whispered, voice catching in his throat. "Luna—."
He didn't slow down. If anything, it wrecked him more. He loved it. Absolutely adored it. That she let go like that for him. That she broke open, just like he said she would.
He gripped her tighter, pulled her closer, shoved himself even deeper into her slick, fluttering heat. She was gasping now, little hiccupped breaths that came with aftershocks, and he kissed her like it would keep her from falling apart.
"I've got you," he whispered. "I've got you baby. Gods, look what you gave me."
Her body was still shaking when he came. He collapsed into her with a groan that tore out of his chest, hips jerking, breath stuttering. His climax hit him like a prayer he hadn't meant to say out loud. He pressed his forehead to hers, mouth open, whispering her name like it was the only thing holding him in his skin.
He didn't pull out.
Didn't even try to move.
He stayed buried inside her, arms still wrapped around her shaking frame, breathing hard against her throat. His chest heaved. Her legs stayed clamped around him, trembling.
And in all of it, slick and messy and ruined, there was something sacred.
It was two broken people trying to survive each other, trying to survive themselves. Like they were crawling back into skin that never quite fit right. Like maybe if they could just hurt enough together, it would start to heal.
She buried her face in his neck and breathed him in like she'd been underwater for months. There were no more words. Nothing clever to say. Just the sound of their hearts trying to sync up in the silence.
And maybe that was enough.
Maybe, for now, that was everything.
~
Her head rested on his chest, right over the slow, steady rhythm of his heartbeat. It had finally begun to ease, each thud softer than the last, weighed down by something that didn't have a name.
His hand kept moving across the curve of her hip. Slow. Repetitive. Like he didn't know how to stop. Like the motion itself had become a kind of prayer, something he needed to do just to believe this moment was real. That she was real. That not everything in his life had to be taken from him.
"I dreamed of her again," he said, and his voice barely disturbed the air between them. It came out quiet. Not weak. Just gentle. Like speaking any louder would crack the calm wide open.
Luna didn't lift her head. She didn't ask.
"Seline," he said, and the name caught in the middle of his throat like it had sharp edges. He spoke it anyway. Not like it belonged to the world, but like it had found its way into him and refused to leave. "Your daughter."
And still, Luna didn't speak. Her breath stayed slow. Her cheek stayed warm against his chest. Like maybe she had known that truth all along. Like her silence wasn't absence but understanding.
"She had curls," he said, and the words cracked at the edge. He didn't try to stop it. "Blond. Unruly. The kind that never stayed put, no matter what you did. She'd laugh when they got in her eyes. This huge, wild laugh that felt too big for her. The kind of laugh that fills up a room before the room knows what to do with it."
He didn't say the rest. The part that always came after. The part where the laughter vanished like a candle blown out in the middle of a dream. The part where she slipped from his arms and into the dark, where his hands couldn't reach and his voice didn't carry and he woke up gasping, heart hammering, already too late.
Instead, he shifted just enough to lean down and press a kiss against Luna's temple. It was light. So light it barely touched her skin.
Her fingers moved across his chest, slow and searching, until they found the edge of his shirt. They curled into it the way they always did when sleep was starting to pull at her. Even in sleep, she anchored herself to something.
And then, without saying anything, she let go of the day. Her breath deepened. Her body softened. And piece by piece, she drifted under.
Theo didn't sleep for a long time after.
His hand stayed at her hip, tracing the same path again and again. He watched the ceiling fade from silver to shadow. And he let the name stay where it lived now, tucked between his heartbeat and the curve of her spine.
Seline.
He didn't sleep.
His eyes stayed wide open, dry and aching, fixed on the ceiling like it might crack open and give him something. A reason. A sign. Even just a thread of meaning he could hold onto in the dark.
He didn't blink for a long time. Just stared. As if silence could be translated, and if he looked hard enough, maybe it would offer him a place to put everything he was too afraid to say while she was still awake.
His hand never left her hip.
It rested there, firm and still, not to hold her down, not to claim anything, just to feel her. To feel something real. Something that hadn't yet turned to ash. His fingers curled slightly, just enough to press into the shape of her.
He could feel the slope of her waist, the soft pull of her breath under his palm. She slept like she trusted him. Like he was steady enough to keep watch. To hold the line while the rest of the world spun off course.
His mouth opened before he could stop it. The words slipped out before fear had a chance to strangle them, before his thoughts could catch up and drag them back into silence.
"I love you."
The sound barely broke the air. It wasn't soft. It was hoarse. Scraped raw from somewhere deep in his chest, like it had lived there for weeks, months maybe, and only now clawed its way free.
"I love you so much it fucking hurts."
His voice cracked around the edges. He stared up at the ceiling like it could swallow the truth, like if he said it to the dark instead of her, maybe it wouldn't cost him anything.
"You don't even know," he whispered. "You don't know what it's like. Carrying this feeling around all the time. Like a blade stuck between my ribs. Like I'm bleeding constantly and nobody sees it but you."
He swallowed, hard. His gaze slid back to her face.
The lamplight reached just far enough to catch the line of her jaw, the faint glint of her hair spread across his chest. Her mouth was slightly parted in sleep, lips still a little bruised from how desperately he had kissed her earlier. And he wanted to do it again. Wanted to kiss her with everything inside him, but not just for want, not just to prove something. He wanted to kiss her to remember what it felt like to have her alive and breathing in his arms. To remind himself that this wasn't just another dream that would vanish by morning.
"You have no idea what I would do for you," he said, barely getting the words out. "What I've already done. What I would burn. What I would drag to hell just to keep you safe."
His voice dropped.
"I'd kill for you," he breathed. "I'd do it again without thinking. And I wouldn't feel sorry after. I'd carry it. I'd carry the weight of it like it was nothing, if it meant keeping you."
His hand pressed a little more firmly against her hip. Not rough. Not demanding. Just enough that she shifted slightly in her sleep, one soft sigh escaping her lips. Her body leaned into him like she knew. Like she always knew.
"You are mine," he said.
It wasn't a claim. It wasn't some brutal threat. It was the kind of truth you only say when nobody else is listening. When you're alone with the dark and the beating of your own heart and the girl curled against you like she's always belonged there.
"You're mine in every way that matters. Even if you don't say it back. Even if you think you can walk away. You can't. We're too far gone. You live inside me now. You carved yourself into my chest, and I don't know how to undo it."
The words slowed. His voice grew quieter, barely more than breath. Honest in a way he hadn't let himself be since before the war. Since before anything had names.
"I don't care if it's madness," he whispered. "I don't care if this ruins everything. You're the only thing I've ever wanted that I didn't try to destroy the second I got close to it. And I'm scared, every single time I look at you, because I know one day you might stop looking back."
He stopped there.
Swallowed hard. Blinked against the burn behind his eyes. The ache in his throat didn't ease. The pressure in his chest didn't lift.
She didn't stir.
Her breathing stayed steady. Soft. Unaware.
She was still asleep.
Still here.
Still close enough to touch, even if she never heard a single word.
He didn't move. Didn't try to wipe his face or shake off the weight of what he'd just let out. He stayed where he was, hand on her hip, holding her like a secret. Like a truth he would never speak again.
And in the quiet, with nothing left to say, he let himself break. Silently. Carefully. So gently that she never woke to see it.
~
The sound started as a low rustling, then something tipped over—distinctly metallic, followed by the unmistakable flutter of paws on tile. Theo paused mid-sentence, narrowed his eyes, and tilted his head like a predator catching wind of prey. His fingers twitched around his mug. Luna didn't look up from her tea.
"That was the treat tin," he muttered.
"That was Artemis," she replied serenely, her tone far too composed for the situation. "He has absolutely no sense of stealth."
There was another crash. Then a suspicious squeak. Then two more, higher-pitched and faster, followed by what sounded like tiny feet skidding into a wall and an abrupt thump.
Theo rose from his chair with the exaggerated grace of someone preparing for battle. "I swear to every god that's ever been worshipped, if they've figured out how to open the cabinet—"
"They have," Luna said, setting her tea down and rising with him, unhurried. Her voice had the tired certainty of someone who had seen this particular brand of disaster unfold many times before. "You left the latch off again."
"It's not my fault Helios has thumbs."
"He does not have thumbs."
"You weren't there, baby. You didn't see what I saw."
He moved quickly now, striding through the hall like a man headed to a crime scene. Luna followed behind, unconcerned, her expression more fond than alarmed.
When they turned the corner into the sitting room, the chaos had escalated to what could only be described as a miniature mutiny.
Artemis was perched atop a stack of books like a war general surveying his battlefield, utterly unbothered by the destruction around him.
Sol was attempting to drag an entire parsley stem across the rug, her small frame buried under the weight of her ambition, legs flailing out from under the green bundle like she had miscalculated the mission halfway through.
Nova and Lyra were engaged in what appeared to be a dramatic, high-speed chase around an overturned flower pot, squealing as they darted under chairs, their tiny paws sending dust and soil flying in all directions.
Helios, meanwhile, was gnawing at the actual corner of the sofa, the wood splintering slightly under his teeth. He did not break eye contact.
Theo stared. For a full five seconds, he just stood there, motionless, eyes narrowed, like he was trying to process the magnitude of the betrayal unraveling before him in real time.
"Okay," he said at last, voice deadly calm. "Which one of you bastards is the ringleader?"
He pointed at all five of them with a slow, sweeping gesture that felt more like a dramatic monologue from a courtroom drama than anything grounded in reason.
Artemis didn't blink. Helios squeaked once and continued chewing the sofa leg with the grim determination of a creature who had seen war and decided to start another.
Luna crouched beside the nearest overturned cushion, her lips twitching into a smile she tried to press down. "You do realize you're outnumbered," she said lightly, as if stating the weather.
"I'm the human in this house," Theo replied grimly, scanning the room like a man preparing to deliver a closing argument.
"You're currently losing a battle to five tiny herbivores with a taste for chaos and a flair for drama."
"They've formed a crime syndicate," he muttered, eyes flicking from one guilty pig to another. "I can feel it. There's strategy. There's coordination. Look at their formation."
Luna reached down and plucked Lyra off the floor mid-scamper, tucking the wriggling fluffball into the crook of her arm like a warm, indignant purse. "I, for one, like this syndicate. Nova just tried to steal my sock again. Bold. Spirited. I respect it."
"She's possessed," Theo snapped. "You saw how she looked at me. There's no remorse in those eyes."
"I wonder where she learned that," Luna mused, gently smoothing Lyra's fur with her thumb.
Theo turned slowly, eyes narrowing like storm clouds gathering. "Was that a dig at me?"
She didn't answer. She simply handed him Helios, who wasted no time launching himself up Theo's arm like a pint-sized mountain goat, making a series of small, triumphant squeals as he scrambled over Theo's shoulder like he had conquered Everest.
"You do hoard weapons," Luna said, rising with the air of someone who had already won the argument, "and you mutter to yourself constantly."
"I mutter because I live in a house with a pagan witch and five sentient rodents who've apparently unionized."
"One of whom is your emotional support animal."
"He's my familiar," Theo said with great dignity, petting Artemis with exactly the kind of reverence one might offer a war veteran. "He doesn't support me emotionally. He simply understands my thirst for vengeance."
Artemis blinked. Slowly. Deliberately. Entirely unimpressed.
Luna leaned in closer, her cheek brushing his bicep, nose nudging against the worn fabric of his shirt like she belonged there, like she always had. "Admit it," she murmured, voice honey-sweet and far too pleased with herself. "You like them more than people."
Theo didn't even pretend to disagree. He didn't roll his eyes, didn't argue, didn't offer some darkly sarcastic rebuttal about how people at least had the courtesy of using toilets. He just let out a long breath through his nose, slow and steady, and wrapped his arm around her waist like it was the most natural thing in the world.
Sol was nestled comfortably between them now, her tiny body stretched out like a queen sunbathing, completely unbothered by the chaos of her children.
Nova had climbed halfway onto Luna's knee, gnawing determinedly on the hem of her cardigan. Lyra was trying to burrow under Theo's thigh with all the subtlety of a small, furry bulldozer. And Helios, as always, had taken it upon himself to launch an expedition up Luna's hair, squeaking proudly as if he'd discovered a new continent.
"They're ours," Theo said quietly, almost to himself, like it still surprised him. His hand smoothed over the curve of Luna's waist. His voice was softer now, full of something quieter and older than wonder, something that might've been contentment if he ever let himself name it.
Luna tilted her head and looked up at him, her expression shifting from playful to something more open, more tender. Her smile lingered, less teasing now, all affection. She reached up to brush a crumb off his collar, then let her hand settle on his chest like she was anchoring herself there.
"Yes," she said, voice steady and full of light. "They are."
Artemis, from his perch on the windowsill, sneezed with all the dramatic flourish of a dying opera singer.
Theo blinked.
Helios chose that exact moment to poop on Theo's sleeve with the dead-eyed innocence of a creature who had no concept of shame or timing.
Theo looked down slowly. "Unbelievable."
Luna was already giggling, one hand pressed to her mouth as she tried and failed to stifle it. "He's just marking his favorite human."
"That is a filthy lie."
"He loves you."
"He is defiling me."
"He's expressing affection in his own special way."
Theo let his head fall back against the couch cushion, eyes closed, one hand still curled protectively around Luna's hip. "If you ever decide to curse me into an animal, please don't choose this life."
She leaned in and kissed his jaw, her laughter still warm in her throat. "Too late. I already did."
And somehow, despite the poop and the fur and the general rodent-related destruction all around them, the room felt like peace. Not perfect peace. Not silent or tidy. But real. Lived-in. The kind of peace you built with tea-stained sweaters, chewed furniture, and the quiet rhythm of a heart that had finally stopped running.