> "You can love a god, but never forget—gods are just monsters with prettier names."
---
Ash still clung to the corners of the shattered temple.
The First Flame's blood had long since cooled, staining the stones with gold-veined cracks, but the echo of her voice still trembled through the ruins like the aftershock of a storm that had kissed the world too hard.
Lyra and Dominic lay side by side on the temple floor, their bodies tangled in exhausted silence.
For the first time in days, Lyra let herself breathe without pain. Not because the battle was over. Not because they had won. But because he had chosen her.
Not power.
Not memory.
Not fire.
Her.
And that alone was dangerous.
Because when a god falls in love with his curse, the world starts to bleed.
---
Dominic stirred first.
His voice was low, cracked with ash. "I remember everything."
Lyra tensed beside him.
"I remember you," he whispered. "Not just in this life. In every one."
She turned to him slowly. "That's not possible."
He smiled faintly. "I was a god once. Then a king. Then a soldier. Then a beggar. And always, you were there. Cursing me. Loving me. Binding me. Unmaking me."
She blinked. "That's not memory. That's obsession."
He touched her cheek. "Or fate."
Lyra sat up, brushing soot from her breasts. "Fate is for the weak."
"And what are we?"
She looked at him. "Something worse."
---
Back at the tower, things changed.
Subtly.
Dominic no longer flinched at the shadows. He commanded them. The black fire that once belonged to Lyra now obeyed them both. Even the runes on her chamber walls bowed slightly when he entered.
But it wasn't just magic.
It was presence.
He no longer followed Lyra like a broken man. He walked beside her.
His eyes were darker now—flashes of gold gone, replaced by endless twilight.
And when they kissed, it was no longer worship.
It was possession.
---
On the third night after the fall of the Flame, Lyra found Dominic standing by her window, shirtless, a blade glowing at his side.
"What is it?" she asked.
He didn't turn. "Someone's coming."
"Who?"
"A god I didn't kill."
She blinked. "I thought they were all—"
"They watched. They waited. They let her burn. But now they want balance."
Lyra frowned. "And what does that mean?"
Dominic turned finally.
His eyes weren't just twilight now.
They were hunger.
"They want you."
---
She laughed. "Let them come."
Dominic stepped closer.
He didn't touch her. Just stared. "If they take you, I will burn the sky."
Lyra raised a brow. "So dramatic."
"I'm not being poetic," he said softly. "I'm being honest."
She stepped into him, placed her palm on his chest, just above his still-human heart.
"You're changing."
"So are you."
"You scare me now," she whispered.
He kissed her.
"Good."
---
That night, their lovemaking was less about fire and more about claiming.
Lyra straddled him in the moonlight, her nails digging into his chest, while Dominic gripped her hips with strength that bordered on divine.
They didn't speak.
They didn't moan.
They breathed each other in like addicts drowning in shared damnation.
When he came, it wasn't a roar. It was a growl.
When she collapsed on him, she whispered only one thing:
"They'll never take me."
And he whispered back:
"They'd die trying."
---
At dawn, the first omen arrived.
A black feather—floating down from a sky that wasn't supposed to remember angels.
Lyra caught it in her palm.
It burned.
Dominic stared at it, eyes narrowing. "He's coming."
"Who?"
"The Hollow Prince."
Lyra's stomach dropped. "Impossible. He disappeared."
"He was waiting. For her to fall. For me to choose."
Lyra closed her fist around the feather, letting it singe her skin.
"Then let's give him a welcome."
---
The tower became a fortress.
Lyra called on every enchantment she'd buried, every curse she'd ever designed but never dared use. Dominic drew sigils in blood on the walls. The air itself grew heavier, like the shadows had grown teeth.
And they waited.
Not like prey.
But like predators in heat.
---
On the fifth night, the Hollow Prince arrived.
He wore black silk and a crown made of bones that hadn't stopped whispering. His eyes were empty—not blind, but devoid. Like someone who had forgotten how to feel but remembered perfectly how to destroy.
He stepped into the tower without knocking.
Lyra didn't bow.
Dominic didn't flinch.
The Hollow Prince smiled. "So. The god and his leash."
Lyra stepped forward. "I'm more than his leash."
"You're his mistake."
Dominic's power surged, but Lyra raised a hand. "Let me."
The Prince chuckled. "Still playing queen of monsters?"
"No," she said. "I'm their god now."
And the shadows behind her writhed in approval.
---
They didn't fight that night.
Not with blades.
Not with fire.
The Hollow Prince wasn't here for violence.
He was here for terms.
"You've killed a goddess," he said, sipping wine that turned to smoke in his throat. "Unbalanced the divine court. You've turned a cursed man into a creature we can't categorize."
He looked at Dominic.
"You're neither god nor mortal now. That makes you dangerous."
Dominic said nothing.
"You," the Prince continued, turning to Lyra, "are worse. You gave him purpose. You made him feel."
"And?"
"You've started a war."
Lyra smiled. "Good."
---
The Hollow Prince leaned back.
"Then let me make you an offer."
Lyra blinked. "You think I bargain?"
"I think you're smart. You've already had a taste of what power does to love."
Dominic's jaw tightened.
"Give him up," the Prince said softly. "Send him into exile. Strip him of the divine. Return the balance. And I will make you queen."
Lyra's smile was slow, lethal. "If I wanted to be queen, I'd have taken the First Flame's throne."
The Prince nodded.
"You're not like the others. You don't want to rule. You want to watch it all burn."
Lyra stepped closer. "Exactly."
"And him?" the Prince asked, nodding to Dominic. "What does he want?"
Dominic answered now.
"I want her."
---
The Prince sighed.
"Then so be it."
He stood.
"I won't be the last. The gods are watching. You've become myth. That makes you a threat. And threats must either become legends… or be erased."
Lyra raised her goblet. "Then let them come."
---
When the Hollow Prince vanished, the tower didn't relax.
It grew darker.
The war had begun.
But Lyra wasn't afraid.
Because for the first time in centuries, she wasn't alone.
---
They lay in bed that night, the sky rumbling above them.
Dominic traced his finger down her spine.
"You could've traded me."
"I could've," she whispered.
"Why didn't you?"
She turned, eyes glowing faintly.
"Because I'm not afraid of gods anymore."
"And me?"
"I own you."
He kissed her, slow and deep.
"You always did."