The ruins had gone quiet, save for the low rasp of fire still clinging to shattered beams. Ash drifted in the air, glowing faintly in the moonlight, and the copper tang of blood weighed heavily on the night.
Selene stood amidst it all, sword slack at her side, chest heaving as if she had fought a war herself. But it was not exhaustion that trembled through her limbs. It was him.
Her eyes clung to his figure as the man who had walked through fire, turned zealots to corpses, bent a monster to its knees with a single word. Even now, with the echoes of violence still hanging in the air, he looked composed. Too composed. The storm he had unleashed moments ago left not a single ripple across his expression.
Her lips parted, then closed again. She had always been a woman of fire, quick to defiance, quick to voice her judgment. But facing him, words betrayed her. Her throat tightened, her pride lay fractured, and for the first time in years, she could not summon the armor of her arrogance.
He approached slowly, his steps unnervingly quiet on the broken stone. The beast like Ashfang that trailed behind at a distance, lowered head trembling under invisible chains.
Selene's fingers twitched against her sword hilt, though she knew the truth: the weapon had become nothing but a useless ornament. Against him, there was no defense. Not of steel, not of will.
"You're shaking." His voice was calm, velvet over steel.
"I—" Her voice cracked. She swallowed hard, forcing composure, though her flushed cheeks betrayed her. "You… you're not like them. Not like any man I've known."
His smirk curved faintly. "You're right."
The air thickened as he stopped before her. Ash swirled in lazy spirals at their feet, glowing embers drifting between them. He reached forward not fast, not rough, but inevitable. His fingers brushed along her jawline, tracing the faint line of soot staining her skin.
Her breath hitched. She hated the sound of it, hated the weakness, yet her body betrayed her further by the faint arch of her back, the warmth flooding her chest, the tremor in her knees.
"Selene." His voice dipped lower, intimate, a command disguised as a whisper. "Do you understand now? Why resistance… is nothing but denial?"
Her silver eyes darted to his, shimmering with war inside her. Shame and pride clashed with the pounding heat beneath her skin. She wanted to say no and to spit in his face, to hold her defiance. But her lips trembled with a different truth.
"…You terrify me."
His thumb slid lightly against her lower lip, pressing just enough for her breath to falter. The smirk deepened. "Good. Fear is honest. Desire, more so."
Her eyes fluttered, unbidden. Her heart pounded against her ribs, wild, unrestrained. She felt the weight of his gaze, the ownership in it, the sheer inevitability that pressed down harder than any chain.
When his hand finally slipped from her chin to her throat, fingers resting lightly against her pulse, she did not step back. She didn't even breathe. The night itself seemed to hold still, as if watching to see what choice she would make.
Selene's pride screamed at her, but her body whispered something else entirely something darker, something that made her blood race with heat and shame all at once.
"I…" The word died on her tongue. Her throat flexed under his touch. "I don't know what I am anymore."
His smile sharpened, eyes gleaming with the satisfaction of a hunter watching prey step willingly into his grasp. He leaned closer, his breath warm against the shell of her ear.
"Then allow me," he murmured, low and certain, "to teach you."
Selene's lashes trembled, her grip on the sword finally breaking. The blade slipped from her hand and clattered against the stone, lost in the ash.
The veil of defiance shattered.
And she knew in that moment there would be no turning back.
Her sword lay forgotten in the dust, the sound of steel against stone still echoing faintly in the silence. Selene didn't move to retrieve it. She couldn't. Every fiber of her body screamed with conflict, yet her limbs refused to obey pride's desperate commands.
His hand lingered at her throat, the warmth of his palm a stark contrast to the chill of the night air. Each beat of her heart seemed to throb against his fingers, quickening with every second. His eyes held her in place as surely as shackles, dark and steady, reading every flicker of hesitation across her face.
"You were forged to fight," he murmured, his thumb tracing the curve of her neck with deliberate slowness. "But you were never taught how to yield."
Her lips parted on a shaky breath. Yield the word struck like a blade, cutting through the fragile wall of denial she had built inside herself. She should have retorted, spat her defiance, declared that she would never bow. But instead… the sound that escaped her was soft, unsteady, betraying everything.
He stepped closer, until the scent of smoke and steel on him enveloped her, until the line of his chest brushed against the curve of her breasts. Selene's body tensed instinctively, then betrayed her by leaning forward, the warmth of him drawing her like flame to kindling.
Her silver eyes darted away, ashamed of the truth quivering in them. "I hate that you… that you make me—"
His mouth silenced her.
The kiss was not gentle. It was possession, pure and unrestrained, his lips crushing hers with the same inevitability he had wielded in battle. Her gasp slipped into his mouth, swallowed as he deepened the kiss, hand tightening just enough at her throat to remind her of the hold he carried over her.
Her body answered before her mind could catch up as her hands rose, trembling, clutching at the fabric of his cloak. Her lips parted against his, the taste of ash and heat mingling as she gave way. The rush of surrender left her dizzy, lightheaded, as if the world itself had tipped sideways.
When he finally pulled back, the string of her breath caught between them, her chest was rising fast, her face flushed crimson under the moonlight.
"You…" Her voice broke. "You twist me into something I don't recognize."
He tilted her chin higher, smirk carving sharp against the night. "No. I'm peeling away the lies you wrapped yourself in. What you feel now… is truth."
Her knees weakened, though whether from shame, exhaustion, or the heat flooding her veins, she couldn't tell. The ruins seemed to blur at the edges, the firelight dancing in her periphery as all that remained sharp and undeniable was him.
When his hand finally drifted lower, sliding along the curve of her waist, settling with deliberate weight against the flare of her hip, Selene shuddered. The curve of her body, the taut lines of muscle earned through years of battle, seemed suddenly fragile beneath his touch no armor, no sword, no walls.
And despite every voice in her head that screamed against it, her body arched toward him, seeking more.
The night around them burned with quiet ruin, but here in the shadow of ash and blood Selene surrendered her first piece of herself, not through force, but through the unbearable gravity of his presence.
She knew then she was already his.
Completely.