Lucien kissed him.
Not hurried. Not gentle.
It was a kiss that took.
His mouth pressed to Eline's like he was drawing something out of him—slowly at first, then deeper, as if the contact itself had weight. The moment their lips sealed, the heat inside Eline didn't disappear; it changed. It unfurled, loosened, turning into something vast and dizzying, something that made his knees weaken.
It felt… unreal.
As if Lucien's presence was pulling at the very core of him—not blood, not breath, but whatever lived beneath skin and bone. Their energies collided, resisted, then tangled, threads winding too tightly to separate.
Eline's fingers curled uselessly in Lucien's coat, his body lifting instinctively, chasing air that no longer seemed necessary. The world tilted. The garden blurred. For a fleeting moment, he felt weightless—adrift in something almost cosmic.
Too good.
Too much.
Lucien finally pulled back only when Eline's breath broke, when the tremor in his body warned that he was about to fade.
Silence rushed in.
The fabric was doing no justice to him.
The thin white nightdress clung where it shouldn't and slipped where it couldn't hold, sliding lazily from one shoulder as if even cloth had surrendered. Pale skin breathed beneath it—warm, flushed, almost luminous in the moonlight. The line of his collarbone caught the silver glow, delicate and exposed, too fragile for the hunger in the air.
He looked unreal.
His hair fell softly against his forehead, damp with heat, framing a face that seemed carved from something too pure to exist in this world. His lips—slightly parted, overcolored from breath and fever—looked bitten by temptation itself. His lashes cast faint shadows against cheeks tinted pink, as though he had been touched by something forbidden even before anyone laid a hand on him.
The nightdress hung from him like an afterthought, translucent enough to hint, never reveal, teasing the shape of his body without giving it away. Every shallow rise of his chest shifted the fabric lower, slower, until it felt intentional—like the night was undressing him piece by piece.
He didn't look human in that moment.
He looked like something meant to be hidden. Something angelic. Something that could ruin anyone who stared for too long.
Lucien stared.
Something raw and dark flickered across his face—not satisfaction, not triumph. Hunger laced with restraint. Possession tangled with fury.
"You have no idea," Lucien said quietly, voice rough, "what you're doing."
"A casted spell that would even make the gods commit sin "
Eline could barely stand. He wasn't in any position to understand anything that he was hearing. The night air brushed his overheated skin, but it wasn't enough. Nothing felt steady anymore—not his body, not the ground, not the way Lucien's eyes followed every shallow breath he took.
Eline didn't realize when the world shifted.
One breath he was in the garden, night air trembling against his overheated skin, Lucien's mouth still lingering too close—
and the next, the kiss broke, and space rearranged itself around him.
A room.
Large. Quiet. Dimly lit by a single source he couldn't identify—no flame, no lamp, just a low, amber presence that softened the edges of everything it touched. Heavy curtains. A wide bed somewhere behind him. The scent was different here—warmer, deeper, almost metallic beneath something clean and expensive.
Eline should have panicked.
He should have asked how they got here.
But his mind refused to catch up.
Thoughts slipped through him like water through open fingers. His body felt slow and fast at the same time, nerves humming as if they were learning a new language. Whatever had been burning inside him earlier hadn't vanished—it had changed, softened into something thick and swallowing, something that made it hard to remember where his will ended and something else began.
He swallowed, breath unsteady, not even sure what he was reacting to.
It felt as though his body was accepting something—not pain, not touch exactly, but a presence. As if something unseen had threaded itself through him and decided, gently but firmly, that it belonged there. His limbs felt warm, heavy, pliant, responding before his mind could issue permission.
Lucien was still close. He knew that without looking.
The heat in Eline's chest eased when their distance shortened again, not by touch this time, but by proximity alone. His skin prickled as if it recognized something ancient and necessary. He didn't know what was happening to him—only that resisting it felt more exhausting than surrendering to the sensation.
He exhaled, slow and shaky.
If this was wrong, his body hadn't been informed.
All he could do was feel—the quiet pulse beneath his skin, the way the room seemed to hold its breath with him, the strange, unsettling relief of no longer having to decide anything at all.
The next moment, Eline became aware of a strange contradiction inside his body.
Heat—deep, consuming—coiling beneath his skin, while the surface of him felt cold, almost numb, as if the air itself had turned against him. It was disorienting, that split sensation, like burning from the inside while winter brushed his bones.
Only then did he realize he was no longer wearing his nightdress.
Not gently removed.
Not roughly either.
Simply… gone.
The urgency of the moment had swallowed the act whole, leaving no memory behind—only the aftermath. He lay back against the bed, sheets cool beneath him, his limbs heavy, thoughts slow and scattered, as though his mind had sunk into something thick and muffling.
When he opened his eyes, Lucien was there.
The first thing he noticed was the eyes.
Red—unmistakably so now—fixed on him without blinking, without softness. hunger exactly. More like a warning carved into flesh. A silent declaration that something irreversible had already begun.
Eline didn't look away.
He couldn't.
Lucien's eyes were still red — not flashing now, not threatening — just there, steady and undeniable, like a truth that had slipped its mask. The curve of his mouth lifted, barely, not enough to be called a smile, and then he leaned in.
The kiss this time was hungry.
It was deliberate,almost like trying to swallow him whole.
Lucien's lips traced down from Eline's mouth, gripping, as if learning him by touch alone. Along the line of his jaw, the sensitive hollow beneath his ear — and Eline's breath fractured, a soft sound escaping him before he even realized it had. His body reacted faster than his thoughts, arching ever so slightly into the contact, as though pulled by something older than will.
When Lucien's mouth brushed his throat, Eline felt it everywhere.
His pulse betrayed him, fluttering wildly beneath Lucien's lips, and the heat inside him surged again — not sharp, not painful — just overwhelming, like something waking up after years of restraint. His fingers curled instinctively into the sheets, knuckles pale, as Lucien's attention drifted lower, leaving warmth in its wake.
Every kiss felt like a claim that stopped just short of being spoken.
Eline's chest rose and fell unevenly as Lucien lingered there, his presence heavy, enclosing, making the space feel smaller than it was. The fabric that had once covered him had done no justice at all — his skin now exposed to the cool air, flushed and hypersensitive, collarbones stark, breath trembling in quiet surrender he hadn't agreed to but couldn't stop.
Something inside him loosened.
Something else tightened.
A soft sound slipped from his lips — not intentional, not rehearsed — and that was when it happened.
Lucien's mouth drifted lower.
Sucking -as though he were following the rise and fall of Eline's breath, letting it guide him. His lips brushed over the center of Eline's chest, warm against overheated skin, and Eline's back arched without permission, a soft, helpless motion that exposed more of himself.
The contact made his breath fracture.
Lucien lingered there, mouth pressing, exploring with a slow insistence that made Eline's body respond before his mind could catch up. The sensation rippled outward — heat pooling low, nerves lighting one after another — until Eline's fingers slid into Lucien's hair, gripping without thought, not pulling him away but drawing him closer, urging him on.
As Lucien's mouth traced lower still, Eline arched again, chest lifting as if offering itself, his body asking for more even as his thoughts dissolved into haze. The fabric that had once clung to him had long since lost its purpose, slipping, revealing skin flushed and trembling under Lucien's attention.
He kissed his chest, moving slowly down to his nipples. As he arched his chest even more, showing his nipples into his mouth, it was like asking for more, drawing him in without words. One hand tangled in his hair locks, pushing his head into his chest, guiding him closer, urging him silently. The heat in his body surged and pulsed, a fire inside that contrasted the cold surface of his skin, making every touch feel almost unreal.
Lucien's hands shifted.
And Eline's body moved on instinct.
His fingers came down suddenly, catching Lucien's wrist.
Not hard.
But firm.
The moment snapped like a thread pulled too tight.
Eline didn't know why he stopped him — his mind was too hazy to form words, too tangled in sensation — but his body knew. It always had. Some reflex buried deep, older than fear, older than desire, rose up without permission.
-As if his body knew
No one could see this,it sould never come out.
No one .
Lucien stopped.
The room seemed to hold its breath with them — the heat, the silence, the unanswered pull between want and restraint stretching thin but unbroken.
Eline's chest still burned. His hands still shook.
But his grip didn't loosen.