I felt like a fool.
Or maybe just a desperate girl pretending she wasn't.
I should have screamed.
Should have shoved him away.
Should have fought the invisible chains tightening around me.
But the moment Raviel's lips brushed mine, the world tilted.
The shadows around us stirred.
They didn't rise as a threat.
They folded closer like an embrace, thick and warm, swallowing the cold of the stone chamber.
The kiss wasn't sweet.
It wasn't gentle.
It wasn't meant to comfort.
It was meant to claim.
Slow.
Heavy.
Certain.
His fingers tightened at my jaw, holding me still.
His hand was warm, almost hot, his skin strangely steady against the faint tremor in mine.
His mouth moved over mine like a man savoring something he had been denied for a century.
He kissed me like someone who already knew how I tasted.
How I trembled.
How I broke.
He didn't rush.
He didn't need force.
He owned the moment simply by wanting it.
And the worst part—he knew I would bend.
Heat exploded under my skin the second my palms pushed against his chest.
His coat was cool and smooth beneath my fingers, but underneath that, he burned.
My pulse stuttered violently, beating against my ribs as if it wanted out.
"Stop," I breathed against his mouth.
My voice shook, but the word still came.
He did stop.
But not because I willed it.
He pulled back only far enough to look at me.
Silver eyes burned close to mine, cold and bright, searching my face.
He studied me the way a predator studies the one thing it refuses to lose.
There was no softness there.
Only certainty.
"You still fight me," he murmured, tilting his head slightly.
His breath brushed my lips.
"Even now."
My breath shook.
I tried to steady it, the way I did after running the hill behind our house.
"I don't belong to you."
A dark smile carved itself into his mouth.
"You cling to that lie like it will save you."
His tone was quiet.
Calm.
It sank into my bones as easily as my mother's evening prayers once had.
If I stopped saying it, even for a heartbeat, I knew exactly what would happen.
I would feel everything he claimed was true.
That the mark on my wrist was alive.
That the bond humming under my ribs was real.
That I felt him—his presence, his hunger—pressing into something deeper than flesh.
I stepped back, needing distance.
Air.
Space.
Anything that felt like mine.
The stone floor was cold under my thin shoes, nothing like the familiar packed dirt paths of home.
"You stole me."
My voice came out low, steady enough to make me proud.
His expression didn't flicker.
"You were always mine to take."
His voice rolled through me like thunder in the distance.
Quiet.
But absolute.
My fingers curled into fists.
A sharp pulse shot through my chest.
I thought of my mother sleeping in our small house.
Of the worn table.
The clay cup I drank from every morning.
Everything simple.
Small.
Safe.
"Then why don't I remember any of this?"
Something shifted behind his gaze.
Not anger.
Not amusement.
Something older.
Heavier.
"You were my queen," he said softly.
The words landed like a blow.
They did not sound like a compliment.
They sounded like a sentence.
"No."
"Yes."
"I would know," I whispered.
My throat felt tight, as if the air had thickened.
"You forget," he said, stepping closer again,
"but your soul does not."
The shadows behind me stirred.
When I tried to retreat, they thickened, pushing me forward.
Like hands made from night itself, steering me back toward him.
I lifted my chin, refusing to bow.
"If I was your queen, then tell me what happened."
A flicker crossed his face—an emotion I hadn't seen in him yet.
Pain.
Real.
Bare.
There and gone.
"Of course you do not remember," he murmured, more to himself than to me.
I folded my arms across my chest, ignoring the tremor under my skin.
"Then explain it. Or are you afraid to admit that you lost me?"
His jaw clenched.
The air tightened.
In the space of a blink, he was in front of me.
His fingers gripped my chin, not harsh, but firm enough that I could not look away.
He tilted my face up, anchoring my gaze to his.
"I have never lost you," he said softly.
Danger threaded every word.
My throat burned.
"Then what happened?"
A long silence stretched between us.
I could hear the faint hum of the torches, the soft crackle of smokeless flame.
The stone beneath us seemed to listen.
Then—
"You died."
The words punched the breath from my lungs.
"You were taken from me," Raviel said, his voice dropping to a low, hollow echo that seemed to scrape against the walls.
"You fought me.
You ran from me.
You believed you could break what was already bound."
My skin went cold.
My fingers loosened at my sides.
He leaned in.
Shadows coiled around his shoulders like living smoke, shifting with his breath.
"And when they killed you," he whispered near my ear,
"you called for me."
A flash tore through my vision.
A blade at my throat.
My knees hitting stone.
Blood—hot and sudden—spilling over skin.
And a scream.
His scream.
Not human.
Not mortal.
A sound that felt like it could crack the sky.
I staggered, dragged back into my body.
My breath fractured into sharp pieces.
He caught my wrist before I fell.
Not pulling me in.
Not comforting.
Just steadying.
Letting me stand.
Letting me feel it.
"I don't understand," I whispered.
My voice sounded small in the vast chamber, but not weak.
Just honest.
He lifted my wrist.
His thumb traced the mark there.
Slow.
Sure.
Heat followed the path of his touch, blooming beneath the skin.
"You are reborn," he said.
"Every time they take you.
And every time, I find you."
My chest tightened until it hurt.
How many times had I died?
How many times had he found me?
How many lives had I spent circling back to this same terrible, magnetic fate?
"And now?" I whispered.
"What happens now?"
A shadowed smirk touched his lips.
Dark.
Unshaken.
"Now, little one…"
His gaze dropped to my wrist.
"I ensure you do not leave me again."
A cold weight slid over my skin.
Shadows rose from his hand.
They twisted.
Thickened.
Hardened.
I looked down.
A cuff circled my wrist.
Black metal.
Its surface was etched with intricate carvings that glowed faintly with old sigils, pulsing with the same rhythm as my heartbeat.
A shackle.
My breath shattered in my chest.
Raviel watched me with a hunger that looked like worship twisted into ruin.
His eyes flared brighter, silver catching the pale flame of the torches.
This wasn't just a bond.
It was a promise.
A prison.
A vow.