Notes:
He kissed her like a man drowning, afraid to surface and find her gone.
The nightmare didn't crash in. It never did. It crept back the way it always had—quiet, cruel, and far too familiar. No warning. No sound. Just a slow unspooling, like grief, like memory. One moment he was asleep. The next, he wasn't.
He was back in it.
Time twisted. Sense unraveled. And there it was again—blood on his hands, someone screaming, the air too thick to breathe. Panic rose before he could stop it, sharp and wild, a second heartbeat under his skin.
Theo's eyes snapped open into dark so dense it felt alive. The ceiling blurred above him, shapeless and heavy. His lungs fought to find rhythm, each breath catching like it belonged to someone else. His fingers clutched the sheets, locked tight, as though they could tear him free from wherever the dream had buried him.
He didn't move. Couldn't. His heart pounded so hard it made his ribs throb, and the silence around him felt poised to break. When he finally sat up, it was slow, like speed might bring the nightmare crashing back. He pressed a hand to his chest, felt the wild rhythm beneath it, and held it there, trying to ground himself in touch alone.
Sweat cooled fast on his skin. The sheets twisted around his waist. Cold threaded through the room. When he swung his legs over the edge of the bed, the floor shocked against his bare feet. The air felt like it had been waiting for him.
He rose carefully, not stiff, just cautious, like he no longer trusted the floor to stay solid. The darkness outside his door was thick, old, layered in ways the hour couldn't explain. This wasn't just night. It was something that watched.
He didn't light his wand. Light felt wrong in a moment like this. Too loud. Too bright. He walked forward without it, each breath slow, each step softer than the last, as though the silence might shatter if he didn't move carefully enough.
The kitchen was already awake in that soft, in-between way that made everything feel slowed, like the world had forgotten to turn. A single candle burned on the counter, its flame bending gently with each shift of air, the wax pooling at the base like silence left behind.
She was already there.
Luna stood at the far end of the room, quiet, barefoot, wrapped in a sweater that looked like it belonged to someone else, its sleeves too long and the fabric worn thin at the edges. Her braid had begun to unravel, and strands of hair caught the light as she reached calmly for a second cup.
He sat slowly, body heavy with whatever the dream had left behind. It wasn't images that lingered, just the shape of something unfinished pressing beneath his ribs. His hands were cold. His breath was shallow. The room seemed to hush itself around him, not out of reverence, but out of knowing.
She placed the cup in front of him without a word.
The steam curled between them, smelling faintly of chamomile and something metallic he couldn't name. It tugged at something buried too deep to surface, but the ache was familiar. He stared at the tea like it might steady him. Like it might explain something.
Luna didn't speak. Her eyes were far away, focused inward, listening for something he couldn't hear. The silence between them wasn't empty. It was full of memory, of truths too fragile to be spoken aloud. It held him in place. It held them both.
He almost spoke. There was something caught in his throat, something unfinished. Maybe he had wanted to thank her. Maybe to say sorry. Maybe to say her name. Or maybe to tell her the dream had brought her with it. That her face had been the only thing he could hold onto, and that it had mattered. That it still did.
But he said nothing.
And she didn't ask. She just sat beside him, her fingers curled around her own cup, offering no questions, no comfort, no rescue. Only her presence. Steady. Quiet. Real.
And somehow, that was enough.
And somehow, that was worse.
And somehow, it was everything.
When she rose, it was not sudden. Her body moved with the same strange stillness that always seemed to live inside her, as though her bones had been waiting for this moment longer than she had. She stood slowly, the oversized sweater slipping down one shoulder to reveal a sliver of skin kissed by candlelight. That soft gleam made her seem not entirely of this world, like she was made of something lighter than flesh, something older than sleep.
She didn't speak. Not a word. She didn't look back.
But as she passed him, her hand moved without urgency, her fingers barely skimming the inside of his wrist. It wasn't a gesture meant to soothe or anchor. It wasn't seeking attention. There was no grip, no intention to be held. It felt more like instinct than choice, the kind of touch that lingered just long enough to say, I see you, without forcing anything more than that. It was quiet. A breath passed between two people who had both walked through something unnamed and come out changed. Not healed. Not broken. Just changed.
Then she was gone. The movement of her body melted into the dark, her bare feet never making a sound, the hem of her sweater catching the faint glow before it, too, slipped away. She walked down the hall without pause, and the shadows swallowed her as if they had been waiting.
He stayed where he was. The tea on the table sat untouched, the steam now barely visible, the scent of chamomile thinning into the stillness like the last breath of a dream. The candle beside him gave one soft flutter, then steadied, the flame holding steady in a room that had somehow gone quieter than before.
The house did not groan. It did not shift. It did not ask.
It only waited. And in that stillness, he found himself breathing around something he couldn't name, something that hadn't left with her.
Because the dream hadn't faded.
It remained inside him like a shard of something buried too deep to dig out cleanly, a sliver of memory that throbbed behind his ribs each time he drew breath.
He had seen a child in that dream. A child whose face he didn't recognize and yet somehow knew.
And he had known, with a quiet certainty that frightened him, that the child had belonged to both of them.
Her name had been Seline. Neither of them had ever spoken it aloud, not here, not while awake. And yet in the dream, it had been the only word that carried weight. The only sound that mattered.
She had Luna's wide, watchful eyes, the kind that seemed to see the world from some far-off place and still understand it better than anyone else. She moved with his quiet steps, deliberate and light, like the floor had learned to soften beneath her. Her curls were wild, untamed, catching in the light as she ran barefoot through the overgrown halls, laughter trailing behind her like a thread of gold pulled loose from the fabric of the world.
She had belonged to the house, somehow. Not as a guest or a visitor, but as something that had always been meant to return. Her small hands grazed the walls as she passed, fingers trailing over stone like she was greeting old friends, as though the entire house had memory etched into its bones and she knew where to find it.
Then she stumbled.
He had called her name. Loudly at first, then again, the syllables breaking apart as his voice was swallowed by the house, dissolved into the walls, lost in the breathless quiet that followed. He had run to her, legs heavy, hands outstretched, everything inside him already unraveling.
She didn't move.
Her body was small against the cold stone, too still, too quiet. Her curls spread across the floor like a halo. Her eyes were closed. Her chest did not rise. And when he touched her, his fingers shaking, the warmth was already leaving her skin.
No one screamed. Not her. Not him. Not the house.
But something had broken, loud and terrible, somewhere deep inside him. Something ancient and raw and so full of grief it had no name.
He woke with her name caught in his throat, not spoken but torn out, like it had been trapped for years. His chest was hollow. His hands were open and useless. His body shook like it had been carved out and filled with something that did not belong.
And even though she had only existed in the dark, only lived in that dream, he knew her. He knew her.
And he mourned her like he had lost the only real thing he had ever touched.
~~~
Luna sat on the rug with her legs tucked beneath her, quiet but alert. Her posture wasn't tense, just practiced. The shawl around her shoulders had lost its shape years ago, and the edges were beginning to unravel. It fell around her like something remembered. Her hair had mostly come loose from its knot, soft strands drifting along her neck and cheek where the firelight caught them.
The cards had already been laid out. A crescent shape, wide and uneven. To someone else, it might have looked careless. It wasn't. Every card sat exactly where she had placed it, not for pattern but for meaning. She didn't need symmetry to read the shape of things.
Her hand hovered just above the spread. She didn't touch them. Her fingers moved slowly through the air, like she was feeling for something just out of reach, like the story was already there, waiting for her to listen properly.
She closed her eyes, not to escape, but to find it more clearly.
The space around her felt held, like the air had gone still just to listen. There was weight in it, the kind that gathered in quiet corners, the kind that watched without blinking.
And still, she moved through it with that calm of hers, unhurried and sure, like she had long since learned how to live beside things that couldn't be named. Nothing about her was performative. She moved like someone who had made peace with carrying questions that never asked to be answered. It was reverent, but not for show.
The cards in front of her weren't meant for anyone else. She didn't read for others, not often. And never for herself unless the silence got too loud, unless something in the house began to shift. This wasn't comfort. It wasn't habit. It was a last resort.
The question had been building for days. She hadn't said it aloud. She hadn't even let herself shape the words in her head. But it was there anyway, sitting just behind her collarbone, steady as a second heartbeat. The cards would understand, even if she never named it.
She reached for the deck she kept wrapped in silk and thyme, the one no one else touched. Her fingers moved slowly. Carefully. She drew three and placed them on the rug in front of her, not out of fear, but with the quiet, practiced care of someone who knew exactly how much truth could weigh.
Past. Present. Future. The old pattern. The one that still made her throat tighten if she thought too hard about what came next.
She turned the first card with a kind of quiet acceptance, not surprised by what she saw, only affirmed. The past still held her. Its grip hadn't loosened. Whatever had come before was not finished with her yet. And maybe it never would be. That was fine. She had never expected mercy.
Her hand hovered over the second card for much longer than she meant it to. The present asked more of her than the past ever had. It was the place where decisions lived, where consequences began to take shape. Her breath caught in her chest and stayed there. It didn't hurt. It just sat there, full and tight, as if waiting for something to shift.
And just as she began to turn it, just as the card gave way beneath her fingertips, she felt it—something else in the room.
He didn't announce himself. She only knew he was there because the air changed. The silence folded differently around him. The room itself seemed to pause. Her fingers stilled over the card, but she didn't look up. She didn't need to. She already knew who had entered. She had known he would come.
Theo entered the way he always did when something weighed on him more than he was ready to name. His steps were measured, deliberate, not loud enough to startle but not quite soft enough to go unnoticed either. He carried silence the way others carried armor. Not empty. Not passive. It had shape. It had gravity.
Still, Luna hadn't heard him coming.
Maybe she had been too deep in it, too far beneath the surface, her mind wrapped in ritual, her breath caught between the past and whatever tried to bloom in the cards at her feet. She didn't know. She only knew that when his voice finally broke the quiet, it landed like a pebble tossed into dark water. Not loud. Not harsh. But enough to ripple everything she had been trying to hold still.
She flinched. Barely. Just a small pull inward, like the moment you realize someone has walked through a door you were certain was locked. Her shoulder twitched. Her breath caught. And the card she had just turned over sat there between them, face-up now, waiting.
"What is it?" he asked.
His voice stayed low. Careful. He always spoke like that when something fragile hovered between them, when he sensed she was standing close to something sharp and didn't want to startle it into breaking. It wasn't gentleness in the usual sense. It was more like instinct. Like he had learned how to measure silence in units of pressure.
She looked up at him slowly.
It wasn't the speed of the movement that made it heavy. It was the weight behind it. The way her gaze climbed toward him like someone emerging from deep water. Her mouth tilted, something that almost passed for a smile if you only watched the way her lips curved and ignored the rest. But her eyes gave her away. There was a flicker there, something quiet and worn, something that had no place in sweetness.
"Just curiosity," she said.
Her voice was soft. Steady. But there was something missing from the center of it, something hollowed out like a word carved into wood too many times. She said it with the practiced ease of someone who had tried to believe it before. Not once. Not twice. Over and over, until the lie had become muscle memory.
"Nothing dangerous," she added.
It sounded like something meant to shrink the moment down to a size that wouldn't hurt to hold. As though saying it gently enough might make it true. As though the air wouldn't shift, and he wouldn't look, and they might go on pretending there was nothing between them except the ordinary dark.
But his eyes had already moved.
Not because he meant to. Not because he was trying to catch her in something. Just a quiet tilt of the head, a slow shift of his gaze toward the low table between them. Something in the room had pulled him there without asking, the same way a person looks toward the horizon when they feel rain coming.
And there it was.
The card lay flat against the rug, surrounded by its companions, but standing apart. The flicker of candlelight softened its edges, but nothing could blur the image now. It was too precise. Too known. Too loud in its silence.
He looked at it.
And something inside him went still.
A man, suspended upside down by one ankle, his arms hanging limp at his sides, as though the struggle had already been lost or abandoned long before the image was drawn. There was something ancient in the stillness of it, something that didn't quite scream but also didn't whisper. It simply existed. Caught. Held. Waiting.
It should have meant nothing. It should have been just another card in the spread, a symbol among symbols, ink and myth and archetype like all the rest.
But Theo couldn't breathe right. His lungs caught on something sharp. His fingers didn't move, but his pulse lurched anyway, because the face on the card wasn't his, not exactly, and yet it might as well have been. Not a perfect match, not a portrait or a reflection, but the kind of resemblance that slid past logic and went straight to the spine. The brow. The angle of the jaw. The hollow beneath the cheekbones. The tired mouth set just slightly wrong.
And the posture. That was the worst part. The way the figure's shoulders curled inward, protective in that way people get when they've stopped expecting kindness. As if he had once stood straight and bright and sharp-edged and now could do nothing but hang, all fire drained and no place left to go. It wasn't just a picture. It was something heavier. A mirror that didn't reflect but remembered.
Theo stood very still.
He wanted to step back, but his body betrayed him. His feet didn't move. His chest rose too quickly. There was a tingling under his skin like something waking up that had been sleeping for a very long time, and the cold of it crept up his arms, settling into the crooks of his elbows and the back of his neck.
He didn't speak right away. Not because the words weren't there. They were. But each one felt like it had to be carried through some internal gate, something old and half-locked, something that creaked when opened. His voice, when it came, sounded rough. Not broken. Just... tired in the way that comes from carrying too much without ever putting it down.
"Do you think," he asked, and paused there, almost hoping silence might fill in the rest for him, "that we were meant to meet like this?"
Luna didn't look up.
She just sat there, still as breath before a storm, her gaze steady on the spread before her. Her lashes cast faint shadows across her cheeks, and the candlelight pulled pale gold across her skin like the echo of a thought she hadn't spoken aloud.
And then, with a motion so quiet it barely broke the moment, she reached out and turned the next card.
Her hand didn't shake. Not visibly. But there was a tightness in her fingers, a kind of tension she tried not to show, like the act of flipping the card required something from her that she wasn't entirely sure she could give.
She looked at it. Only for a second.
Then she placed it back down, face-down against the rug, quick and deliberate, like sealing a wound before it could bleed, like pressing shut the cover of a book she didn't want either of them to read. Her eyes stayed on it, not with curiosity, not even fear. Just a kind of knowing. The kind that lives in the chest long before it's named, the kind that leaves no space for denial once it arrives.
And still, she didn't answer.
And when she finally spoke, her voice barely stirred the air between them. Soft. Steady. And strange in its finality, like someone closing a door between one breath and the next.
"No," she said.
It wasn't regret that shaped the word, but it wasn't certainty either. It lived in that in-between place where things settle after being said too many times in the quiet of one's own mind. The kind of truth that doesn't need to shout to cut.
"Not fate," she continued. "Just consequence."
The silence that followed pulled at the seams of the room, stretching long and taut, thick with all the things neither of them were ready to speak aloud. It was the kind of silence that had nothing to do with stillness. The kind that came with tension, the kind that wrapped itself around the ribs and waited, pressing in with the hush of thunder still caught behind the clouds.
He moved slowly, the bench creaking beneath him as he sat. Not close enough to touch her. But close enough to feel the heat that came off her in low, steady waves, the kind of warmth that didn't ask to be noticed but couldn't be ignored. That small distance between them held the shape of something unspoken. And alive.
"Consequence of what?" he asked. The words came carefully, like he was holding something fragile in his mouth, afraid it might shatter on the way out.
She didn't turn. Her shoulder rose slightly, a ghost of a shrug beneath the shawl. "The war," she said. "Everything that came before it. All the things that twisted us long before we were ever in the same room. Maybe it's the consequence of you pretending not to know what you are. Or what you want. Maybe it's me thinking I could outrun grief if I dressed it up in rituals and called it meaning."
He made a sound low in his throat. Something between a laugh and a wound. A crack in the dark. His tone shifted when he spoke again, rougher now, touched by something sharp that had been waiting there under his voice.
"Is that what this is?" he asked. "Grief?"
Her fingers drifted toward the card again. The Hanged Man. She didn't lift it. Just let her hand hover close, close enough to feel its edges without claiming it. "Sometimes," she said, quiet and even. "Or guilt. Or karma, if that's what you believe. Or maybe it's something older than all of those. Something that's been circling us since long before we were born. Not trying to heal us, not exactly. Just asking us to look. Just to see ourselves the way we are when we're not pretending."
He swallowed. The sound barely made it past his throat. Her voice, when she continued, didn't rise. Didn't break. It stayed steady in the way rain sometimes does when it's been falling for hours.
"You're right there," she said. "In the center of my reading. Not choosing. Not acting. Just suspended. Waiting. Watching everything pass around you without moving."
He let out a sharp breath, nothing dramatic, just air pushed hard through his nose, dry and tight like autumn leaves cracking underfoot.
"And what about you?" he asked.
This time, she looked at him.
Her eyes rose slowly. Not because of hesitation, but because she needed to gather herself to do it. To meet him without flinching. Her expression didn't shift much, but there was something in the set of her mouth, in the stillness of her brow, that told him she already knew what she would say.
"I used to think I was the rope," she said.
The words landed softly. But they didn't soften. They had weight. They had years inside them.
Her voice didn't tremble.
"But lately…" she paused, just for a breath, "lately I wonder if I'm the noose."
The silence that followed wasn't empty. It filled everything.
Something pulled tight inside his chest. A knot that had been forming slowly, cinching itself in quiet places, finally closing with a pressure that stole the breath right out of him. He didn't know what to say. Or maybe he did, but the words had already drowned beneath the feeling.
So he stayed there. Still. Breathing in a silence that felt older than either of them. Listening to the shape of her pain like it was something he had always known, something that had lived inside his own bones long before she gave it a name.
He leaned forward, slow and unsteady, his spine folding in on itself like something too tired to stay upright. His elbows found his knees. His hands dangled between them, loose and open, not reaching for her or anything else. Just resting there. Waiting.
He didn't look at her. So he looked past it. Into the flicker where candlelight ended and shadow began. Into that soft, golden edge where truth lives when it's not ready to be spoken aloud.
The card on the rug gleamed where the flame caught it. Still and expectant. As if it had been listening the whole time.
And then, finally, his voice broke through the hush. Quiet. Frayed. As though it had been stripped bare on its way up from somewhere deep inside his chest.
"I don't want this to be some cosmic punishment."
The words didn't echo. They didn't need to. They dropped softly into the room, and somehow that softness made them heavier.
She smiled, but not the kind of smile that offers comfort. It was thinner than that. Worn at the edges. The kind of smile that holds too much knowledge and no pleasure in holding it. It didn't reach her eyes. Not because she didn't want it to, but because some truths live too close to the surface to be masked by softness.
Her voice stayed even. Not cold. Not sharp. Just clear in the way that truth often is when you stop trying to bend it into something easier.
"It's not punishment, Theodore."
Her gaze stayed on the cards.
"It's recognition."
And then, after a moment that stretched long enough to feel like a choice:
"We were always going to find each other, in one form or another. The real question is whether we'll survive the finding."
The words settled in the space between them. Not like a revelation. More like something they had already known but needed to hear out loud.
And that was it. That was the truth of it, plain as bone.
Not fate. Not mercy. Just inevitability.
Neither of them moved.
The candle kept burning, its light dipping and swaying, casting long, strange shadows that curled along the walls like something half-remembered. The cards stayed in place, unmoving, untouched. As if they knew the story wasn't finished. As if they were waiting to be asked a better question.
And still, no one reached for them.
They just stayed.
Together, in the quiet. In the space where names like fate and consequence and recognition all began to sound the same.
Not healed. Not ready. But seen.
She reached for the deck and gathered it into her hands with the kind of quiet certainty that didn't need to be spoken aloud. The decision had already lived in her, somewhere behind the ribs, long before her fingers ever moved.
Her hands closed around the deck, and then, one by one, she began to feed them into the fire.
Each card slipped between her fingers like a final confession. The flames rose gently to meet them, patient and quiet, curling at the edges before catching fully, the painted surfaces blackening and folding inward like scorched petals. No hiss, no crackle. Just the slow undoing of something sacred. The figures on the cards vanished without protest, but not without weight. It felt like each one had something to say and was choosing not to.
He said nothing. He didn't reach for her, didn't interrupt. He only watched her hands, watched the way they moved, steady and sure, as though she was closing a chapter he had only just begun to read. There was something final in the air, but not in the way that hurts fast. It was softer than that. The kind of ending that sits in the bones for a long time after the moment passes.
When she reached the last card, her hand stilled.
She didn't look at him. She didn't need to. They both knew which card remained.
The Hanged Man.
She held it for a long time, longer than the others, her fingers resting lightly along its edge. Not clinging. Just holding. Just looking. As if there was something left she hadn't quite said. As if the image on the card still had its grip on some part of her that she was only just beginning to loosen.
The candlelight flickered across the painted face, catching on the lines in the ink and the delicate shape of the rope. For a moment, it looked alive again. Then, in a voice so soft it barely crossed the space between them, she whispered, "I'd rather not know anymore."
And she let it go.
The card didn't burn easily. It held on. The edges curled, but the image clung to the center like it wasn't ready to vanish, like it was making her mean it. The rope darkened. The face warped. The paper blistered and cracked. Then, finally, it fell inward and folded into ash.
The fire kept burning.
The room stayed quiet.
The heat of the last card lingered longer than the flames, a warmth that didn't touch the skin but stayed somewhere deeper, just under the sternum. Neither of them moved. Neither of them spoke.
There was nothing left to say.
~~~
Luna stood just outside the storeroom, half-shadowed by the narrow corridor behind her, arms locked around her ribs like she was holding herself together. Her mouth was tight, her posture rigid, the kind of stillness that didn't come from peace but from pressure, from bracing. She didn't say a word as he approached. She didn't have to. Her silence said enough.
Theo stepped into the room and froze. The shelf in front of him sat empty where the binding powder should have been. The hollow space stared back at him like an accusation.
Something shifted in his chest, too sudden, too sharp. He didn't even try to swallow it down. His voice came out clipped, flat, already fraying at the edges. "Where is it?"
There was no greeting. No preamble. Just that question, thrown too hard, too fast, like he was trying to hit something with it. The weight of a bad night clung to him, the kind that leaves your skin tight and your thoughts mean.
Luna didn't answer. Not at first. She blinked, slowly, like she was coming back from a place he hadn't been invited to. Her calm wasn't gentle. It wasn't even really calm. It was sharp in its own way, cool and still and infuriating.
"I moved it," she said, her tone light, almost soft, but without warmth. "Sol kept sneezing when I opened the jar."
He stared at her. That was it? That was the answer? His jaw tensed, a muscle ticking near the corner of his mouth. "You moved it to where?"
There was a bite in his voice now. Controlled, but only just. The kind of control that's really a thread pulled tight, ready to snap with the wrong word.
She tilted her head slightly, as if she could already see how this would unfold and had decided not to care. "Back cabinet. Sealed. Red label. Exactly the way you like it. Nothing's going to explode because I shifted one jar."
"You don't get to make that call," he said, louder this time, the words sharper. "That powder reacts to proximity. If it's too close to an open spell, it can destabilize the entire system. This isn't a greenhouse or a bloody herb shelf. This is dangerous magic. We need structure. You can't just—"
"I didn't just," she cut in, but her voice wasn't raised. It didn't need to be. It slid beneath his like a knife slipped under armor. "I followed every precaution. You act like I tossed it in the bloody fireplace."
"You didn't say anything," he snapped, the heat in his voice climbing until it curled up the back of his throat. "You didn't tell me. You didn't write it down. You didn't even leave a note. You just decided."
"It is my house," she said, and the softness that usually lived in her voice had vanished. There was nothing dreamy in the way the words came out now. No gentle lull. Just grit and fury, loud and solid. "I didn't think I needed your permission to shift a fucking jar of powder."
"Oh, of course not," he spat, stepping forward without meaning to, shoulders tight, breath louder than it should have been. "You never need permission for anything. You just drift through this place like it doesn't touch you. You float around in your little rituals, your potions, your scattered notebooks, while the rest of us are left patching up holes and praying the ceiling holds. You treat it all like a story you can rewrite. Like none of it's real unless you say it out loud."
Her laugh broke sharp and hollow, all edges and no light. "And you think this place is holding together because of you? You really believe the world is going to split open the second someone touches something you didn't approve? You're not keeping us safe, Theodore. You're building a cage and locking the door behind you."
"Don't pretend you understand me," he growled, his voice dropping low enough to carry something unsteady underneath. "You don't."
"I do," she said, and her step forward was quiet but forceful, close enough that the air between them began to shift. "You wake up every day pretending you're the reason this place hasn't fallen apart, pretending your control is safety. But it's not. It's fear. You're clinging to a version of the world where rules can save you, because the truth would break you if you looked at it too long."
He shook his head, jaw clenched so tight it hurt. "Better fear than delusion. Better than pretending the danger isn't real. Better than dancing barefoot through wards that could slice your skin open just because you believe good intentions are enough."
"You think that's bravery?" she said, her voice stripped of patience now, low and cutting. "That's not bravery. That's a tantrum with a purpose. You lash out at the world because you can't bend it into something that listens. You act like being cold and careful makes you better. But it doesn't make you strong. It makes you brittle."
His voice cracked on the next words, too raw to hide. "You're going to get someone killed."
"Maybe," she said, not backing away. Not blinking. "But so will you. You with your silence. Your secrets. Your refusal to admit that this place is already broken, and no amount of order is going to fix it."
"And what, you think I'm supposed to just let go?" His hands opened at his sides, helpless and angry and so full of grief he couldn't contain it anymore. "You think I'm supposed to stop caring? Stop trying?"
"I think you're supposed to stop pretending," she said, her voice quieter now, but no softer. "Stop pretending that you're the only one who knows how to survive. Stop pretending that all of us aren't trying just as hard. Stop pretending that you see me when all you ever do is look right past."
He didn't move. Just stood there, staring at her like maybe, just maybe, something had cracked open that he hadn't meant to show.
They were standing far too close now, the kind of close that made the air itself feel charged, like the walls might crack if either of them spoke too loud. Every breath passed through both their lungs. Every heartbeat felt too loud in the quiet.
The space between them didn't feel like space at all—it felt like pressure, like static just before the storm breaks, like every particle in the room had turned toward them, waiting.
It was the kind of closeness that made stepping away feel like betrayal. Like if one of them moved, something fragile might shatter between them, something they hadn't dared name yet. Skin hovered near skin. Heat moved without touch. Their silence stretched thin as wire, drawn tight enough to hum.
Then she moved.
Her hand reached out and caught his wrist, sudden and certain, fingers wrapping around him like they had been waiting to do it for far too long. The contact was not gentle. It wasn't violent either. It was something else entirely—deliberate, instinctive, full of weight.
Her palm landed directly over the place where the bond pulsed under his skin, that old, enchanted thread that had bound them since the ritual, that strange magic neither of them had asked for but had never once faded. It glowed faintly now, not visibly, not to the eye, but he felt it, felt the warmth of her skin over his and the answering pulse that stirred beneath it. Like an ember waking in the ashes.
Her voice followed, low and trembling, more breath than sound, but no less powerful for it. "Why do you keep pulling away from me if you're already tied?" The question wasn't a weapon. It wasn't even a demand. It was something smaller and more dangerous. A crack. A plea. "Why do you keep acting like this isn't real?"
He stared at her, and for once, there was no mask left to wear. No shield of logic or distance. His lips parted like he meant to say something, like the words were right there on the edge of forming—but nothing came. He just stood there, eyes wide, chest tight, throat working uselessly around the shape of the truth he hadn't been ready to admit. The truth that maybe she was right.
Her hand stayed there, pressed against the spot where the thread lived, not like a threat but like a truth. Like an accusation. Like a lifeline. Like a question that neither of them could ask out loud because the answer would cost more than they were ready to give.
The silence between them didn't break. It changed shape. It thickened and settled low, turned heavy in the chest and sharp at the edges, something molten and close and unspoken. Not quite anger anymore. Not quite longing either. It was older than either of those. Older than words. It was grief laced with want. It was history dressed in skin.
And then he looked at her.
And for a moment, she wasn't Luna. She wasn't the soft voice in the mornings or the strange girl who whispered to mooncalves and moved through the world like it was music she could hear and he couldn't.
She wasn't light. She wasn't mercy. She was the edge of something ancient and breaking. Something that had always been just out of reach but somehow knew his name. She was the cliff, and without meaning to, without even knowing it had happened, he had already stepped off.
He tore his hand from hers so suddenly it felt like a wound. The way someone might pull away from a flame too hot, not because it burned, but because it revealed something you weren't ready to see. His breath caught. His eyes dropped.
And then he turned away, not with calm, not with coldness, but with panic that barely stayed hidden under his skin. His movements were too quick, too sharp, too loud in a house that always felt like it was listening. He walked like he needed to put a wall between them, as if the only way to hold himself together was to get out before the rest of him came undone at her feet.
His footsteps rang out, fast and uneven, slamming into the floor like punctuation marks on something he didn't want to finish saying. Not this time. Not to her.
Her hand hovered near her side, fingers still curled like they didn't realize he was gone. Like they were still holding the ghost of him. Like they hadn't yet let go.
And long after his footsteps had faded and the house had gone quiet again, the thread pulsed beneath her skin. Warmer than before. Brighter. Almost angry. Like it had taken his absence personally. Like it wasn't done with either of them. Not tonight. Maybe not ever.
~~~
As the evening settled into the bones of the house, stretching the corridors long with silence and shadow, he found himself walking toward her door with a heaviness that had little to do with the weight of his steps. Regret wound tight in his chest, not sharp and sudden, but dull and suffocating, the kind that grew heavier with time. It wasn't just the things he had said that haunted him, but how he had said them. He hadn't spoken to her. He had thrown words like weapons, cutting her down with the kind of precision that only came from knowing exactly where to strike.
And now, he was standing in front of her door, staring at the grain in the wood like it might crack open and swallow him whole. His hand hovered at the handle. His fingers brushed the cold brass with a hesitation that felt like reverence, as if the moment required permission he hadn't earned.
He didn't come to ask forgiveness. He wasn't arrogant enough to believe he deserved that. What he wanted, if he was honest with himself, was just a chance to unbury the truth. To say what he meant the first time. Even if it came out wrong.
He turned the knob.
The door gave way with a soft groan that seemed too loud in the hush of the room. For a moment, he stayed still. Then he saw her.
And everything stopped moving.
She stood near the center of the room, unaware of him, newly stepped from the shower. The air was thick with the scent of lavender and steam, as if the room had breathed her in and hadn't quite let go. Her skin still glistened from the heat. She had not dressed, had not wrapped herself in defense or modesty. She was simply there. Bare and breath-warm and real.
Her back faced him. Damp hair clung to the delicate lines of her shoulders. Droplets of water traced slow paths along her spine, catching the candlelight in soft gleams as they moved. A towel hung forgotten over her arm. It seemed she had paused mid-motion, caught in thought or in silence or in something only she understood. The stillness around her was not frozen. It was alive.
And she looked like something he could not reach.
She just existed. Unfiltered. Uncovered. Unafraid.
He felt it in his throat first, that tight, stunned catch of breath. She didn't look like something he had the right to name. She looked like something sacred. Something ancient and untouched. Something he had broken once already.
In that moment, whatever apology he had rehearsed in the hallway vanished. His words had fled, drowned by the sharp, aching beauty of her and the realization that he had never truly seen her until now. And now, he could not look away.
"How can I help you, Theodore?" she asked, her voice a soft murmur that barely carried over the quiet hum of candlelight and steam.
She hadn't turned to face him. Her back remained to him, shoulders rising gently with breath as she continued toweling off her damp skin with an absent grace that only made his pulse throb harder. She was bent forward slightly, reaching toward the lower half of her leg, her hair spilling down like strands of pale silk, and it was in that godforsaken angle that he caught it.
A flash.
A glimpse.
Something delicate. Bare. Exposed for the briefest second, and yet burned into his memory with searing clarity.
Her cunt. Soft. Smooth. An impossible shade of pink that defied logic, the kind of pink that existed in old love letters and rose petals pressed between pages. Baby pink. Perfect. And entirely unaware that she had just undone him.
He felt the heat surge downward, hard and immediate, as though the blood in his veins had been yanked into his cock by invisible strings. It wasn't just arousal. It was desperation. A reverence wrapped in hunger. He didn't want to shatter the moment. He wanted to drown in it.
He didn't answer her right away. Words had become useless things, too clumsy for the sharp ache in his chest and the burning tension in his body. Instead, he moved toward her, each step quiet but deliberate, his gaze locked onto the smooth plane of her back, the curve of her hips, the trail of droplets still rolling down the backs of her thighs like tiny prayers.
When he reached her, he let his hands find her first. Fingers brushing along the small of her back, where the skin was warm and damp and maddeningly soft beneath his touch. She shivered slightly at the contact, but did not flinch. Did not turn. She just breathed deeper now, slower, her body beginning to understand what his silence meant.
He bent forward, lowering his mouth to the slope of her shoulder, and pressed his lips there with the kind of care that made the moment feel sacred. His mouth was warm, slightly parted, and he kissed the damp skin once, then again, letting his lips linger just long enough to taste the heat of her. The scent of lavender clung to her like a second skin, sweet and faintly wild, and he let it curl into his lungs like smoke.
She still hadn't turned around.
And somehow, that made everything worse.
Everything better.
Everything harder.
"I came to apologize," he said, the words low and rough in his throat, as if they hurt to admit, as if dragging them into the air cost him more than he could name.
She didn't speak right away. Instead, she let out a quiet hum, something soft and unreadable, the sound slipping between them like smoke. Her gaze didn't waver. Slowly, with the kind of calm that always disarmed him, she reached for him.
Her fingers, still damp from the shower, brushed against his cheekbone with an intimate ease that made his breath stutter in his chest. He leaned into her touch almost instinctively, as though his body had always known hers was the only place it wanted to rest.
Then her hand slid behind his neck, her nails just barely grazing the skin, and he dipped his head to kiss the curve of her throat. The scent of her was everywhere, lavender and heat and something softer he had no name for. Her skin was warm, dewy, flushed in the places his mouth found, and she tilted her head slightly, baring more of her neck to him without needing to say a word.
"This is how you apologize?" she whispered, her voice half-mocking, half-breathless.
"I don't know how else to tell you," he replied, mouth still brushing the hollow beneath her jaw. "I don't have the right words. I never do. Not when it matters."
She let that silence stretch for a beat. Then, softly, without looking away, she asked, "Can you show me instead?"
That. That he could do.
That he would do.
He wrapped his arm around her waist and pulled her slowly against the hard line of his chest. Their bodies fit like a confession, like a secret long kept and finally spoken aloud.
She let out a quiet gasp, barely audible, as her bare skin met the heat of him through his clothes, and her fingers tightened slightly in his hair. He could feel the rise and fall of her breath, fast and shallow now, pressed tightly to his ribs.
His hand moved with agonizing slowness, trailing up her side until he reached the soft swell of her breast. He cupped it gently at first, reverently, like she might vanish if he touched too greedily. His thumb circled the nipple, already stiffening beneath his palm, and she let out a quiet, broken sound that made something primal uncoil inside him.
"Is this what you want?" she asked, the words a trembling dare against his mouth.
He looked at her then, really looked, and shook his head once, firmly, as his hand tightened around her breast with just enough pressure to make her inhale sharply.
"No," he said, voice low, heavy with truth. "I don't want just this. I want you. Every part of you. I want your voice in the dark. I want the way you look at me when you're angry. I want your hands in my hair and your legs around me and your breath caught in your throat. I want the things you don't say. I want the softness you hide. I want everything. All of it. All of you."
Her lips parted, but no sound came. Her pupils were blown wide, her body pressed flush against his, trembling from want. And when her hands moved to the hem of his shirt, pulling it up slowly, deliberately, there was no need for another word.
He had shown her.
And she was ready to answer.
Her fingers slid beneath the hem of his shirt with a slowness that was entirely intentional, knuckles grazing his skin like she was trying to memorize every inch of him. When she lifted the fabric over his head and tossed it to the side, her palms flattened against his bare chest, warm and smooth and trembling just slightly.
He watched her as she looked at him, her gaze darkening, her lips parting as her nails traced down the ridges of his stomach. And then, without warning, she leaned in and kissed his sternum, just once, just long enough to leave her mouth imprinted on his skin.
The sound he made was quiet, low in his throat, something between a growl and a sigh. He brought both hands to her waist, fingers sliding slowly over the curve of her hips, down to the backs of her thighs, and then back up, stopping just under her ass. She was still warm from the shower, her skin slick in places, and she wasn't wearing a single thing. Every part of her was soft. Bare. Willing.
And all his.
"You're shaking," he whispered, letting his mouth brush her ear as his hands gripped her hips tighter.
"I want you to touch me," she breathed, her voice barely audible.
That was all he needed.
He scooped her up with one arm under her thighs and the other around her back, carried her effortlessly to the bed, and laid her down with care that contrasted the feral way he was already moving. He knelt between her legs, eyes roaming over every inch of her, drinking in the sight like she was a prayer answered. She was flushed, eyes glazed, chest rising and falling quickly, and her thighs parted for him without a word.
He leaned down and kissed her again, this time on her belly, just below her navel. Then lower. And lower still. When his mouth finally found her, she gasped, her hips arching upward, her hands immediately fisting in the sheets. He licked her slowly at first, just the tip of his tongue tracing the seam of her, tasting her, teasing her, savoring her like he had all the time in the world. She was wet already, dripping, and when he flattened his tongue against her clit and sucked, her legs tightened around his shoulders with a sharp, involuntary jerk.
She moaned his name.
Not whispered. Moaned.
And he answered by gripping her thighs harder, holding her still as he worked her open with his mouth, exploring every part of her like she was the only thing he had ever wanted.
He licked her deeper, more insistently now, alternating between slow, cruel strokes and quick flicks against that swollen spot that made her voice catch in her throat. Her hips were moving helplessly beneath him, chasing every movement, begging without words for more.
When he slid a finger inside her, slow and deliberate, she gasped again. Then another. Her walls clenched around him and he groaned against her, the sound vibrating through her in a way that made her legs shake.
She was close already. He could feel it. The tension. The trembling. The sharp staccato rhythm of her breath. So he kept going. Pushed deeper. Licked harder. Let her ride it out against his mouth until her whole body arched like a bow and she came with a sound so beautiful he thought he might never recover from hearing it.
But he wasn't done.
Not even close.
When he kissed his way back up her body, she reached for him blindly, pulling him on top of her with the desperation of someone who had waited far too long. Her hands fumbled at his trousers, yanking them down enough for him to free himself, and when his cock pressed against her thigh, slick and hard and desperate, she let out a gasp that sounded like please without saying the word.
He lined himself up, dragged the head of his cock through her wetness, and looked down at her, breathing hard.
"Are you sure?" he asked, voice strained, jaw tight with restraint.
She cupped his face, pulled him down, and kissed him with the kind of hunger that made everything else disappear.
"I want all of you," she said. "Every inch. Every part. Every fucking breath."
So he gave her exactly that.
And he didn't hold back.
When he slipped back between her thighs, she was already squirming, her body still trembling from the orgasm he had pulled from her moments ago. Her skin was flushed, dewy with sweat, and her lips were parted like she was halfway between a plea and a moan that hadn't made it out yet. Her legs fell open without him asking, already welcoming, already desperate.
But he didn't give her what she wanted.
Not yet.
He knelt between her legs, one hand lazily stroking his cock, watching her the way a lion watches prey it already owns. He was hard and slick and aching, but he was in no rush. Not when she was like this, all needy and pliant and so damn wet for him that he could see it glistening.
He leaned forward, gripped her thighs, and spread her wider. Then he dragged the tip of his cock through her folds, letting it catch on her clit just enough to make her hips jerk. She whined, a sweet, breathy sound that went straight to his head.
"You feel that?" he murmured, his voice rough and low. "So fucking wet for me. You want it that badly, don't you?"
She nodded, panting, her fingers twisting in the sheets.
"I want to hear it," he said, dragging the head of his cock down to her entrance, pressing just barely inside, just the tip, then pulling back again before she could take more. "Tell me how much you want me."
"Please," she gasped, lifting her hips, trying to chase him. "I need you."
"Oh, I know you do," he said, chuckling darkly as he did it again, slipping in just enough to make her body clench, then pulling out slow and cruel. "But you don't get to come until I say so."
She whimpered, her hands reaching up for him, grabbing at his arms, his shoulders, anything she could hold. But he didn't let her pull him down. He stayed right where he was, in control, smirking down at her with that infuriatingly calm confidence.
"You've been dripping for me since I walked in this room," he said. "You bent over with your cunt on display like you wanted me to break you. And now you're lying here, begging, soaking wet, and you think I'm just going to fuck you like you deserve?"
He leaned closer, just enough to let his mouth brush her ear.
"Not yet."
She cried out, frustrated and needy, and he grinned.
Then he finally gave her something—one long, hard thrust of his fingers, deep and rough, curling just right until she gasped like the air had been knocked from her lungs.
"That's it," he whispered, his voice all heat and hunger. "Take it. Take what I give you."
He fucked her with his fingers, slow at first, then faster, until she was shaking again, a desperate mess beneath him. And when her body tensed, hips bucking, right on the edge of another orgasm, he pulled out.
She sobbed.
"Oh no, not yet," he said, shaking his head as he brought his fingers to her mouth and pressed them against her lips. "You don't get to come until you learn to beg properly."
She opened her mouth, took him in, licked her own taste off his fingers, and moaned.
"God, look at you," he growled, finally giving in to the full weight of the desire coiled inside him. "You're perfect."
He shoved her legs open again, lined himself up, and this time when he thrust inside, he didn't stop. He buried himself deep in one long, punishing stroke, and her mouth fell open in a silent scream.
"Oh, you feel that?" he hissed, grinding his hips against her. "That's what you wanted, isn't it? Every inch. So deep you'll feel me for days."
She nodded wildly, clutching at him, her nails digging into his back.
"I'm gonna ruin you," he said through gritted teeth, slamming into her again, harder now, faster. "Make you forget your name. Make you forget every man who came before me. All you'll know is this. My cock. My name. My fucking hands."
He reached between them and rubbed her clit with his thumb in tight, relentless circles.
"You gonna come for me now, baby? Gonna soak my cock like the filthy little thing you are?"
"Yes—yes, Theo, please, I—"
"Then fucking come," he growled, thrusting harder. "Now. Let me feel it. Let me fucking feel it."
She shattered. Her whole body arched, legs clamping around his waist, mouth open in a soundless cry as her climax hit her like a storm. He kept fucking her through it, riding her waves, not letting up, not slowing down.
Because he wasn't finished.
She was still trembling when he pulled out, her body sensitive and soaked, lips swollen from his kisses, her thighs slick and shaking. She collapsed into the sheets, trying to catch her breath, but he wasn't about to let her rest.
He leaned down, bit her inner thigh just hard enough to make her yelp, and then stood, grabbing her by the wrist and pulling her up like she weighed nothing.
"On your knees," he said, voice thick with lust, low and sharp like velvet over blades.
She obeyed, still dazed, crawling to the edge of the bed. Her legs barely held her, but she looked up at him with those wide, glassy eyes, lips parted, flushed and waiting. Her hair was a mess, and he'd never seen anything more beautiful.
"Good girl," he murmured, running his fingers through her tangled hair, tightening them just enough to tug her head back. "Look at you. All fucked out and still ready for more. That pretty little mouth of yours's been begging to be filled, hasn't it?"
She nodded, tongue flicking out to wet her lips.
"Then open."
She did, like the good girl she was.
He slid his cock against her lips first, slow and teasing, letting her taste the mix of them still clinging to his skin. She moaned around it, and he hissed through his teeth, gripping the back of her head as he slid into her mouth inch by inch.
"Fuck, yes," he growled. "Just like that. Merlin, your mouth is perfect. Warm. Wet. Tight. Bet you love this, don't you? Being on your knees for me. Being used."
She whimpered in answer, and he laughed breathlessly, hips slowly rocking, fucking her mouth with a brutal kind of grace. Not too fast, not yet—but deep. Deep enough to make her choke a little, enough to keep her eyes wet and blinking up at him.
"Take it," he whispered, holding her hair tighter. "Take all of it."
She did. Gagging, moaning, drooling around him, eyes fluttering like she was floating. Her hands gripped his thighs, her whole body leaning into it, eager and desperate and ruined in the best way.
He pulled out with a wet, obscene sound, strings of spit connecting her lips to the tip of his cock.
Then he bent down, cupped her face, and kissed her filthy.
No hesitation.
Tongue deep, lips rough, his hand still tangled in her hair. Her taste on his mouth, her body already arching into his again like she needed more.
"Get back on the bed," he ordered, slapping her ass with a sharp smack that made her yelp and moan all at once.
She scrambled back onto the mattress, panting, glancing over her shoulder as he climbed after her. He flipped her onto her stomach and dragged her hips up so her ass was high, cunt spread open and still dripping for him.
He stared for a second, running a hand down her spine.
"Look at you," he muttered. "You're soaked. I've barely touched you and you're fucking dripping."
She whimpered into the sheets.
Then he gripped her hips and slammed into her with no warning. A broken sob tore from her throat.
"Oh, that's it," he snarled, driving into her harder. "Take it. Let me hear how much you need this."
She gasped, loud and raw, her hands clawing at the sheets, her body shaking under the force of him.
"Say it," he demanded, his mouth hot against her ear now as he fucked her. "Tell me who owns you."
"You do," she choked out. "You. Fuck—only you."
That did it.
He growled, one hand snaking around to rub her clit while the other wrapped around her throat, just enough pressure to make her dizzy, light-headed, on the edge of something electric.
"You're mine," he hissed into her ear. "Mine to fuck. Mine to ruin. Mine to keep."
She came again, screaming his name, body convulsing around him.
And he wasn't far behind.
He slammed into her one last time, deep and brutal, his voice rough in her ear as he groaned her name like a prayer and spilled inside her.
They collapsed in a tangle of limbs and sweat and breathless moans, the world spinning around them.
But even as she tried to steady her heartbeat, his hand slid down between her legs again.
The room was heavy with heat and silence except for their ragged breaths and the soft rustle of sheets beneath them. Theo's fingers traced slow, deliberate circles over her slick skin, dipping inside her again with a tenderness that belied the hunger burning in his eyes. She trembled beneath his touch, hips arching into every stroke, craving more, always more.
His voice was low, a rough whisper that felt like a secret meant only for her ears.
"You have no idea what you do to me," he said, fingers curling just so, making her gasp, "how badly I want you… how much I need you."
She looked up at him, eyes wide, shimmering with a mixture of want and something softer—something deeper she wasn't quite ready to name. He caught her gaze, and for a moment, the fierce, possessive mask slipped away. His jaw tightened, and his voice dropped even lower, thick with something almost like fear.
"I shouldn't say this," he admitted, voice cracking just slightly, "because I'm not good at this stuff. I don't know how to feel things like this. But you—" He swallowed hard, hand still moving inside her, "you're the only thing I want. Every part of you."
Her breath caught. His admission hovered between them, raw and fragile like glass.
He leaned closer, brushing his lips against her temple, and in that whisper that felt like a confession, he almost said it.
Then, as if afraid to cross the line, he pulled away just enough to bury himself inside her again. The movement was slow, deliberate, but brutal, claiming, possessive. She cried out, clutching at his shoulders, every inch of her alive with sensation.
He pounded into her, hard and steady, fingers digging into her hips as he lost himself in the feeling of her. His breathing grew ragged, throat tight with the effort to hold back the confession clawing at his tongue.
As he reached his breaking point, his eyes locked onto hers, dark and desperate.
"I lo—" he gasped, voice breaking, but then he swallowed the words back down like they burned his throat.
Instead, he grunted low and slammed into her one last time, spilling inside her with a force that left them both trembling.
His arms wrapped tightly around her, holding her close as his chest heaved, trying to catch his breath.
In the silence that followed, his lips brushed her hair, voice barely more than a growl.
"You're mine."
And though the words he couldn't say hung unspoken between them, the weight of what he felt pressed down heavy on their skin, more powerful than anything either of them had ever dared to admit.