This story contains dark themes, sensual tension, emotional manipulation, and psychological intimacy between men. It may explore obsession, longing, and blurred moral lines. Reader discretion is advised.
"Everdream" – Epic Dark Emotional Instrumental
(Available on YouTube/Spotify – moody piano, haunting strings)
Play while reading for a deeper experience
The first time Lucian saw him again, it was raining.
Not the soft kind—the kind that bruised the ground, stained the sky, and made it hard to tell what was wet from weather… and what was wet from something else.
The boy—no, the man—stood at the edge of the woods like he'd been waiting for the rain. His hair stuck to his face, mouth parted like a secret, and his eyes—
God, those eyes hadn't changed.
Lucian froze halfway down the broken gravel path, heart suddenly too loud in his chest. He hadn't seen that face in almost six years. Not since the fire. Not since—
"Kyrell?" he whispered, but the name was torn apart by the wind.
The man in the woods didn't move. Didn't blink. Only watched him, expression unreadable, like Lucian was the ghost here.
Lucian took one step forward, then stopped. The rain soaked through his coat. It didn't matter. None of it mattered, not when memories clawed their way back through his ribs like they'd never left.
They had been boys. Then. Almost lovers. Almost murderers. Almost nothing.
But the forest had kept secrets. And so had Kyrell.
Lucian swallowed the ache. "I thought you were dead."
Kyrell tilted his head just slightly, like something in his bones remembered Lucian's voice. A flicker of something moved behind his expression—hunger, maybe. Or something worse.
He finally spoke, voice low, a rasp just above the storm.
"You should have stayed away."