The storm outside was nothing compared to the one unfolding inside the room.
Clothes were discarded in urgency, forming a trail of cotton and wool across the wooden floor. When Nyra's skin finally touched Eijiro's without barriers, the shock of temperature was almost painful.
She was ice, shaped by the Underworld and solitude.
He was a furnace, warmed by labor and human blood.
They fell onto the futon.
Nyra was used to her body as a tool.
To dodge.
To strike.
To kill.
But never for this.
Never to be worshiped.
When Eijiro's hands slid down her back, tracing the map of old scars, whip marks, beast claws, burns from forgotten underworld battles, she shuddered.
She tried to turn away, hide her face, pull the sheet up. Shame carved into her skin was a conditioned reflex.
"No." Eijiro whispered, voice rough against her neck.
He pinned her wrists gently to the mattress.
"Let me see all of you."
He kissed a white scar just above her breast.
Then another on her shoulder.
He was claiming every broken piece of her, turning pain into pleasure.
When he entered her, Nyra's world narrowed to that single point of contact.
There was no delicacy, neither of them were made of glass. There was friction, sweat, a desperate intensity. Nyra gasped, her back arching, her nails digging into Eijiro's broad shoulders.
And then, the mask shattered.
The sharp pleasure unlocked doors she kept barricaded deep in her mind. Childhood trauma, buried under layers of stoicism, seeped through.
Fire. She saw fire.
Her childhood mansion burning.
Vampires everywhere.
Her body pierced.
Her summoning the Kaburami, fighting until death.
The guilt of failing to protect her family.
In that moment, she wasn't the monster-slayer warrior.
She was the frightened child.
The Omega wolf.
The last of her pack, broken by terror.
A low growl tore from her throat, not of aggression, but of primal submission and need.
Her eyes snapped open.
Blue irises overflowed into the whites, glowing with spectral bioluminescence in the dim room. Her pupils narrowed to vertical slits. Her nails lengthened, turning into black keratin claws that raked Eijiro's back in bloody red lines. Her fangs descended, grazing the skin of his neck.
Her cheeks burned with a blush she couldn't hide.
Any other man would have screamed.
Would have seen the demon and fled.
Eijiro opened his eyes and saw the wolf.
He didn't stop.
He didn't flinch.
Blood ran down his back, but he didn't even blink. He held her transformed face in both hands, staring deep into those pools of supernatural blue light.
"I'm right here," he said, his voice the only anchor in the hurricane raging inside her.
"I see you, Nyra. I see the wolf. And I'm not afraid."
He kissed her fiercely, ignoring the fangs that cut his lip.
The metallic taste of both their blood mingled.
Nyra cried.
Silent, hot tears slid down her glowing cheeks, mixing with sweat. For the first time since the mansion fire, she wasn't alone in the dark. She growled against his mouth, surrendering completely, letting his warmth burn through the cold of her trauma.
They moved together, raw, ancient, violent, until the climax hit them like thunder, leaving them tangled and breathless while the blue light in Nyra's eyes faded slowly back to human.
Then Nyra turned to him and whispered:
"I want it again."
"I'm… a little tired," he admitted, brushing her cheek.
"That wasn't a request." she murmured, half command, half plea.
Eijiro only nodded with a smile.
And they continued their exchange of pleasure.
Time in the mountain became fluid.
Days blurred into weeks.
Weeks into months.
Winter began to retreat, giving way to a timid spring that melted the snow and revealed the brown earth beneath.
It was a golden illusion.
Nyra, the assassin, learned how to bake bread.
She learned to distinguish bird songs.
She woke each morning with Eijiro's arm draped over her waist and, for rare precious moments, she forgot Dracula's name.
Forgot the mission.
The Kaburami remained lost, and she stopped searching for replacements.
Vengeance felt like a distant dream, lived by another woman.
Inside that domestic bubble, she was just a woman loved by a man.
They ate dinner seated on the floor, listening to the repaired radio, trading soft smiles that said more than poetry ever could.
But Eijiro knew.
He saw the way she stared toward the horizon when she thought he wasn't looking. He knew wolves cannot live in captivity forever, even when the cage is made of love.
One rainy afternoon, he called her into the workshop.
Something was on the workbench, covered in linen.
"You said you missed your armor," Eijiro said, wiping his hands. He looked nervous, something he rarely was.
Nyra approached slowly.
"Eijiro… you didn't have to—"
"Open it."
She pulled off the linen.
It wasn't merely a coat.
It was a masterpiece.
The leather was dyed a deep midnight blue that shimmered subtly under the lamp. It resembled the garb of a wandering samurai or a fallen noble. The color made Nyra's silver hair and bright eyes look even sharper.
But the details made her eyes sting with emotion.
On the back, a silver wolf howled.
On the collar, white lilies bloomed against the indigo.
"Lilies…" she whispered, brushing her fingers over the delicate embroidery that contrasted with the harsh leather.
"Lilies bloom after the harshest winters," Eijiro said softly, stepping behind her.
"They mean rebirth. A new beginning."
He lifted the coat and draped it over her shoulders.
Its weight was perfect.
The smell of new leather and his scent, wrapped around her.
"I don't want you to forget who you are, Nyra," he said, turning her to face him.
He touched the lilies on her collar.
"You're a warrior. But now, you're a warrior who has a home to return to."
Nyra looked at her reflection in a polished metal sheet on the wall.
She saw the woman dressed in blue, deadly and dark, but with lilies of hope resting at her throat.
"It's perfect," she said, voice trembling.
She embraced him, burying her face against his chest.
The pact was sealed.
They were one against the world.
The blue leather was her war-skin,
but the lilies were the heart beating beneath it.
They didn't know, in that fragile moment of peace,
that the lilies would soon be stained red and the rebirth they dreamed of would demand a price far too high.