Clementine's POV

In the dusty border town of Northford, tucked away in the northwest, I—Clementine Valencia—was being dragged back after my ninety-ninth failed escape.

The sun scorched everything beneath it, and the wind hurled stinging sand into thick, choking clouds. I yanked my scarf higher, shielding my face and hair from the grit that clawed at every inch of exposed skin.

A battered jeep rumbled toward us from the opposite direction and screeched to a halt right in front of the villagers and me.

The window cranked down with a rusty groan. Through the gap I caught the driver’s sharp profile—long, fire-red hair tied back carelessly, a few wild strands slipping across his forehead. When he finally turned, I saw a face that looked battle-worn yet impossibly striking: clean jawline, refined features that screamed he didn’t belong in this godforsaken place.

Even with my wrists bound, he didn’t spare me a single glance. He simply extended a thick stack of hundred-dollar bills and asked—in crisp Alvarian—where he could buy gas.

The villagers only spoke the local dialect; his words meant nothing to them. But their eyes stayed locked on the money like starving dogs.

My gaze drifted from the hand offering cash to the other one wrapped around the steering wheel—strong, veined, steady. Tomorrow morning I would be forced into marriage with Brett Ellison, the decrepit village chief who wanted me to breed him heirs. Twenty hours. That was all I had left.

And then this stranger appeared.

He and that jeep might be my only way out of this nightmare.

He clearly didn’t understand a word the villagers were shouting. Just as he started to pull his hand back with a scowl, I spoke up in perfect Alvarian.

“There’s a town about twenty kilometers that way. Look for the yellow house—they sell gas, but they’ll rob you blind.”

That was the first time I ever spoke to Leopold Krause.

The jeep roared off in a cloud of dust. I ignored the villagers crowing over their bribe and stared after him, praying he wouldn’t disappear from Northford too fast.

Through the half-open window Leopold flicked a glance at the rearview mirror. The girl was still watching him—fierce, unblinking, beautiful in a way that cut through the desolation. In a place with no cell signal, no mercy, and nothing worth looking at, he hadn’t expected to find someone so striking, so untamed.

Too bad. He couldn’t afford to get tangled up in anyone else’s mess. His own problems were already drowning him.

In Northford, dusk lingered longer than it should.

The road back to the village sliced straight through open desert. After dark the shifting dunes became invisible death traps. Too dangerous to move, the villagers decided to camp in an abandoned shack until first light.

To make sure I didn’t run again, they lashed me to a dead tree in the yard and stationed a middle-aged woman to watch me. They weren’t going to starve the bride-to-be—that would look bad—so they threw me a stale piece of bread.

I ate every last crumb without complaint, hoarding every bit of energy for the escape I planned in the dead of night.

One glance at the cracked old watch on my wrist: thirteen hours until the wedding. If I didn’t move now, I never would.

Night dropped. Snores rumbled from inside the shack.

My eyes snapped open, every sense razor-sharp. Slowly, carefully, I reached behind my waistband and pulled out the small blade I’d hidden against my skin for days. The metal scraped my wrist as I worked, drawing thin lines of blood, but I didn’t stop. I sawed through the coarse rope with desperate speed.

The instant the last strand gave way, the woman rolled over in her sleep.

I froze. My heart slammed so hard I was sure she’d hear it.

She settled again, breath evening out.

I slipped free and melted into the darkness, too afraid to look back.

The yellow house Leopold had asked about was more than twenty kilometers from his real destination. After giving directions, the villagers had hauled me several kilometers in the wrong direction. The path to him felt endless.

Walking the desert at night was pure hell—cold that sank into your bones, sand that swallowed every step, silence so deep it pressed against your eardrums.

Seven hours before the wedding I was still slogging through dunes, legs burning, lungs raw.

Just as I slowed to drag in a breath, distant shouts rode the wind.

“There! That way! Grab her!”

My stomach clenched. If I hesitated now, everything was over.

I ran.

Legs pumping, sand spraying, chest heaving—I ran like the devil himself was behind me, because he was.

More than once I slipped down a steep dune, sand avalanching around me, only to dig my fingers in and drag myself back up. The stars were my only map—I followed them north, forcing one burning step after another until the desert finally began to thin.

Two hours left.

At first light I stumbled into the settlement and spotted the yellow house.

A raw, exhausted smile cracked my chapped lips for the first time in days.

But I circled the place twice—the jeep was gone.

My legs gave out. I dropped to my knees in the dirt, lips split and bleeding, throat so raw every swallow felt like swallowing glass. The last fragile thread of hope unraveled behind my eyes.

A heartbeat later I shoved myself upright again.

I remembered the backseat through his half-open window: almost no supplies. He was heading into the country's largest dead zone—endless desert, then snow-choked mountains, then nothing but rock and wind for a week even at highway speed. He had to restock. He had to stop here overnight.

There were no proper inns, just a scattering of low mud-brick houses.

I checked them one by one, heart hammering louder with every empty yard.

Finally, in the farthest, most shadowed courtyard, I saw it—the jeep, coated in a fresh layer of dust.

The wall was barely chest-high. I vaulted it without a sound, scanned the open space, then crouched low beside the bungalow that faced the vehicle.

One quick, practiced twist of my blade and the simple lock gave way.

I eased the door open, fingers tight around the handle, pulse roaring in my ears.

The instant my foot crossed the threshold, a blur of motion exploded toward me.

Before I could suck in a breath, Leopold's hands clamped around my wrists, wrenching them behind my back and slamming my body hard against the rough adobe wall. Every move was surgical—controlled power that pinned me completely, no room to twist or fight.

"Wait—I mean no harm," I gasped, the words scraping out.

At the sound of my voice he paused, then flicked his lighter. The small flame danced between us, catching the wide, terrified gleam in my eyes.

Recognition hit. His frown deepened—this was the scarf-wrapped girl from yesterday.

Then something warm and wet slid over his palm.

He looked down. My thin wrists, still trapped in his grip, were striped with angry rope burns, fresh cuts, purple bruises blooming across the skin. The slickness coating his hand was my blood.

He released me instantly and stepped back, voice like frost. "What the hell are you doing here?"

In his mind there was no reason our paths should ever intersect again.

Dawn was creeping closer. Panic squeezed my chest so tight I could barely breathe. I had no idea if he would take me.

He'd ignored my silent plea yesterday, after all.

Swallowing the knot of fear, I forced the words out anyway.

"Please," I said, voice cracking. "Take me with you."

The memory of our first meeting was still sharp in Leopold's head. He knew exactly what kind of trouble I would drag behind me.

So he didn't hesitate.

"No." The word landed cold and final.

The sky was turning pale. All the blood drained from my face.

If the villagers caught me again, I was done. I could still see the hollow eyes of Brett's previous wives, the way they wasted away one by one until they simply stopped breathing. No. I could not go back.

Survival was everything.

I closed my eyes, braced, and yanked my ragged tunic over my head in one swift motion, letting it fall. Then the thin undershirt, the wrapped bindings, until nothing was left but skin kissed by sun and wind and desperation.

I was the most beautiful thing for a hundred miles in any direction—features too fine, body too alive for this dead place. My spirit had never bent to it, and it never would.

My mother used to whisper that men from the outside world craved fragile-looking women.

I wasn't fragile. But I could pretend.

The second my fingers found the knot at my waist, Leopold turned his head sharply away. So he never saw the rest of my clothes hit the floor.

This was only the second time we'd ever stood in the same room.

I launched myself at him like a woman drowning, arms locking around his neck, bare breasts crushing against the thin cotton of his T-shirt, hips slotting against his with shameless need. My skin was fever-hot against his; I could feel the hard planes of his chest rise and fall faster.

Tears burned tracks down my cheeks.

"Please…" My lips brushed the skin beneath his ear, voice trembling. "You're all I've got."

Something flickered deep in Leopold's eyes.

He'd heard those exact words once before—from a voice he could never save. The memory was an anchor chained to his ribs.

A dull, familiar ache bloomed in his chest.

The hands that had started to shove me away hesitated… then slid down, fingers spreading wide across the small of my back, pulling me tighter instead. His palms were rough, callused, searing where they gripped my naked waist.

For months he'd been running—from the glittering cage of Branford, from the Krause name, from himself.

But right now, Clementine's desperate, trembling body pressed to his brought the first real stillness he'd felt in longer than he could remember.

If the whole world insisted he was the family's black stain, maybe it was finally time to stop fighting it.

I felt the heat of his hands brand my skin, the way his fingers flexed involuntarily against my hips. I didn't know whether it was my broken plea or the press of my bare curves that finally cracked through to him—but something had.

But I knew my gamble had paid off.

That morning, Leopold Krause took me with him. He had no intention of touching me, though—not yet, not like that. Not when I was still raw and desperate and covered in the desert’s filth.

Pale dawn light slipped through the cracked shutters, painting soft gold across my skin where I lay cradled against his chest. My waist was narrow, legs long and lean from years of running, skin roughened by endless wind and sand—yet there was a stubborn, living fire in me that refused to be dimmed. I could feel his heartbeat steady beneath my cheek, strong and unhurried.

The sharp click of his lighter shattered the quiet.

“Put this on,” he said, tossing me one of his spare shirts.

Any other man would have taken what I’d so blatantly offered—my naked body pressed to his, breasts soft against his chest, hips grinding shamelessly in silent plea. But Leopold didn’t. He didn’t even let his gaze linger too long on the curves I’d bared.

Most people never came back to him begging for help.

I had tracked him across miles of sand on nothing but blistered feet and sheer fucking will.

I stared up at him, confused. “You really don’t want me?”

“I don’t go for girls who look like that,” he said with a scoff, eyes flicking over the dirt streaked across my thighs, the dried blood on my wrists.

I understood instantly. He thought I was filthy. Used. Unclean.

“If I cleaned up,” I asked, voice low, “would you want me then?”

The bluntness caught him off guard. So did the way my eyes held his—no shame, no coyness, just raw, unflinching hunger.

He didn’t move. The cigarette burned down until the ember kissed his fingers. Only then did he blink, exhale a low, rough laugh. “Depends on my mood.”

The shirt in my hands felt like silk compared to anything I’d ever worn—soft, worn-in cotton that still carried the faint scent of him: smoke, leather, something darker and warmer underneath. I pulled it over my head right there in front of him, letting the hem fall just high enough to tease the tops of my thighs, watching his jaw tighten almost imperceptibly.

I stared at him the whole time—eyes wide, predatory, like a starving wolf terrified its meal might vanish if it so much as blinked.

He leaned back against the headboard, exhaling a perfect ring of smoke. The haze blurred the sharp edges of his gaze, but I could still feel the icy weight of it sliding over me.

“What’s your name?” he asked.

“Clementine,” I answered, softening my voice, trying to sound small and breakable. “You know—like the little orange.”

I already knew he wasn’t ordinary. The cut of his clothes, the way he moved, the quiet authority in every word—it all screamed money, power, a life far from this dust-choked hell.

The fruit was local. Sweet. Juicy. A burst of brightness in a place that had none.

Leopold had tasted it before—I could tell by the faint flicker in his expression.

Few people along this road spoke Alvarian as fluently as I did.

“How old are you?” he asked.

“Twenty… after my birthday,” I said quickly, afraid he’d think me too young, too childish.

His lips twitched in the barest hint of a smile. He knew I was lying. I was nineteen, and my clumsy attempt to seem older was almost endearing in its transparency.

He stubbed out the cigarette and pushed off the bed, heading for the door.

I never took my eyes off him, terrified he’d disappear.

The second he moved, I lunged—wrapping my arms around his waist from behind, pressing my cheek to the warm muscles of his back.

He stumbled half a step, then looked down at my hands fisted in his shirt.

“Let go,” he ordered, voice low.

I shook my head, forehead still buried against him.

A long, tense silence stretched between us.

Finally he exhaled. “Wait in the car.”

I still hesitated, eyes wide with mistrust.

His voice dropped, edged with impatience. “Look—I can leave you behind. But I’m not leaving my jeep. Don’t follow if you don’t believe me.”

I released him instantly. Then my trembling fingers caught the sleeve of his shirt. “I believe you. Just… don’t leave me behind.”

He cleared the passenger seat of maps and empty water bottles, handed me a fresh bottle and a piece of hard bread, then disappeared toward the nearest villager’s house to buy supplies.

I was starving, throat parched to cracking. I tore into the bread with my teeth, eyes glued to his retreating figure through the dusty window—tall, broad-shouldered, moving with that same lethal calm.

Leaving Northford meant entering the true dead zone. Water would be more precious than blood out there.

I took two careful sips, then capped the bottle. I’d make it last.

Leopold returned loaded with fuel cans, dried meat, more water—enough to survive a week if the jeep didn’t break down.

The moment we rolled out of the settlement, I spotted them—several familiar silhouettes on the horizon, still searching.

My whole body locked up.

In a heartbeat I curled into the footwell, yanking his jacket over my head like a shield. The sudden acrobatic move made him glance over, one brow lifting in faint surprise at my flexibility.

“You don’t need to hide,” he said, a trace of amusement in his voice. “They won’t catch us.”

My dark eyes peeked out from under the fabric. His calm steadied something frantic inside me.

Slowly I uncurled, sliding back into the seat, gaze still locked on the rearview mirror.

Only when the distant figures shrank to nothing did the iron band around my chest finally loosen.

I checked my watch. Brett’s chosen wedding hour had come and gone.

The knot in my skull unraveled.

I stared out at the desert that had once held me prisoner for days on end—no food, no water, no hope.

I’d spent my whole life dreaming of wings strong enough to carry me out of this wasteland.

Now, sitting beside him as the jeep ate up mile after mile, it felt like they’d finally sprouted.

Music drifted softly from the jeep’s old radio, some haunting ballad in a language I barely recognized. Tears stung my eyes as the lyrics floated out:

“Far away, like murmurs in a dream… The road ahead is yours to walk…”

***

I didn’t talk much.

If Leopold stayed quiet, I could go hours without saying a word—content just to breathe the same air, watch the endless horizon roll by, feel the vibration of the engine under my thighs like a living heartbeat.

For five straight days we slept in the jeep—curled on the seats, windows cracked just enough to let in cool night air, my body tucked against his side for warmth when the desert turned freezing after sunset.

On the sixth night he stirred, bladder full, and turned his head—only to find my eyes wide open, bright and watchful in the starlight.

“You’re not sleeping?” he asked, sounding genuinely impressed.

I wasn’t like the soft, pampered girls he must have known back in his old life.

I shook my head once.

Wolves hunted at night out here. If we both let our guard down, we might not wake up in time to fight.

He didn’t argue. Just slid out of the driver’s seat and stepped behind the jeep to piss.

The moment he unzipped, I was already there—standing right beside him, eyes wide, unblinking.

He froze mid-stream and barked out a surprised laugh. “Seriously? You’re just gonna stand there and watch?”

The desert sky was a black velvet carpet studded with diamonds. Even without headlights or moon, everything was sharp and visible under that insane starlight.

I hesitated half a second… then nodded.

Leopold wasn’t used to an audience for something so private.

With one big hand he gently but firmly turned my face away, then walked a few steps farther before trying again.

That was when I saw it—a faint green glint moving low and fast across the sand toward him.

I’d already scrambled onto the jeep’s roof for a better vantage when the shadows resolved into crouched shapes behind the nearest dune.

“Wolves! Watch out!” I shouted, voice slicing the silence like a blade.

The dune blocked his line of sight. He couldn’t see them closing the circle.

In one fluid motion he drew twin daggers from his boot sheaths—silver flashing bright enough to make the lead pair flinch back.

But hunger made them reckless.

They split, flanking him from both sides, yellow eyes locked on his throat.

More shadows rippled in the dark. I couldn’t wait. I leaped off the roof, thin blade already in hand, and charged straight at the nearest one.

Leopold’s head snapped toward me. He yanked me behind his body with bruising force. “What the hell are you doing? Running at them like that?”

My eyes never left the wolves. “Yeah. I just don’t want you getting hurt.”

Something raw flickered across his face. We’d known each other barely a handful of days—and here I was, throwing myself between him and teeth.

The pack lunged again.

He shoved one of his daggers into my palm. “Take it.”

I gripped the hilt tight. While he met the frontal assault head-on—blades singing through air, fur, flesh—I circled, watching for openings, every muscle coiled.

A third wolf exploded from behind the dune, jaws aimed straight for Leopold’s back.

I didn’t think. I just moved—slashing across its muzzle in a clean arc. Hot blood sprayed my arm.

Its teeth clamped down on my wrist in the same instant, bone-deep, grinding.

Leopold’s gaze snapped to me. “Clementine?”

“I’m fine.” I ripped the dagger free in a wet wrench, spun, and grinned at him through the pain. My eyes were brighter than the stars overhead—wild, alive, fearless.

Half an hour later the last wolf limped away, trailing blood from Leopold’s final strike.

I watched it vanish into the black, chest heaving, silently in awe.

“That was incredible,” I breathed.

He’d grown up in a military compound; wolves were dangerous, but they weren’t a real threat to him.

What shook him was me—diving in without hesitation, bleeding for him.

How long since anyone had tried to protect him instead of the other way around?

Months of buried emotion slammed into him all at once. His pulse thundered in his ears, blood still roaring from the fight.

His voice came out rough, gravelly, as his eyes dropped to my torn wrist. “Doesn’t it hurt?”

“Nope.” I caught his hand instead, already turning it over, checking for wounds. “What about you? Let me see—hey—”

My eyes widened.

The moment my fingers brushed his skin, something electric snapped between us.

Leopold’s other hand shot up, catching my chin in a hard grip. Then his mouth crashed down on mine—fierce, bruising, more savage than any wolf’s bite. He kissed like he wanted to devour me whole, tongue sweeping in, tasting blood and sweat and desert dust.

For one suspended heartbeat I thought he actually might.

A few days slipped by after that brutal, starlit kiss.

A thousand kilometers of empty road later, we rolled into Ashmere Town—the most “civilized” outpost on the barren northwest frontier.

Here the inns had real roofs, clean sheets, actual bathrooms with hot water.

I stood under the showerhead letting the spray pound my face, watching days of crusted sand and dried blood swirl down the drain in rusty spirals.

At just over 1.7 meters, strong and a little wild, I looked like a desert rose that had clawed its way through hell to finally bloom under real sunlight.

The jeep keys sat on the sink—Leopold’s quiet way of saying I could trust him, that I wasn’t a prisoner anymore.

I wiped steam from the mirror and studied my reflection: sharp cheekbones, dark eyes still fierce, lips swollen from his kiss, body marked with fresh bruises and the faint red imprint of wolf teeth on my wrist.

I looked… alive.

There was nothing soft or hesitant in the eyes staring back at me from the fogged mirror—only steel resolve and a raw, burning hunger to climb higher, no matter the cost.

I knew Leopold was my ladder out of the abyss.

His heart already belonged to someone else—some ghost from his past I’d never met.

But I didn’t care.

Not one bit.

All I wanted was the world beyond this endless sand: the blue horizon that stretched forever, skyscrapers taller than mountains that I’d only ever seen in torn magazine pages, cities where lights never died and people dreamed bigger than survival. Everything I’d been forbidden to even imagine.

When the last of the hot water sputtered out, my gaze hardened into something sharper, colder.

That kiss in the desert already felt like a fever dream—a mirage that shimmered once and never came back.

A sudden sandstorm had rolled in, driving every traveler in the region straight to the inns. By the time we arrived, soaked in sweat and dust, only one room was left.

We took it. And we ended up staying far longer than either of us planned.

Then the unexpected happened.

After his shower, Leopold leaned back against the headboard, towel slung low around his hips, water still beading on the carved lines of his chest. He fished the black phone out of his backpack and powered it on.

The second the screen glowed, notifications poured in like floodwater.

Whatever he read drained every drop of color from his face. His jaw clenched so hard I could see the muscle jump. His eyes darkened—storm clouds gathering just beneath the surface, ready to break.

I lay quietly under the thin sheet, watching him fight to keep himself from shattering right there.

Then the lights flickered and died.

He sat up abruptly, back to me, shoulders rigid. The silence in the tiny room thickened with everything he refused to let me see.

A moment later the door opened and closed softly.

He didn’t come back for hours.

When I finally tracked him down in the tavern downstairs, he was already deep in his cups. My eyes narrowed at the sight.

The local liquor slid down smooth as silk, but the afterburn lingered like fire in the veins.

He was drinking functional spirits—the infamous kind, spiked with rare desert herbs meant to stoke virility and keep a man going for days.

A woman at the bar had been eyeing him for a while. She reached for his shoulder, fingers brushing the damp cotton of his shirt.

I moved faster.

“Hey,” I snapped, voice cutting through the smoky air like a blade. “He’s with me.”

Nothing like my usual soft tone—sharp, cold, possessive as the night wind off the dunes.

I hauled him up by the arm, half-carrying his unsteady weight back through the dark corridors to our room, and dropped him onto the mattress.

“Why do you always choose my brother?” he slurred into the pillow, voice thick with liquor and old pain. “Why…?”

The room was pitch black with the power still out.

I soaked a towel in the basin and wiped the feverish heat from his skin—neck, collarbones, the flat planes of his stomach where his shirt had ridden up.

The temperature here swung brutally: scorching days, freezing nights. But this liquor wasn’t normal. It burned slow and deep, turning blood to molten iron.

Most local men couldn’t handle half a bottle without passing out.

Leopold had downed four. Maybe five. No wonder his skin felt like a furnace under my hands.

His mouth was parched, body radiating heat, pulse thundering so hard I could feel it in my fingertips.

And lower—heat pooled between his thighs, thick and insistent, stirring him awake from any hope of sleep.

I sat with my back to him, dragging the cool cloth across his chest again and again. He was conscious, eyes half-lidded, listening to every word I whispered.

“Don’t be afraid,” I murmured, voice soft against the dark. “Even if the whole world turns its back on you, I won’t.

I’ll stay with you. Always.”

What a dangerous, tempting promise.

Normal alcohol would have knocked him cold.

This stuff? It left him rock-hard, throbbing, aching for the taste of skin, for release.

Suddenly his hand clamped around my waist—hot, strong, unyielding. The towel fell from my fingers. The room tilted as he dragged me down onto the mattress beneath him.

When I looked up, his bloodshot eyes locked on mine—wild, desperate, burning.

“You—” My lips still tingled from the memory of his earlier kiss; my heart slammed against my ribs.

My eyes widened. I stared up at his sharp, shadowed face hovering above me, words dying in my throat.

Every instinct screamed to fight, to shove him away.

But the echo of those twenty hours of pure despair—of running until my lungs bled—held me frozen.

His eyes drifted shut.

I watched him through half-closed lashes, feeling suddenly like prey he’d come to savor—slow, deliberate, inevitable.

Slowly, I let my resistance melt away.

I finally understood why the village women whispered warnings about functional spirits.

They weren’t just strong. They were dangerous.

I bit my lip hard, swallowing every sound that tried to escape.

But his mouth found mine again, teasing, coaxing, unraveling every defense I had left.

In the dim starlight leaking through the shutters, I clung to his shoulders—nails digging in—as the bed creaked beneath us with every deep, rolling thrust.

To my shock, he was clumsy at first—awkward, unpracticed, still searching for rhythm like a man who’d never done this before.

I stayed silent, breath hitching, until he finally shuddered and spilled inside me.

Our ragged breathing filled the room.

Then his voice—low, rough, sober now—cut through the quiet.

“You okay?”

He propped himself on one elbow, watching me with an expression I couldn’t read—something between guilt and wonder.

He’d once memorized every guide, every technique, determined to make his girl’s first time perfect.

He never imagined he’d use that knowledge on me.

Or that I would be his first.

The air hung thick and warm in the little room, heavy with the scent of sweat and sex. Outside, the sandstorm battered the old window, making the frame rattle like bones.

I buried my face against the long column of his neck, fingers digging into his shoulders, too shy—too overwhelmed—to answer his question out loud.

My touch alone was enough. I felt him swell again inside me, thick and insistent, hardening impossibly fast.

“How… again?” I gasped, voice cracking with disbelief.

It felt exactly like that night in the desert—the night I escaped—pushing through dune after dune, throat scorched, legs trembling on the edge of collapse, every muscle screaming but refusing to quit.

Only Leopold knew what truly fueled him tonight: the herbal burn of the spirits still raging through his veins, or the old wound of betrayal that had never quite scarred over.

All night long I rode wave after wave of raw, shattering pleasure. Every deep, deliberate thrust shoved me higher until I broke—clenching around him, crying out as I came hard, body shaking, vision blurring white.

When I finally woke, sunlight poured through the shutters. It was already late afternoon.

“He’s harder, hungrier than any wolf we ever faced,” I muttered to myself, a tired, secret smile tugging at my swollen lips.

Since that first time, something in Leopold had shifted—softened in ways I hadn’t expected.

He looked at me differently. Touched me differently.

And later, quietly, he promised: “I’ll take responsibility.”

We rented a modest little house on the edge of Ashmere Town—adobe walls, a small courtyard, a view of the river that turned gold at sunset.

I showed him the hidden paths along the water at dusk, taught him how to read the desert’s warnings: the sudden hush of birds, the faint shimmer of heat mirages that hid quicksand or worse.

In return, he taught me to fight—properly. How to turn a wrist, how to strike without wasting strength, how to use an opponent’s momentum against them. His hands were patient on my body as he corrected my stance, thumbs pressing into the small of my back, guiding my hips until every move felt fluid, lethal.

Days slipped by. Neither of us ever reached for the painful memories we both carried like open wounds.

His backpack sat forgotten in the corner, gathering dust.

He never touched that black phone again.

But he also never took me away from Ashmere.

Life settled into a quiet, intoxicating rhythm: mornings tangled in sheets, afternoons training until we were slick with sweat, evenings watching the sun bleed red across the river while his fingers traced lazy patterns on my thigh.

Leopold couldn’t get enough of me.

He’d wake me in the middle of the night just to bury himself inside me again—slow at first, then frantic, like he was afraid I’d vanish if he stopped moving.

The more he attached himself, the deeper my heart sank.

Because every time he whispered my name against my skin, every time he came undone inside me with that broken look in his eyes, I felt the pull stronger—and the danger clearer.

One week later, deep in the night—

The floorboards groaned beneath us. My moans spilled out unchecked; his low, guttural growls answered every time I clenched around him. The sounds carried straight through the thin walls, loud enough to wake our cranky neighbor.

Moments later heavy footsteps stomped up the stairs. The door flew open—

And the man froze.

Our small courtyard was lined with silent figures in black—armed, watchful, faces shadowed.

The neighbor’s face drained of color. He slammed the door shut without a word.

Night after night we let pure desire speak for us. We learned each other’s bodies like maps we’d never tire of tracing. He knew exactly how deep to thrust to make me shatter; I knew exactly how to roll my hips to pull broken curses from his throat.

His pace grew harder, faster—relentless.

I felt like I was being split open, breath snagged in my throat, every slide of him stretching me to the limit.

I swallowed moan after moan, nails raking down his back hard enough to leave red welts that would sting tomorrow.

“I’m com—” My voice fractured, swallowed by the white-hot rush as pleasure crashed over me again.

In that suspended instant the world went utterly silent.

All I could hear was the frantic pounding of my heart—and his—syncing like war drums.

Just as we were locked together, tangled and gasping, three deliberate knocks sounded at the door.

“Mr. Krause,” a calm, professional voice said. “Mrs. Krause sent us to bring you home.”

“Get lost!”

Leopold’s voice came out thick with cold fury, vibrating through his chest into mine.

I opened my eyes. I saw the rage blazing in his gaze—and beneath it, the same old struggle that had shadowed him every day we’d been here.

“Don’t listen, Leo.” I reached up and gently covered his ears with my palms.

Then I kissed him—slow, deep, pouring everything I couldn’t say into the press of my lips.

Our breaths tangled.

My eyes met his—cold, deep, impossibly dark.

For Leopold, the fire still raging in his blood twisted upward in the darkness, slowly washing away the sharp edges of his anger.

For the first time in years, he felt something like gentle water moving through him—cool, steady, soothing.

At 5:00 a.m.

My pupils slowly sharpened back into focus.

I dragged my exhausted, trembling legs to the bathroom and stared at my reflection in the cracked mirror. A quiet, breathless laugh escaped me.

They’d come so fast.

It was worth it…

Walking those two kilometers in the dark just to make that one call—worth every blister, every ache.

The face looking back at me was young, beautiful, and just a little wickedly alluring—lips still bruised from his kisses, eyes bright with triumph.

A few minutes later I stepped out in nothing but a thin bathrobe.

Leopold stood on the balcony, smoking, wearing only low-slung pants that clung to his hips. Irritation rolled off him in waves—shoulders tight, jaw locked.

“I’ll always be there for you,” I said softly, sliding my arms around his waist from behind, pressing my cheek to the warm skin of his back, stroking gently in the hope of easing the storm inside him.

I admired him. Worshipped him, even. He was the most devastatingly handsome man I’d ever seen—tall, upright, carved features that looked like they’d been cut from marble and fire. He carried himself with that unshakable confidence, that razor-sharp intelligence that seemed to control everything it touched, facing down the world without ever flinching. All the things I’d spent my life craving.

Through him I’d glimpsed another world—one dazzling, glittering, endless.

But there was one thing I never let myself forget.

Even now, with my breasts pressed to his back and my hands splayed across the hard ridges of his abdomen, I kept my head clear.

I could never fall in love with him.

If I did, I’d end up exactly like my mother—trapped forever in some desolate place, pride ground to dust, never daring to step beyond the horizon again.

The second Leopold felt me against him, he crushed out the cigarette. Then he turned, pulled me hard into his arms, and crushed me to his chest.

“Clem,” he murmured against my hair, voice low and rough with something I couldn’t quite name. “Will you come with me?”