Lucien didn't like temples.
Not because he found them holy—he didn't. Or sacred. Or even remotely awe-inspiring.
He didn't like temples because they pretended to be above things like blood and dirt and betrayal. Because their silence had this smug, sterile finality to it, like stone was better than sweat. As if sanctuary was ever anything more than an agreement between those too weak to finish the fight.
But this one?
This one, he could tolerate.
He'd bled in it.
And anything you bleed in becomes yours.
It was still a ruin. Overgrown, half-sunken into the slope of the hill like it regretted existing. Its steps cracked and worn, its eaves crooked like the bones of an old man who'd survived too many winters. The wind didn't move here. Not out of reverence—but exhaustion. Like even the air had given up trying to disturb what was buried beneath this place.
Lucien walked ahead of her on the path. Slowly. Carefully.
Not out of chivalry.
But because he wanted her to follow.
And she did.
Silently, barefoot, dressed in that same loose shirt she'd borrowed from him two nights ago when the cram school got cold. Her feet crunched over dry leaves, her presence light but constant, the way a shadow clings to your heel in dusk. She didn't speak. Neither did he.
The distance between them was deliberate.
Half a dozen paces. Just enough to make her hesitate before calling out. Not enough to feel like rejection—but too much to feel like comfort.
He'd done it without thinking.
Which is to say, he'd done it perfectly.
And right when she started to speed up—bare feet skimming the broken gravel with that barely disguised urgency, the kind children get when the person ahead might not wait for them—he stopped.
She nearly bumped into him.
She didn't. But she almost did.
And that almost was everything.
He turned his head just enough for her to see his profile, pale in the silver-drenched dark.
"We're here."
The temple loomed behind him like something ancient pretending not to watch them.
She said nothing.
Not at first.
Just stood there. Inhaling too quietly. Her eyes moved over the structure like it was something she remembered from a dream and had tried too hard to forget.
Lucien didn't face her fully.
He just watched the way her hand drifted—uncertain at first—then reached for his.
Not with hunger.
Not with grace.
But with the silent desperation of someone who had already imagined what it would feel like if he didn't take it back.
Her fingers slipped into his palm, slow, trembling at the tips.
Lucien didn't squeeze.
He let her hold it.
Because he knew something about fear.
It wasn't loud.
It was quiet.
It was in the way she tilted her head so her hair would fall just right, shielding her eyes. In the way her thumb didn't move. In the way she exhaled and tried to pass it off as calm.
He glanced down at her.
And paused.
The shirt—his shirt—hung unevenly on her frame, hem riding a little higher on one side from where she'd tugged it nervously. The moonlight picked out the line of her collarbone, traced the smooth fall of her shoulders, flickered down the inside of one thigh where the fabric had caught on her leg mid-step.
He didn't say anything.
But his gaze lingered—too long, too slow, and just sharp enough to make her shift her weight slightly.
A small, almost imperceptible squirm.
Her eyes didn't meet his.
Her lips parted slightly.
Not to speak—just to breathe.
Lucien didn't smirk.
But internally, the corner of his mind curled with amusement.
Vampires weren't supposed to blush.
But then again—neither were monsters supposed to look this soft.
He led her up the steps like a man walking a dog off-leash. Not because he trusted her to stay.
But because she wanted so badly not to be left behind.
Inside the temple—inside the cold bones of the structure—she stayed close.
Too close.
She didn't realize she was doing it. Not fully.
But her shoulder hovered near his, never quite brushing. Her breath paced to his. Her gaze always landed just a beat after his, like she needed him to see something first so she'd know how to feel about it.
He didn't comment.
He just filed it away.
Proof of progress.
Proof of unraveling.
She followed him deeper into the temple like it had always been this way—like she belonged here because he belonged here. Because her center of gravity had shifted, and it now revolved around his silence.
And when they reached the main chamber, she didn't ask.
She just walked toward the old ceremonial platform and sat down without looking back.
He watched the way her body moved. The slight sway of her hips, the bare curl of her toes over the stone floor, the soft shiver of breath she let out when her weight settled. Her legs folded beneath her with a fluid ease—one tucked, one stretched. Her shirt clung to her in places, lifted in others. The hem barely covered anything when she bent forward for a moment to adjust her hair.
Lucien's gaze didn't flicker.
He catalogued everything.
And when her eyes lifted to find him watching—still, quiet, analytical—she held the stare half a second too long.
Just long enough for her cheeks to tighten. Not a full flush.
But enough.
Her eyes dropped first.
And Lucien smiled.
Not visibly.
Not cruelly.
Just inwardly—like a man appreciating the sound of something starting to crack.
Lucien leaned one shoulder against the crumbling archway and watched her with all the pretense of a bored prince—but his eyes told a different story. He didn't look at her like a man appreciating beauty.
He looked like a thief casing a temple.
His gaze dragged slow over her legs, bare and folded carelessly, the hem of his shirt riding up to where it should've been adjusted but wasn't. She hadn't even noticed. Or worse—she had, and decided not to care.
That was new.
Her skin caught the moonlight like a secret she didn't know she was telling, pale and blood-fed and soft in the places she forgot to guard. Her lips were parted slightly, the rise of her chest faint but rhythmic, like she was calming herself without admitting why. The line of her neck, delicate. The bones at her wrist, elegant. Her eyes—
They flicked up.
Caught him.
He didn't look away.
He never did.
And she—just for a moment—squirmed.
Not visibly. Not dramatically. Just a subtle shift of her weight, thighs adjusting, hands brushing the stone beneath her like they might anchor her to something that wasn't moving so slowly through her with teeth. Her shoulders rose with a breath she didn't know she'd taken. Her eyes darted to the side.
Then back.
Lucien smiled. Lazy. Crooked. Not quite kind.
"You always sit like that?"
She blinked, startled. "Like what?"
"Like you know I'm watching."
Her cheeks didn't flush in the traditional sense. But the corner of her mouth twitched like she was considering biting it—and didn't. She adjusted her posture slightly, and the shirt tugged lower.
Lucien watched that too.
He didn't speak right away.
Didn't need to.
The silence between them had turned humid with attention, and she—still Kiss-shot, still ancient—was the one struggling to fill it first.
"It's warmer than I expected," she murmured, brushing her hair off her neck. "Maybe it's the stone."
"Maybe it's me," Lucien offered, strolling forward slowly. "You're used to shrines being full of prayers and regret. I replaced both with something more efficient."
She tilted her head. "Which is?"
"Intention."
He sat beside her—not close, but not far. Just enough to see the pulse at her throat move when she swallowed. Just enough to let the silence feel chosen again.
She looked at him.
Carefully.
"You're being obvious tonight."
Lucien didn't deny it.
He just shrugged. "You like obvious. You pretend you don't, but you breathe easier when things have edges."
"I don't need edges," she said.
"No," he said, watching the way her lips curved around the word. "But you cling to them when I pull them away."
She didn't answer.
Didn't need to.
She tucked her leg under her more tightly, foot brushing his ankle.
Lucien didn't move.
And when she reached for his hand—not gracefully, but with the slow deliberateness of someone who needed permission but wouldn't ask—he let her take it.
But this time?
This time, he didn't return the grip.
He let her fingers wrap around his knuckles. Let her squeeze. Let her realize, slowly, terribly, that he wasn't squeezing back.
She looked down.
He watched her.
"You're distant tonight," she said softly.
Lucien's smile didn't reach his eyes. "Not distant. Just quiet."
"That's not like you."
"No," he agreed. "It's more like you."
She didn't laugh. She just stared at their hands—hers wrapped around his, his still, limp with absence.
"What are you doing?" she asked, not quite a whisper.
Lucien tilted his head, eyes gleaming.
"Making sure you notice when I stop."
He didn't have to plant a letter tonight.
He was the letter.
Every gaze, every pause, every inch of distance suddenly carved into what used to be closeness—it all whispered the same implication: I could pull away. And if I did, what would you do?
She didn't answer.
But her hand tightened around his like she already knew the question.
And she wasn't ready for the answer.
Lucien let the quiet stretch until it wasn't quiet anymore—just unspoken panic clothed in moonlight and ritual dust.
She didn't speak.
She just sat there, fingers still curled around his like a child afraid to be told to let go.
He could feel the sweat starting to rise on her palm.
It wasn't hot.
But desperation is a kind of fever, and tonight, she had caught it.
He turned to her—not all the way. Just enough for her to think he might meet her eyes.
He didn't.
Instead, he looked at her lips. Her throat. The faint tension in her jaw.
Then—flatly, with the casual cruelty of someone lighting a match and watching it near a fuse—he said:
"You're getting clingy."
Her breath hitched. It was so small, most wouldn't notice.
But Lucien noticed.
And the sound delighted him.
It wasn't mockery. Not yet.
It was data.
Proof that even monsters could be disarmed with the right phrasing.
"I'm not," she said. Too fast.
Too soft.
He smiled again, that paper-thin smile he reserved for moments like these—the kind that didn't hide teeth but made you wish it did.
"You used to watch me like I was dangerous," he murmured. "Now you look at me like I'm oxygen."
She blinked.
"You're imagining things."
"I don't imagine," he replied smoothly. "I confirm."
And just to confirm again, he gently—barely—pulled his hand back from hers.
Not sharply.
Not cruelly.
Just enough.
Enough for her fingers to hang there, suspended in the moonlight, unsure whether to reach or recoil. She didn't pull back. Didn't demand.
She waited.
And that, Lucien thought, was worse.
He stood, brushing the dust from his pants. Slow, deliberate.
She followed the motion with her eyes like a starving dog watches a bone leave the table.
Lucien looked down at her.
At the way her knees pressed together now. The slight fold in the shirt near her ribs. The way her breath had shallowed as if scared of being heard needing him.
"You're afraid again," he said, voice low, smooth as ink in a confession.
She shook her head.
But even that denial was delayed.
Lucien stepped forward. Not away.
Just around her.
A slow, half-circle that let his gaze drag across her body again. Not like a lover. Not like a predator.
Like someone memorizing the location of every crack before shattering the glass.
She didn't speak.
He crouched behind her. Close, but not touching. His breath tickled the nape of her neck.
"You got comfortable," he whispered.
"Is that bad?" she asked, barely audible.
He let that hang. Long enough that she flinched.
Then, finally:
"It's boring."
Her shoulders stiffened. Her fingers clenched in her lap. He could almost hear her heart doing its best impression of silence.
Lucien leaned in just enough for her to feel the space closing again—then pulled away, standing fully.
"I'm going to walk the perimeter," he said, as if none of it mattered. "Try not to mistake stillness for safety while I'm gone."
Then he turned and walked into the dark.
Not looking back.
Not needing to.
Because he knew:
The longer he stayed away—
The harder she'd cling to the silence he left behind.
She sat in the dark too long.
Long enough for quiet to become the only thing she heard.
Lucien hadn't left.
Not really.
Just wandered to the edge of the chamber, half-shadowed beneath the cracked arch where the stone met old cedar. Inspecting nothing. Fixing nothing. Just far enough that she couldn't feel his presence anymore—only the absence it carved out.
He did that sometimes.
Slipped away without moving his feet.
It was worse than walking out the door.
At least then she'd hear it close.
Her hands fidgeted in her lap, folding and unfolding. Her spine curled slightly inward, chin tucked toward her knees like she was trying to disappear inside the shape of herself.
Then—softly, barely loud enough to mean it—
"Am I boring now?"
Lucien didn't answer.
Didn't even glance.
Which meant she had to keep going.
"Is that it?"
She swallowed hard, voice fraying like thread pulled too fast through old cloth.
"Do I need to be more broken again?"
There. That one stung. She saw it in the way his shoulder tensed.
Not enough to matter.
But enough to taste.
She stood slowly—too carefully, too quietly. The shirt she wore, still his, slipped higher up her thighs as she moved, fabric clinging to her hips like memory. She wasn't trying to be beautiful. She just was. And he knew it.
And worse—so did she.
But tonight, under the fractured roof and crooked beams, she didn't feel like a queen.
She felt like something set aside.
"I liked it better," she said, "when you looked at me like you were going to say something cruel."
Lucien turned then. Just his head. Nothing dramatic. Nothing generous.
But his eyes found her.
And they stayed.
Dragging slowly down her legs, across the swell of her hips, the soft curve of her waist, the faint line of her collarbone framed by golden hair.
She noticed.
She always noticed.
And this time?
She blushed.
Not fully—just the smallest pink rise beneath one cheekbone, quick and subtle like a confession she wasn't ready to say out loud.
Then she looked down.
Shifted.
One foot moved behind the other, toes curling against the stone like it might tell her how to stand.
Lucien smiled.
Not sweetly.
Not cruelly.
Just enough to make the silence sting again.
"You should be careful," he murmured at last.
She glanced up—eyes narrowed, unsure.
"Careful of what?"
Lucien's gaze lingered on her lips.
Then trailed lower.
"Of how close you get to missing me."
Then he turned his back.
Again.
Because sometimes twisting the knife wasn't about driving it deeper.
It was about making them reach for the hilt.
—————
She didn't move at first.
Didn't breathe, either—not the kind that meant life. Just held still, like her body was trying to decide whether to curl up or combust.
Then—
"You don't mean that."
Soft.
But not tentative.
Lucien didn't turn.
He stood near one of the cracked walls now, fingers brushing the faded imprint of a ward long burned away. His reflection wavered in the dirty frame of a mirror Guillotine Cutter had nailed crooked against the beam.
He could see her.
Just enough.
She stepped closer.
Not fast.
Not pleading.
But slow and steady, like someone approaching a cliff's edge out of spite.
"I don't care if you lie to me," she said, voice stronger now, threading heat through her fear. "But don't pretend I'd ever forget what you feel like when you look at me like that."
Lucien's smile widened faintly in the mirror. Barely.
She was learning.
But not fast enough.
He waited until she was close enough to touch—close enough that her breath brushed the back of his neck like a ghost trying to be remembered—before he spoke again.
"I don't need to pretend."
That silenced her harder than cruelty.
She didn't flinch.
Didn't cry.
But her hands curled into fists at her sides, knuckles sharp under the moonlight.
"I'm not weak," she whispered.
Lucien turned.
Finally.
His eyes found hers—and for a moment, he said nothing. Let the stillness cut first.
Then, with a voice as light as silk pulled tight—
"No. You're worse."
Her mouth parted slightly. Like she was about to speak and forgot how. Or why.
Lucien stepped forward.
One step.
Then another.
Until her back found the beam behind her and the shirt she wore tugged slightly against the shape of her chest.
He didn't touch her.
Didn't need to.
"I've broken people before," he said. "Bent them. Made them cry, beg, bleed. But you—"
His gaze dropped. Not by accident. He let it rest there—on her thighs, on the way her breath skipped once and her pulse flickered in her throat. On the quiet tremble in her jaw that didn't match the fire in her eyes.
"—you make it so easy," he said, like a compliment wrapped in a scalpel.
Her lip twitched.
Not a smile.
Not a grimace.
Just something raw.
Lucien leaned in slightly, voice lowering.
"Tell me you don't like it."
She didn't.
She couldn't.
He watched her chest rise, slow, deliberate—like she was trying to control the pace of her own unraveling.
But her silence?
That was the real answer.
Lucien straightened, gaze cooling again.
"I'll sleep on the far side tonight," he said simply. "I think we both need the space."
And just like that—
he walked away.
Not quickly.
Not coldly.
Just with that same impossible calm, the kind that made it hard to breathe until he was out of sight.
Behind him, she stood alone in the dusted dark.
Not abandoned.
Just… left behind.
Like a relic someone admired once, then forgot.
And when she finally moved—just one step, like she might follow—she stopped herself.
Because the air between them now?
It felt like punishment.
Which meant it must've mattered.
————
The silence felt… different now.
Not soft. Not sacred. Not shared.
Just vacant.
Like she'd overstayed in something that had already decided it no longer needed her.
Kiss-shot sat exactly where he left her. Arms loosely wrapped around her knees. Hair drifting into her eyes. The same shirt he'd let her borrow now clung to her skin in the back where the stone had leached her warmth. The fabric was thin. Almost too thin now. Like it wasn't enough to shield her anymore.
She hadn't moved.
Not because she wanted to wait.
But because she didn't know if she was allowed to follow.
Her body felt traitorous. Her breath, too shallow. Her thoughts, not thoughts at all—just loops of his voice, the weight of his silence, the lingering ghost of the way his fingers had almost curled around hers before pulling away.
She hadn't meant to reach for him again.
She hadn't meant to look at him like that.
But the moment his attention shifted away—she felt like a bird in a cage with no one left to sing for.
Why… why hadn't he said anything?
She tried to tell herself it was fine. That this was how he was. That Lucien didn't explain himself because he didn't need to. That he'd come back when he wanted to. That he always came back.
But a small part of her—
The part still human, or close enough to remember the feeling—
It whispered something different.
What if this was the moment he stopped coming back?
She bit her lower lip, too hard. A tiny swell of blood gathered, metallic on her tongue. It didn't matter. The pain felt cleaner than the knot twisting just beneath her ribs.
He always looked at her.
Always spoke with that cold, dry mockery that somehow made her feel real.
But tonight?
He'd left her like she was something he forgot to put away.
A relic.
Or worse.
A mistake.
She clenched her jaw.
Then stood.
Slowly. Not dramatically. Not beautifully. Just—stood.
Because if he didn't want to offer her warmth?
Then she'd go find the cold on purpose.
She took two steps toward the hallway he disappeared into.
Then stopped.
Then hesitated again.
Then stepped back.
Because the truth was, she didn't want to find him angry.
She wanted to find him waiting.
Or better—
She wanted him to notice she hadn't followed.
To come back.
To ask why.
She swallowed.
She'd give him a minute more.
Maybe two.
And if he still didn't return—
She'd pretend she wasn't waiting.
And gods help her…
She might start crying if he didn't look at her the way he used to.
————
She didn't know how long she waited.
Seconds? Minutes?
Time thinned in places like this. It stretched. It stalled. It sat beside you, silent and amused, watching what you'd do with it.
Eventually, her feet brought her halfway to the entrance.
Not courage.
Just... inertia.
And then—
Footsteps.
Soft. Deliberate. Familiar.
She didn't lift her head right away. Didn't breathe too loudly. She didn't dare.
But she knew the rhythm. The weight distribution. The slight pause Lucien always had before crossing a threshold, like even his body knew how to punctuate an entrance.
He appeared in the doorway, silhouetted in moonlight and something darker.
He didn't look winded. Didn't look suspicious. Just... cool. As always.
And that was the problem.
He looked at her like she wasn't the first thing on his mind.
Like she hadn't been anything on his mind.
His gaze flicked across the room, cataloguing it like a general reentering a secure zone. His eyes landed on her, but not in her. Not yet.
"Perimeter's clear," he said simply.
Then, as if that counted as enough of a reunion, he turned and walked past her.
Past her.
Not toward her.
Not for her.
Just... past.
She didn't move at first.
She didn't even know how.
But something inside her—something raw and stupid—spoke before she could silence it.
"That long just to look at trees?"
The words came out sharper than she meant.
Not angry.
Not desperate.
Just cut—the way something does when it's been kept cold too long and cracks under pressure.
Lucien paused.
Ah.
There it was.
That barely visible tension in his spine. The half-second lag where he decided whether to respond or not.
He turned his head, just enough to catch her in the corner of his eye.
"You think I got lost?"
His tone was light. Detached. Even amused.
But not in a playful way.
In a way that made her feel like she'd just volunteered to be the punchline again.
She crossed her arms.
Or tried to.
Her hand faltered against her bicep. She dropped it like it wasn't worth the effort.
"You could've said something," she muttered.
"I just did," he said. Then, after a beat: "About the trees."
She looked at him.
Not with hurt.
With caution.
Because Lucien wasn't like the others she'd broken.
He didn't shatter.
He shifted.
Slipped away by degrees until you couldn't remember the last time he'd looked at you like you mattered.
And now?
Now he wasn't looking at her at all.
Lucien knelt by the mat again—like nothing had changed. Like this was still the same moment as before.
But she had changed.
Her breathing was tighter. Her chest didn't rise with that lazy confidence anymore.
And her legs—once casually folded, relaxed—had coiled beneath her like she was preparing to be left behind.
Lucien ran a hand along the edge of the mat, as if inspecting dust.
Not a word.
Not a glance.
And finally, Kiss-shot broke.
Not loudly.
Not with drama.
Just quietly.
Just enough.
"I thought you wanted me to come with you."
Lucien froze.
Just for a fraction of a second.
Then straightened.
And looked at her.
Directly.
No smile. No cruelty.
Just… observation.
"I wanted you to want to."
His voice was low. Flat. Unapologetic.
"Isn't that better?"
————
She blinked. Once. Twice.
As if those words needed to echo off the stone walls before she could believe they'd been said.
"I wanted you to want to."
They shouldn't have hurt.
They weren't cruel.
Weren't even sharp.
Just... true.
Or close enough to truth that they hit somewhere soft—somewhere still healing from centuries of being no one's first thought.
Kiss-shot looked away.
Not because she wanted to hide the expression on her face.
But because she didn't want him to see how much effort it took not to flinch.
"I followed you," she said finally.
Soft. Steady. But with that familiar edge of something ancient and proud, trying not to sound pathetic.
Lucien didn't answer.
He just stood there.
Perfectly still.
Like a man reading the final lines of a poem he didn't bother to write.
Kiss-shot's fingers curled into her thighs, the skin going white beneath her nails.
"You didn't say anything."
Lucien tilted his head.
"Did you need me to?"
That did it.
A tremor passed through her.
Not rage. Not heartbreak.
Something lower.
More dangerous.
That deep, aching panic that only surfaces when you realize you've given someone the parts of yourself no one was supposed to see—and they didn't even notice.
Kiss-shot rose to her feet.
Too quickly.
The motion made her sway, just slightly—but she steadied herself before he could pretend to care.
She stepped closer.
The hem of the borrowed shirt caught the moonlight, brushing the tops of her thighs as she moved. Her hair framed her face like something ceremonial—holy in its own way.
But her eyes?
They were burning.
Not with anger.
With a question she didn't know how to ask.
"I don't know what you want," she said.
And there it was.
The truth she hadn't meant to admit.
The plea folded into the posture of defiance. The fear dressed up like defiance.
Lucien's expression didn't change.
But something behind his gaze did.
Not guilt.
Just the satisfaction of seeing another thread pulled taut.
He didn't close the distance.
Didn't reach for her.
He just said, with that same quiet, terrible simplicity:
"Good."
——————————
Lucien hadn't moved.
Not a single step.
But inside?
He was already circling.
Predators didn't need to bare their teeth. Not when they knew the prey was too desperate to run.
She said she didn't know what he wanted.
Perfect.
That was the point.
He didn't want clarity.
He wanted confusion. Tension. That sickly-sweet ache of devotion twisted so tightly it started to look like dependence.
Lucien's gaze dropped.
Not dramatically.
Just long enough to trace the line of her bare legs beneath the hem of his shirt. The curve of her hip where the fabric clung. The way she shifted—just slightly—as if she could feel his eyes drinking her in and didn't know whether to step forward or vanish.
He liked her like this.
Unsure.
Unsteady.
Still trying to act like she hadn't already built her universe around the gravity of his silence.
He stepped forward—once.
Not enough to close the distance.
Just enough to make her breath catch.
And then?
He smiled.
Small. Crooked.
Cruel.
"You don't have to know what I want," he said, voice low. "You just have to want to give it."
The words hit like a collar snapping shut.
Kiss-shot's lashes fluttered.
Her hands twitched at her sides.
He could see her thoughts trying to reorganize themselves around that sentence. Could feel her pulse stuttering—not just with arousal, not just with fear—but with the slow, creeping realization that she didn't know how to not want him anymore.
Good.
Let her get addicted to that disorientation.
Let her confuse it with love.
Because Lucien wasn't after obedience.
He was after collapse.
And right now?
She was already standing in the rubble, trying to pretend it was shelter.
——————
She didn't speak.
Not right away.
But her hand moved.
Upward. Tentative.
As if her body had decided to reach before her mind could stop it. She touched the fabric at her chest—his shirt, still loose on her—and pulled it tighter across herself, not in modesty but something rawer. Uncertainty. Shame. A tremble of awareness that maybe, just maybe, she was no longer the one choosing when she was seen.
Lucien watched her fingers curl at her collarbone. Saw the way her thumb stroked the fabric—absently, nervously, like it might give her something to hold onto.
She was squirming now.
Not obviously.
Not theatrically.
Just subtly enough that someone who didn't know her wouldn't have noticed.
But Lucien noticed everything.
Especially the way she looked down and then quickly back up—like she was checking if he'd caught it.
He had.
"Uncomfortable?" he asked, voice velvety with mock concern.
She blinked. "No. Just… cold."
Liar.
Lucien smiled, slow and deliberate.
"No," he said, taking a half-step closer. "You're not."
His shadow stretched over her bare legs like a hand. The moonlight fled between them.
And she didn't move away.
Didn't lean forward either.
Just sat there. Still. Waiting to see what part of herself he'd take next.
Lucien crouched.
Not beside her.
In front of her.
Close enough to touch—but didn't.
His eyes dragged up from her thighs, slow and unapologetic, pausing at her waist, the soft dip of her stomach, the slight curve of her ribs where the shirt bunched loose. He stopped just short of her eyes.
"Then why are you trembling?" he asked.
Soft. Curious.
Not accusing.
Like he was just taking inventory of a fault line before deciding whether to press.
She inhaled sharply.
And her voice broke on the way out. "I don't know."
Lucien tilted his head.
"I think you do."
His fingers reached forward—two of them, only two—and brushed the edge of the stone platform between her knees. Not her skin. Not yet. But near enough that the air shifted.
"You think I'm cruel," he said. "And you're right."
A pause.
"But cruelty doesn't mean harm."
He looked at her now. Fully. Not teasing. Not lidded.
Eyes sharp and gleaming in the dark like something that had never forgotten how to bite.
"Cruelty means knowing where it hurts—and touching it anyway."
Kiss-shot's mouth parted slightly.
But no sound came.
And in that quiet?
Lucien could hear her breathing like it was his
———-
She swallowed.
That little motion—barely a shift of her throat—shouldn't have meant anything.
But it did.
It was the kind of thing that betrayed the whole performance. A flicker in the curtain. The queen remembering she used to flinch.
Lucien didn't press further.
Not with words.
Just with silence.
Silence sharpened like a blade dragged across wet skin.
And she—Kiss-shot, the immortal, the absolute, the abberation killer—broke it.
Not with a protest. Not with pride.
But with a whisper so bare it almost apologized for existing.
"Do you enjoy doing this to me?"
Lucien blinked.
That was new.
Not the question.
The tone.
Because it wasn't defiant.
It wasn't angry.
It was… curious.
Curious the way someone asks what the stars are made of. Like she was trying to understand something far older than language.
Lucien sat back on his heels.
Didn't smile.
Didn't scoff.
Just watched her—watched the way her eyes shone wet and unblinking in the moonlight, how her fingers had stilled on the hem of his shirt, clutching it like it might fall off without her consent.
And then he said:
"Yes."
A beat passed.
She didn't recoil.
She didn't look away.
She just stared at him like she'd been waiting all her life for someone to be honest enough to say that.
"I enjoy knowing you're trying to hold together something that already broke."
His voice stayed soft. Intimate. Like this was something you said to a lover, not a victim.
"I enjoy watching you forget how to sit like you own the world."
He tilted his head.
"And I enjoy that you still haven't moved."
That did it.
She twitched.
Just once—like a pulse through her shoulders, a shudder running under the skin.
But she didn't leave.
Didn't stand.
Didn't flinch.
Because some part of her—the part she didn't name—wanted to be seen this way. Wanted the pressure. The gaze. The proof.
Lucien leaned forward now.
One hand braced on the edge of the platform.
He wasn't touching her.
Not yet.
But his breath reached her skin before his fingers did.
And he said—
"You asked if I enjoy this."
A pause.
A grin. Small. Private.
"You haven't even seen what 'this' is yet."
Her breath caught.
It didn't shatter. Not yet.
But it hitched, sharp in her chest like it had to ask permission to keep going.
Lucien watched her mouth. Not because of what it might say—but because of what it didn't.
The faintest quiver at the corner. The way her bottom lip parted like it remembered a cry but had forgotten how to shape it.
He didn't move closer.
He didn't have to.
Because she was already leaning in. Not physically, not quite—but inwardly. Like her body was bracing for impact, and the only question left was whether it would come from his hand or his silence.
"You know what I like most?"
Lucien's voice was quiet. The kind you had to lean into.
Not a whisper.
But an invitation.
"I like that you keep waiting for me to stop."
He tilted his head, just enough that the moon caught the gold in her eyes. They didn't shine—they drowned. Quietly. Slowly. Like stars being pulled beneath the surface of a lake.
"I like that you keep thinking you'll catch me pulling away—when really, all I'm doing is watching which parts of you chase after."
That one landed.
She blinked.
Her jaw tensed, then loosened like she'd swallowed something that tried to climb back up. Her throat moved. Her hand curled tighter in the fabric of his shirt, clutching it like it might slip through her fingers and vanish if she didn't anchor it there.
And still—he didn't touch her.
He let her exist in the gap between want and ruin.
Because that was where she broke best.
"I saw it, you know," he murmured. "The way your face changed when I didn't take your hand right away. The way you smiled anyway. Like maybe if you played nice, I'd forget to notice."
She closed her eyes.
For a breath. One, tight, useless breath.
But the damage was already done.
Because when she opened them again, they were wet. And not just from light. Not just from shame.
From effort.
From the unbearable weight of pretending not to care.
"You said," she began—but her voice faltered like it had been dropped from a great height.
Lucien didn't answer.
Didn't prompt.
Because her breaking didn't need help. Only space.
"I thought…" She exhaled. "I thought if I was quiet enough, you'd stop testing me."
Lucien smiled, slow and private.
"But you kept passing," he said.
Her breath shuddered in.
"But you kept failing me anyway," she whispered.
She was trembling now.
Not violently.
But enough that it was unmistakable.
Her shoulders curved inward. Her spine bowed like the weight of his gaze had finally reached her bones.
And her voice—when it came—was softer than anything she'd ever said to him:
"I don't know how to be enough for you."
Lucien leaned in, the shadow of his breath brushing her cheek.
And softly, almost sweetly, he said—
"Good."
Because the moment she stopped trying?
She'd stop needing him.
And he couldn't have that.