Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The ring’s still vibrating. Blood streaks the ropes, sweat hangs in the air, and the scent of cheap beer is thick enough to choke a corpse. The crowd’s in a frenzy, chanting, fists slamming against railings, kronos flying like it’s not blood money.
The man in the ring doesn’t move like a street brawler. He moves like a trained striker—tight footwork, controlled breathing, fists driving from the hip instead of the wrist. Every punch starts at the shoulder, power rolling through each rotation.
His combos aren’t pretty. They’re precise. He slips left and lands a right cross clean to the temple. The other guy drops like a sack of wet concrete, his head bouncing once on the mat. He won’t be getting up from that. Not for a while.
The crowd erupts before the bell finishes ringing.
I don’t just watch him move. I read what’s underneath. An old fracture along the collarbone, healed strong but crooked. Fifth and sixth ribs shadowed with stress lines from too many body shots and too fast a recovery. One knee pulls left when he shifts—ligament damage, probably recent.
I don’t see muscles. I see the skeleton beneath. The places it’s broken. The places it’ll break again.
I’ve seen enough. I push through the surge of bodies—elbow, shoulder, boot. Don’t stop moving. Never stop moving.
He jumps from the ring just as I reach him, dropping onto the stool like he can’t feel the blood trickling down his temple. He spits his mouthguard onto the concrete beside him. It lands with a slap, streaked in spit and red. He doesn’t even look at it. His knuckles are split open, raw meat and bone showing through. One hand flexes compulsively, adrenaline still burning through his system, every tendon vibrating like he’s not done yet.
There’s a wild edge to him. And fuck me, it shouldn’t be hot. But it is.
I glance at the mouthguard. “Hoping I’d pick that up for you?”
He grins, teeth streaked red. “Wouldn’t dream of it.”
“Name?” I ask, crouching low in front of him as I snap on the gloves.
“Rafe,” he says.
Velera. I almost finish, but for once, I keep my mouth shut.
I knew his name before I ever took this job. He’s Reaper royalty—the kind who doesn’t just fight but commands. Everyone in District Nine answers to them, whether they admit it or not. Guns, drugs, contraband—whatever moves through the underground, the Reapers touch it first.
And Rafe Velera? He might not run the Reapers, but the man who does listens when he speaks.
Gods, Rafe’s big. Six-five, built like someone engineered him for combat. Buzzed hair. A scar slicing through one eyebrow that never healed right. Eyes like glacial water—blue, and too damn clear.
And that grin. The kind that’s seen too many fights and still believes it can win another.
Not that I care.
“Hold still.” My voice comes out flat. “You’ve got five minutes before the next idiot gets hauled out on a stretcher, and I don’t babysit.”
He tilts his head, studying me like he’s trying to guess what I taste like.
“You’re not from around here,” he says.
“Not here for conversation.”
He grins. “You always this warm and fuzzy, or am I just lucky?”
I wipe the blood from his temple and thread a butterfly stitch, fast and clean. “Depends. You planning to pass out or piss yourself?”
He blinks, clearly amused. “Neither.”
I tape the edge down and keep my tone flat. “Then no, you’re not special. Just upright.”
There’s a tear at the index finger of my glove. Barely a slit. I don’t notice it until his blood touches my skin—hot, sharp, alive—and something in me reacts before I can shut it down.
His adrenaline’s high, not with panic but pleasure. No cortisol spike, no crash. He’s sober, clean, and wired like he gets off on the edge. Testosterone’s spiked, dopamine steady. High sex drive, high control. Alpha chemistry, but not messy. He’s built to dominate and disciplined enough not to rush it.
And his compatibility markers? Promising. Too promising. But I can’t read them completely. Not without more.
I’d need to taste him to be sure.
Okay. What the fuck is wrong with me? Did I just—
No. Not finishing that thought.
“You alright?”
My head snaps up.
He’s grinning. “You’re looking at me like you want to taste me. You can start wherever you want.”
Good fucking gods. This asshole. I mean, he’s not wrong—but still, fuck him.
“Don’t think so, pretty boy.”
I’m about to start the next stitch when some drunk bastard stumbles behind me. Beer sloshes down my back, cold and sticky.
I go still.
“Watch it,” I say, not turning.
He leans in from behind, breath hot and sour against my ear. “Didn’t mean to spill. Here, lemme help.”
His hand clamps on my ass, fingers digging in hard. He tugs the back of my shirt like he owns me. The cheap fabric tears.
A voice whistles from the side. “I’ll take sloppy seconds!”
My hand closes around my trauma shears.
I stand.
Turn.
And stab.
The blade slides clean through the bastard’s thigh, just beneath the muscle, a whisper shy of the femoral. He howls and drops like dead weight. Blood blooms fast.
“Hold pressure here,” I tell Rafe, pressing his hand to his brow. “I’ll be right back.”
I step over the writhing idiot and put my boot on his neck like it’s nothing. “You’re about to get a free ride, asshole. Congratulations.”
I reach into my med pack, yank out a Reaper-tag, and slap it to his forehead. The sensor flares red.
“And I want these back,” I mutter, leaning down and grabbing the shears. “They’re expensive.”
I rip the shears free, blood spraying.
He screams like it matters.
The bouncers start moving.
Then his head fucking explodes.
Something twists in my gut a second before it happens—muscle memory, but not mine. The kind of thing you only feel if you’ve stood too close to death for too long.
Blood mists across my face. Hot, sharp, arterial. I taste it and spit once, hard. It lingers, metal-rich and too warm.
Some part of me—some wrong part—wants to raise it.
To raise him.
I straighten and turn.
Rafe stands beside me, temple still bleeding, hand steady around the pistol. The shot was suppressed; the weapon’s matte black finish is clean and utilitarian, with no serial number. At least, not one I can see.
I recognize it instantly—an Atropos, a military-grade sidearm discontinued after the ceasefire. Designed for silent, precision kills, it’s the kind of weapon you only find on the black market now. None of that surprises me. He’s a Reaper, after all.
What does surprise me is that he fired at close range, in a crowded room, without a hint of panic or hesitation. No wasted motion, no second-guessing. He isn’t reckless; he’s deliberate. And that kind of confidence never comes cheap.
“I had it handled,” I say flatly.
He shrugs, too casual. “I don’t like men who think they can take what doesn’t belong to them.”
He lowers the gun with the same ease he pulled it, like it never weighed anything. “You know what those red tags mean, Blades?”
I don’t. Not completely.
“Means I put ’em down later,” he says. “I just didn’t feel like waiting for the later part.”
The bouncers drag what’s left of the corpse off, leaving a streak of blood on the floor.
Rafe drops back onto the stool like nothing happened. I stand in front of him, my shirt still tacky with spilled beer.
He’s looking at me differently now, like I’m not just something interesting. He looks at me like I’m a problem he wants to solve with his teeth.
The pistol rests loosely in his hand, the barrel angled away as I reach for the next suture.
“You always that good with your hands?” he asks.
I don’t look up. “Only when I want something.”
He grins. “Good thing I’ve got plenty worth wanting.”
I wipe blood from his temple.
“That depends. You planning on saying something dumber than that?”
“Give me a minute.” His voice is a low drawl. “I’m bleeding, not dead.”
I finish the stitch slower than I need to.
“Shame.”
He laughs under his breath, but there’s heat in it. Something feral around the edges.
“You a combat medic?”
“Something like that.”
“Where’d you train?”
“Nowhere I talk about.”
I check his pulse. It’s strong and steady, and there’s no reason for my fingers to linger on his neck, but I let them. I like the feel of it—the steady rhythm of his blood beneath my touch. His pupils follow me when I move, responsive and focused. They’re slightly dilated, probably unrelated to the hit. His speech is clear, no slur or delay. No concussion then, just adrenaline.
When I pull away, he’s still watching me, as if he’s wondering what else I’d do with a blade in my hand.
“You’re done,” I say. “Don’t get hit in the head again.”
A voice calls out from somewhere nearby.
“Smile, Reaper boy!”
A click—then a soft whirr as someone snaps a Polaroid.
Rafe doesn’t even blink. He just leans back, grinning like he owns the place.
I don’t.
Before the photo fully ejects, I’m moving, snatching it clean from the camera with a gloved hand.
“Hey—” the guy holding the camera starts, confused. I ignore him.
My gloved finger smears Rafe’s blood on the corner. The photo’s still developing into a haze of bruises, blood, and me standing in front of Rafe.
I slide it into my pack.
“No photos,” I say, cold and final.
Rafe arches a brow. He’s curious, but he doesn’t push it.
I start to turn.
“You got a name, Blades?”
“Nope.”
Then I vanish into the crowd.
When you’re running, names are something you don’t give. Not to anyone. Not even if you like them.
And I’m just another ghost in Sonora.

Chapter Text

I don’t follow people. That’s a rule. You follow someone, they start thinking they’ve got something you want. But I make an exception the second she disappears down the back hallway of the bar.
I tell myself I just want to make sure she’s okay. That she didn’t get slammed too hard when that drunk fuck spilled his beer down her back and tore her shirt. But the second I turn the corner and hear the hiss of the bathroom hand dryer, I know that’s bullshit.
I want to see her again. I want to figure her out. I want to know why the fuck my chest got tight when I watched her wrap my busted knuckles like she’d done it a hundred times. Like she knew what bones felt like beneath skin.
She had the calm of a trauma medic. Not the clinical kind—no clipboard, no soft smiles. The real kind. The kind who’ve seen people die and learned not to flinch.
She stabbed that fucker like she’d done it before. No arterial spray when she pulled the blade, which meant she missed the femoral on purpose. Close enough to drop him, not kill. That wasn’t rage. That was control.
And when I pulled the trigger, she didn’t even blink.
She’s seen death before. A lot of it.
I snag a spare staff shirt from the crate by the hallway exit. It’s black, oversized, probably still smells like bleach, but at least it’s dry.
I push the bathroom door open. It creaks. She’s standing under the hand dryer, her shirt and jeans peeled off, a binding half-wrapped around her ribs for support.
She whips around at the sound, eyes flaring wide.
She’s lean and fit as hell. Clearly injured, too. Her right thigh’s got angry red burn marks; the other’s wrapped in bandages that have bled through. Bruises bloom in deep yellows and purples along her hip and lower back. They’re a few weeks old, maybe less.
Fuck.
What happened to her?
I toss her the shirt, and she catches it without looking.
She’s beautiful, but not in the polished way. In the fuck-you kind of way. Her hair’s dyed dark, but lighter roots are already showing. Tattoos snake up her side and under the edge of her binding. She’s got massive ink, the kind that requires multiple sessions. A dragon sprawls down her back, wings half-unfurled like it’s just caught in the moment before flight. Along her leg, coils the tail of a gold-and-green sea serpent. And then there’s the writing—script inked low along her ribs in a language I don’t recognize.
And her chest—
Fuck. D-cups, easy. Pierced, too. The kind of thing I’m not supposed to notice but do anyway.
She sees me looking.
“Yeah,” she says, voice flat. “I know they’re D-cups. Either get your mouth on one or get the fuck out.”
Godsdamn.
I raise a brow, step inside, and kick the door shut behind me.
“You always this friendly to strangers?”
“Only the ones who bleed all over me and stare at my tits after.”
I laugh, dry and low. I can’t help it. I like her, even if I don’t know her name.
She grabs the shirt I’m holding and yanks it over her head. Then she reaches for her jeans. Her ID’s half-tucked into the waistband. I snatch it before she can stop me.
“Hey—”
“Relax.” I flip it over, scanning the photo. The name says Ashley Renner. Age: 24. Her facial features are different than the photo. The girl in the photo’s got blue eyes, not green.
It’s a fake. Bad one, too.
She watches me, dead still, like she’s calculating how fast she’d have to move to rip the ID back and jam her elbow into my throat.
“This you?” I ask, holding it up.
“Do I look like an Ashley to you?”
“Not even a little.” I tuck it back into her jeans. My knuckles brush the bare skin of her lower back. She doesn’t move.
“So, who are you, then?”
She doesn’t answer.
I let the silence hang. I’m bigger than her and stronger, but she’s not afraid of me. Not even a flicker of it.
She steps forward. We’re toe-to-toe now. Her green eyes, shot through with gold, stare right at me. They’re beautiful, and wrong for this place. They aren’t Sonoran eyes.
My gaze drops to her mouth—soft, slightly parted. Some fucked-up part of me wonders what she tastes like, what her lips would feel like against mine if I kissed her. And how fast she’d kill me if I tried.
There’s still blood on her cheek. I reach out and wipe it with my thumb—slow, deliberate, smearing more than cleaning. I’m close enough to see the freckles across her nose, every fleck of gold in her eyes, the way her pupils dilate just slightly. I lick the blood from my thumb. Then I finish the job, dragging it across her skin in one slow pass. She doesn’t flinch or look away.
My thumb grazes her lower lip. There’s no blood—I’m just seeing if she’ll let me. She parts her lips, barely. I let my thumb linger a second too long. Gods help me, I want her to bite.
Her breathing’s shallow now. The shirt’s thin enough that I see her nipples harden—subtle, but enough to notice.
Enough to make my cock tighten in my jeans.
My gaze catches on a thin silver chain that clings to her collarbone. Dozens of tiny crescent moons hang from it, too many to count at a glance—forty, maybe more. It doesn’t fit her. She wears no other jewelry—unless you count the nipple piercings—but the necklace rests against her skin like it belongs. When she shifts, the pendants catch the light, and they appear bleached and brittle. Bone, not silver.
I blink, and they’re silver again.
“Let me guess,” I say. “You’re a combat medic. Used to fighting dirty. Running from something.”
Her eyes narrow. I hit something.
“I’m not looking to cause trouble,” I add.
“Too late.” She brushes past me, like she wants me to watch her walk away. And I do.
That’s when I see the ink behind her left ear. Three letters in black ink: NMS. It’s not decorative, definitely not her style. Everything else on her body is art, but this is branding.
I’ve spent enough time on the water to know it’s a ship-claim.
I stare after her as the door swings shut behind her.
Who the fuck are you?
Because whatever she is—fake name, false age, forged ID—she’s not just a medic. She’s something else entirely.
And I’m going to find out what.

Chapter Text

“We return the dead to fire, not to cleanse them, but to light the path they no longer walk. If you keep what should have burned, you do not honor the lost. You tether them.”
— Euthalian Funeral Doctrine

The walk home is shit. It’s cold, with rain coming down in sideways sheets. Gods, I hate November. Such a miserable fucking month. My boots hit slick pavement in steady rhythm, blood still drying under my nails.
I take the long way back, ducking through the back alleys between vendor crates and powerline tangles, one hand on my blade the whole time. A guy follows me for half a block. He’s not drunk or lost. He’s following me.
I let him get close enough before vanishing behind a crate. Before he notices, I pivot and catch him from behind. My arm snakes around his throat as I press the curve of my kukri blade flush to his skin. The steel’s matte black, forged for war, with bone inlaid along the grip.
“Wrong bitch,” I whisper, mouth close to his ear. “Next time you follow someone, make sure they don’t know how to bleed a man without making a sound.”
He freezes.
“Now get the fuck out of here,” I say, voice low. “Before I decide to open you up anyway.”
I shove him off.
He bolts.
Smart choice.
I keep walking along the docks. The wind off Sonora Bay howls, thick with salt. A few battered schooners bob at the edge of the quay—rusted, half-sunk, forgotten. I don’t miss the ship, but gods, I miss the water.
I’m almost home when I hear it. A faint clink that’s too damn familiar. My heart kicks hard against my ribs, and I go still. The rain drowns out most of the city noise, but when I strain, I hear it again. Not a bootstep. Not even a shoe. It’s the delicate, deliberate clink of bones.
Whatever’s behind me isn’t used to walking, or isn’t supposed to be.
I stop beneath a rusted awning, every muscle coiled. My blade’s already in my hand, but if it’s what I think it is, steel won’t do shit. I don’t turn around.
If I look and nothing’s there, I’ll feel stupid. If I look and something is, I’ll have to kill it. And I don’t know if I can.
As soon as the sound fades, I sprint the rest of the way home, cutting through alleys and half-lit streets like a ghost.
My apartment’s a block from the Pit, three flights up, fourth door on the left. The building’s seen better days. The High Houses never bother to maintain anything in District Nine. The whole district is nothing but stubborn rot, rust, and water damage, and my place is no different.
I make it up the first flight of stairs and spot my neighbor, the war vet, struggling with his bags of groceries. The elevator is down again, not that it ever really worked. I never take it. I can’t stand confined spaces.
He hobbles up to the top step, his wooden leg slipping on the uneven tile. One of the bags falls, and a couple cans of beans spill out, clattering down the stairs.
I move quickly, snatching up the three cans and stuffing them back into his bag. He gives me a nod, but I don’t acknowledge him. Instead, I grab the rest of his groceries and walk with him up the next two flights.
If I asked, he’d refuse the help. He’s too proud for that, but too poor for a proper prosthetic.
After the ceasefire, the Miltiades government decided it no longer needed to fund anything, including the aftermath of the war. Not that the Twelve High Houses ever gave a rat’s ass about people down in places like District Nine. And where did most of their veterans end up? Take a fucking guess.
They could’ve at least given him a godsdamn prosthetic.
I leave his groceries at his door without looking back, then unlock my own and step inside. I lock all four deadbolts, shove a chair under the knob, and check the window latches twice.
The wards are still holding. Barely. I strung them when I moved in—three bones, each etched with the Algiz rune, pressed into the wood around the door and windows. It was all the magic I had left.
I need more. Badly.
Inside, it’s exactly as I left it with no sign of a break-in. The fridge hums like it’s dying. My plant, the only green thing I allow in my life, is still alive, vining hard across the shelves in the kitchen like it’s got something to prove. I check its soil and top it off with some water.
“Stay tough,” I whisper under my breath.
Then I strip.
I strip off my shirt, throw on a hoodie, and drop the nine-millimeter on the counter, holster and all. Guns piss me off. They’re loud, messy, and spray blood in every direction. I trust a blade a hell of a lot more. Still, in Sonora, being armed isn’t about what you like. It’s about making it through the night. Guns, knives, your fists—whatever keeps you breathing. Whatever keeps you from ending up chained in some cargo hold or face-down in the bay.
My jeans come off next. They’re stiff with blood that’s crusted along the thigh seam.
That’s when I see the red seeping through the bandage.
I unwrap it, discarding the bandage on the peeling linoleum floor. The wound’s still pink and puffy, high on my left thigh and close to the artery. Clean entry, no exit. Three weeks ago, I dug the bullet out with forceps and cauterized the bleeding. No anesthetic. Just pressure, pain tolerance, and enough whiskey to blur the edges. I screamed like a banshee when I finally yanked the bullet free. Nearly bit through the leather belt between my teeth.
I managed to get most of the bullets removed before the pain knocked me out cold.
I grab a bottle of vodka and sink down to the floor. The edges of the wound are dark, with a faint red halo that shouldn’t be there. It’s healing, just not as clean as I’d like. My kind heals faster, but we’re not invincible. Swimming through Sonora Bay didn’t do me any favors. Turns out, dirty salt water and fuel runoff are shit for open wounds. I can’t afford antibiotics. If it gets infected, I’m fucked.
I take a long swig, then pour the rest over the wound. The burn is instant, blinding. I grit my teeth and let it do its work.
The oven ticks once when I turn it on. I toss a frozen pizza straight in, then sit up on the counter and wait.
When it’s done, I eat it straight from the pan, staring out the cracked kitchen window.
The Pit’s just barely in view. I think I see a shape moving past it. My pulse pounds. For a second, I think it’s him, but it’s not.
I pour a shot. Then a second. Then, I give up on being civilized and drink straight from the bottle.
Rafe.
Fucking Rafe.
Some stupid, reckless part of me wanted to let him buy me a drink. Pretend to play hard to get, just for the hell of it. Then I’d go back to his place and let him kiss me. Let him touch me. Hell, I’d even let him fuck my ass until I came on his floor, or his bed, or his face. Maybe all three. Maybe I’d let him ruin me in every room, just for the feel of someone’s hands on my skin.
But that was a godsdamn terrible fucking idea.
I told myself I’d keep a low profile until I found a ship out of Sonora and off this cursed fucking Miltiades soil.
I didn’t care about him, or how he’d looked at me, or the fact that he asked my name.
So why did it feel like breathing got harder when he looked at me?
Why did I want him to follow me?
Why did I want him to see me—really see me—and not look away?
I hate that part of me. The part that still hopes. Still wants.
I finish the last bite of pizza and let the bottle dangle from my fingers. My chest aches. Phantom pressure, like something that used to live there clawed its way out.
I catch my reflection in the window. I’ve got shadows under my eyes. My roots are showing—my real hair color creeping in past the black dye. But it’s the necklace that makes me pause.
It’s made of tiny hyoid bones that are partially fused to the skin around my neck. Each bone is carved with silver runes that catch the light—delicate, precise, sharp-edged. To anyone else, it looks like a regular necklace. Strange enough to seem personal, but not monstrous.
I know better.
I’ve tried to tear it off before. Cut it, burn it, bury it in salt and leave it under moonlight. It always comes back. Or maybe it never really leaves. It’s part of me.
I sigh, grab the bottle and head for my bedroom. The room blurs a little around the edges. I kneel on the mattress, picking up the jacket I never wear. It’s military-grade, salt-worn, with sleeves I once had to hem myself. The fabric is thick, stained in places, but it’s the patches that catch the eye. They’re uneven, sewn into the shoulders and back like cruel medals. All of them are sewn with silver thread.
I was made to stitch each one by hand by the Captain of the Nemesis.
I shouldn’t have kept it. I should’ve burned it with the rest, but I didn’t. I couldn’t bring myself to do it.
Pulling my hoodie tighter around myself, I lie down on the floor instead of the mattress. I can’t sleep in beds. Not anymore.
I drape the jacket over me, feeling the weight of it.
I stare at the ceiling and count the cracks until the numbers stop making sense. Eventually, I close my eyes. When sleep finally comes, it drags me under like a riptide. I dream of fire and the burning masts of the ship I once called home. And somewhere between the screams, I hear it—clink, clink, clink.
The sound of bones, always just behind me.

Chapter Text

Polaroid: Cassian and Maverick Reaper, hands up, blood on both their faces.
Caption: Cassian always said it wasn’t about the pain. Just about knowing where to put it.
He made sure we both remembered.


The floor’s already sticky by the time we get to the fighting rings. Blood, beer, sweat—hard to tell what’s staining the concrete anymore. It doesn’t matter. It smells like a good night.
It’s been a shit week. The kind that makes me want to blackout by sunrise and forget the whole thing ever happened. Usually, a few shots and a quick fuck in the bathroom stall is enough. Not this time.
One of our boats got picked up offshore by the SEA—Sonora Enforcement Agency. They seized nearly a hundred kilos’ worth of product, plus a crate of weapons. Seven of our runners got scooped with it. That alone would be bad enough, but now we’re bleeding in the water.
Two Reapers washed up this week, faces smashed, hands cut off, zip-tied at the wrists. You don’t dump bodies in the Bay unless you want them seen. Around here, it’s always a message.
Probably one of the rival cartels—Los Martillos, maybe the Santos. Every cartel wants a piece of the route, and one misstep is all it takes to tip the whole district into war. That’s the last thing we need. Right now, one more body is all it would take to set D9 on fire.
The fights are just getting started, and Maverick’s already got a drink in his hand, scanning the ring like he owns it, because, well, he does.
“Still ugly as hell in here,” I mutter, tipping back my whiskey.
Mav grins around the rim of his glass. “It’s got character.”
“Smells like ass.”
“Character,” he repeats.
I snort and shake my head.
Maverick leans back, lighting a cigarette and blowing a puff of smoke into the room. He’s fit as hell, though you’d never guess under those black hoodies he wears like armor. Not quite as tall as me, but close. Spitting image of Cassian, except for the wild dark curls from Lena. Without those curls, you’d never clock him as half Thalassian.
He still trains, still hits the bags like he’s got something to burn off. But Mav hasn’t stepped into the ring since Cassian died back when he was seventeen. Or maybe it was Calandra’s death that did it. His little sister was murdered in D9 only a few weeks after his dad. That kind of loss you don’t come back from.
Sometimes I wonder if I ever did.
After my own dad disappeared, Cassian took me and my sister Kira in. Raised us in the Pit. Guess you could say me and Mav are close. Not that Cassian was much of a father figure.
The bell rings and the next fight starts.
That’s when I see her.
Same ponytail. Same impossible green eyes. Same name from the week before—Ashley—on the fight list in chalk behind her, but now she’s in the ring. No medic shirt this time, just a black sports bra and shorts that should be illegal in all twelve districts.
My brain short circuits.
“You good?” Maverick asks, clocking where my eyes are glued.
“That’s the medic from last week?”
“She fights sometimes,” he says, sipping slow. “Pays good when you’re good.”
“She is,” I mutter.
Maverick glances sideways. “Don’t even think about it.”
“I just asked if she was the medic.”
“You asked with your dick,” he deadpans.
I roll my eyes. “You got a name?”
“Not mine to give.”
“Come on, you vet these people. You know everything.”
“I know she’s not twenty-four like her ID says,” he mutters. “And I know she’s the type who’s probably got a blade strapped somewhere you don’t wanna find it.”
I arch a brow. “You think I’m scared of women with knives?”
“No,” Mav says. “I think you’re dumb enough to want one.”
He downs the rest of his drink and claps my shoulder. “Go get laid. Somewhere else. Forget her.”
Yeah. Not a fucking chance.
Three fights.
She wins all three.
First was fast—an elbow to the jaw, knee to the ribs, slam to the mat. Second guy got cocky. She broke his wrist. Third was a brawler. Bigger than her, maybe twice her weight. She danced around him like a goddamn shadow and choked him out before he realized he’d lost.
She doesn’t stay for a fourth. She rolls her shoulders, hops down, and heads for the bar.
I follow. Obviously.
She beats me there, already sliding kronos across the counter. She doesn’t look surprised when I show up next to her.
“I don’t need saving, if that’s what you’re here for,” she says, nodding toward the still-groaning third-round opponent.
“Didn’t look like you did,” I say. “You want a drink?”
She looks me up and down. “You buying?”
“I offered, didn’t I?”
She shrugs. “Fine. But I’m not going home with you.”
I grin. “Didn’t ask.”
She orders a tequila shot, which immediately raises red flags. Then she downs it in one go with no hesitation, no chase, and no fucking reaction. That’s red flag number two.
And now all I can think about is her gagging on my cock and not looking away, like she wants to see how far I’ll push her.
Before I can finish the thought, she’s already ordering another. This time with one for me.
I watch her, surprised and—fuck it—stupidly turned on. By the fourth shot, I’m doing the math. She’s small and mostly lean muscle, maybe 130 pounds soaking wet. But her cheeks aren’t flushed, her eyes are clear, and her hands stay steady as she downs the fifth.
She scans the room like she’s the most dangerous thing in it, and she knows it. And that’s saying something, considering I’m standing right next to her.
“You always drink like that?” I ask casually.
“Like what?”
“Like it’s juice.”
She smirks. “Maybe I’ve got a high tolerance.”
“Or maybe you’re not what you say you are.”
She leans in slightly, elbow against the bar. “And what exactly do you think I am?”
“Not twenty-four.”
She shrugs. “I’m what the ID says.”
“Uh huh.”
She glances at my knuckles, still split from last week. “You fight often?”
“Depends what kind of week I’m having.”
She tips her chin toward the floor. “You move well enough in the ring. Let’s see if you can follow.”
I arch a brow. “You want to lead?”
“I want to see how you handle it when I don’t let you.”
She doesn’t wait for an answer. She grabs my wrist and pulls, like she’s dragging me into a fight I want to lose.
The second we reach the edge of the crowd, she turns fast, her chest to mine. Her palm lands hard against the center of my chest, staking her claim. Then she grips my shirt in her fist and yanks me closer. She’s not asking, just taking.
She spins, back to me, and I catch her hips with a tight grip, my thumbs pressing into the ridges of bone just above her shorts.
Then she grinds against me.
My cock stiffens, and she feels it. She leans into it, slow and deliberate, like she’s not teasing. She’s daring me to lose control.
Her hand slides back behind her, fingers brushing my thigh before trailing up to the side of my neck. She curls them there, holding me to her like a leash.
I let my hand drift along the slope of her stomach, knuckles skimming bare skin until I find the hem of her sports bra. I hook a finger beneath it, nothing more, but the pressure is there, the threat of more.
Then I lower my mouth to her neck. I kiss the curve just beneath her ear, where her pulse flutters fast.
She looks over her shoulder, eyes sharp and wild, like she’s daring me to go further.
And fuck me—I don’t need to be asked twice.
I slide my hand higher, just enough for my thumb to graze the underside of her breast, and she arches like she wants more.
She leans her head back into me. My hand slides higher, my thumb grazing over her nipple.
Her breath hitches as my other hand slides along the waistband of her shorts. I let my fingers linger, teasing her.
Then I bring my other hand up to her throat. My palm rests against her pulse, thumb beneath her jaw, fingers curling around her.
She stills.
Her whole body goes tight, like a trigger pulled back—one breath away from going off.
I dip my head, my mouth near her ear. I’m close enough I feel her exhale when I speak.
“You start a game like this, Blades…” I murmur. “You better be ready to lose it.”
Over her shoulder, I catch Maverick across the bar. He’s watching us with the kind of expression that says I just gave him a migraine.
He mouths: Don’t. Fucking. Do. It.
I grin like the idiot I am.
Too late.
She leans back into me, like she’s testing how much contact I’ll allow.
The answer? All of it.
Her ass grinds back against my hips, and I bite down on the growl in my throat.
“What gets you off?” she asks, voice low.
I could lie and play it safe, but her body’s already telling me she didn’t drag me onto this floor for soft.
“Control,” I say, just loud enough for her to hear over the music. My thumb traces her jaw, slow, coaxing. “Restraints. Marks that last. Blades with sharp edges. And begging, if it’s earned.”
My thumb touches the corner of her mouth.
“Blood, if it means something.”
Her inhale is sharp.
“You like pain?” she asks.
“I like what it does to people.”
She turns her head slightly, just enough to meet my gaze over her shoulder. “And what does it do to you?”
I smirk. “Depends on who’s giving it.”
“You think you could take it from me?”
I tighten my grip at her waist, a warning. If she keeps pushing, I’ll pin her to the wall, slide my cock underneath those tight little shorts, and make her beg.
“I think you want to find out,” I murmur. “I think you’ve been looking for someone who won’t break when you bite.”
Her breath ghosts over my cheek. Her body’s coiled, hot, every line of her daring me to go further.
“You like blades?” she asks.
“I love blades,” My hand presses just a little firmer against her throat. “And I don’t break easy.”
Something wicked sparks in her eyes. She grabs my hand like it belongs to her and drags me off the dance floor. We pass the betting tables, winding through the press of bodies until we’re in the narrow hallway behind the bar.
The second we’re alone, she turns and shoves me back against the wall, one hand braced against my chest.
Her other hand slips down into her boot.
She draws a blade.
Not just any knife—a fucking kukri. Matte-black steel, the edge wicked and curved, with a bone-inlaid grip carved in traditional Euthalian markings. It’s beautiful.
She offers it to me, hilt first.
“You say you love blades,” she murmurs. “Show me you know how to use one.”
I take it slow, letting her see my hand close around the grip. It’s warm from her body. The balance is perfect. It’s heavy enough to do damage, light enough to tease.
I step closer and she doesn’t retreat. Her breath stays steady, but her pupils flare like she’s just dared herself to stay still.
I press the flat of the blade to her sternum, just under the curve of her collarbone.
Her breath skips, but she doesn’t move.
I drag it lower. Down over the line of her ribs. Across her stomach. The pressure is light, enough for her to feel it, but not enough to leave a mark. Not yet.
“I’d start here,” I murmur. “Split this top right down the center. Just to watch it fall.”
Her fingers wrap around mine to guide me. She draws the tip of the blade to the dip between her breasts, right at the top hem of her sports bra.
“Then do it,” she says, voice low. She releases my hand.
I plant one palm flat against the wall behind her, lean in until our mouths are almost brushing. The heat between us burns hotter than the damn hallway.
Then I slice.
The fabric gives easily beneath the kukri’s edge with one clean, silent stroke. Her bra falls apart like it was made to be ruined. Her chest is bare now, rising and falling with shallow breaths, nipples peaked from adrenaline or arousal—probably both.
Behind us, the bass still pulses through the walls, a shout echoing just beyond the hall. Anyone could walk by. Anyone could see. And gods help me, the idea of them watching while I mark her as mine—while I make her beg with my name on her tongue—makes my cock fucking ache.
She looks up at me.
“Then what?” she whispers.
I bring the blade down to her waistband. Let it hover.
Then I slide it up the inside of her thigh, slow and careful. The pressure’s featherlight. Her body tenses just enough to let me know she feels every inch of it.
“I’d start here,” I say softly.
She draws in a sharp breath.
“And if you begged…” I let the words settle before I continue, “I might even cut you right here.”
I press the tip of the blade under her shorts to the tender flesh at the top of her thigh, where the skin is soft and warm.
“Leave a mark only I’d know was there.”
Her eyes lock with mine—blown wide, wild and wanting. Her lips part, chest heaving. She doesn’t look scared.
She looks hungry.
“Do it,” she breathes. “Cut me.”
I raise a brow.
Maybe Maverick was right. Maybe this is the worst godsdamn idea I’ve ever had. But I’ve never wanted anything more.
“Only if you beg.”
I press the blade to her skin.
She gasps. Her body leans into the contact.
I pull back.
“Please.”
Gods. That’s the sweetest fucking word I’ve ever heard from her mouth.
“Again.”
“Please.”
That word shouldn’t undo me the way it does, but gods—it does. I press the edge into her thigh, just enough to break skin.
A bead of blood wells up, bright against the pale softness where her leg meets her hip. It slips down, slow, hot, and my cock throbs at the sight. I want to drop to my knees and lick it. Mark her from the inside out. Let her taste her own desire on my tongue.
“Want to see what I’d do next?” I ask, my mouth brushing the corner of hers, voice rough with restraint.
“I want,” she whispers, “to see what else you’ll do without a blade.”
Before I can answer, she snatches the kukri from my hand, turns, and kicks the bathroom door wide open with her boot.
“Inside,” she says.
I follow like I was made for her.
As soon as we’re inside, she slams the lock shut. The moment the bolt clicks, she turns and crashes her mouth into mine.
It doesn’t feel like a kiss. It feels like a fucking collision.
Her lips are wild, hungry, desperate. My world tilts and narrows to the soft drag of her mouth against mine, to the taste of her breath, the blood smeared on her inner thigh. I kiss her back—open, greedy, claiming. I bite her bottom lip, crushing it between my teeth until she gasps. Then I soothe the sting with my tongue, lapping at her like she’s already mine.
My hands find her ass, gripping tight, pulling her hard against me. She rolls her hips, grinding into me like she’s trying to brand the shape of her want through both our clothes. Her arms snake up around my neck, pulling me closer, like she wants to climb me, wrap herself around me, leave marks I’ll wear for days.
She’s so much smaller than me. And all I can think about is how fucking easy it would be to spin her around, slam her against the wall, pin her wrists above her head, and drive into her until she forgets her own name.
I bet she’d love it.
Gods.
I want to ruin her.
I want to leave her trembling, aching, sore in all the ways that mean she’ll never forget me.
I want to hear her beg again—louder, dirtier, with my name caught in her throat and my hand around it.
I want to mark every inch of her.
And fuck me—
I’m in so much trouble.

Chapter Text

“A full name is sacred. It is only spoken in recognition, in bond, or in farewell.”
— Euthalian Naming Rite

I gave him mine.
And gods help me, he earned it.
I think I wanted him to keep it.
Even though I can’t be known.
Or caught.
-M

I break the kiss and lift my gaze.
“I’ll give you my name,” I say, voice low. “But you have to earn it.”
That gets his attention.
He tilts his head slightly, scarred brow lifting like this is some game and he’s already decided he’s going to win.
“Oh yeah?” he says. “What’re the rules?”
I slide one leg back against the wall and cross my arms beneath my bare chest.
“You make me finish in less than ten minutes.”
He raises a brow.
“That’s it?”
“Not quite.” I smirk, slow and sharp. “You don’t get to use your hands. Or your cock. Or any objects.”
Another moment of silence.
Then—gods help me—he grins.
“Fuck,” he mutters. “You’re serious.”
“Deadly. Think you can handle that, pretty boy?”
I watch him unclip his belt and pull it from his waist. My hand’s already sliding toward my knife.
If this bastard thinks he can—
He holds the belt out to me.
“Restrain me.”
“What?”
“You said I can’t use my hands,” he says, eyes dark and glinting. “Tie them. I don’t cheat.”
I blink. He’s serious.
“You’re seriously asking me to—”
“Unless you’re scared I’ll make you come too fast.”
Gods, he’s cocky. That’s infuriating. And kind of hot.
I snatch the belt from his hands, looping it tight around his wrists. I cinch it down harder than necessary, almost too hard. Not enough to cut circulation, but close enough that it’ll sting later.
He turns back around.
“So how do you plan to get my pants off now?” I ask, arching a brow.
The grin sharpens. “Timer starts now?”
I nod.
His eyes lift to mine with that same reckless heat he fights with, like he’s about to burn through every boundary I’ve built.
Gods, he probably thinks all he needs is a good jawline and a few lazy circles with his tongue. Let’s see how long it takes before he gives up and begs to use his cock instead.
He grins, dropping to his knees. Then he hooks the elastic waistband between his teeth and pulls.
Holy. Fucking. Gods.
I might actually combust.
My shorts and underwear drop to my feet. Then, he positions himself under me and uses his shoulder to force my legs apart.
Oh, Gods. His mouth clamps down over the small cut he made on my inner thigh. He sucks, tasting me, and I put my hand out against the wall to balance myself. I’ve never let someone taste my blood before. Not like this.
It’s fucking euphoric. My blood heats up, almost like it’s burning, and my legs tremble. He hasn’t even fucked me and I’m already losing my Godsdamn mind.
His tongue licks one slow stripe up my center, teasing me. I fight the urge to roll my hips and seek more of him.
“Look at you,” he murmurs. “So fucking wet.”
I’m about to say something back when he licks over my clit once, leaving me aching with anticipation. Fuck.
So he actually knows what a clit is.
And where to find it.
“Did all that knife play get you wet, Blades?”
He sucks, pulling tight on the bundle of nerves. He knows to avoid teeth, flatten his tongue, and widen his pressure before teasing with just the tip. I fight back the moan building in my throat. I won’t give him the satisfaction of hearing it.
He moves between my clit and sliding his tongue deep inside me. My walls clench around him, desperate for more. Gods, I want him deeper. A rush of pleasure hits so hard my knees threaten to give.
He alternates suction and pressure, stimulating blood flow, ramping up sensitivity. I should’ve known he’d be good at this. He circles my clit exactly right, pressing where the dorsal nerve is thickest. Most people miss that spot. He doesn’t.
His tongue traces the inner edge of my labia, then circles back with the kind of precision that makes me think he’s memorized a diagram or two. Or maybe he’s just had a lot of practice. Either way, he knows exactly what he’s doing.
He savors every sound I make, every twitch of muscle, mapping me in real time and adjusting accordingly. He’s confident in a way that makes me want to rip my own spine out.
I grip the edge of the sink beside me.
And then, he moans.
This man fucking moans.
That’s all it takes. I bite down on my fist, desperate not to cry out. No way in hell am I letting him know how good he is at ruining me. My legs quake, thighs trapping his head like I’m trying to break him. I’m lost to it—to him. My body clenches, hips grinding, all my self-preservation gone.
When his tongue slides inside me, my walls flutter around him. Pleasure rips through me, and suddenly his name is in my mouth.
I finish on his face.
On. His. Fucking. Face.
Okay, what the fuck?
He pulls back, face glistening with my release, looking smug as hell, but he doesn’t say anything. The blood from my thigh is smeared across his cheek. He kneels there, hands still bound, waiting.
Then, the bastard smiles and stands up. Gods, he’s tall—over a foot taller than me, even with his wrists still tied behind his back.
“What’s the time, Blades?”
He twists his shoulders, presenting his bound wrists until I can see the watch strapped just above the bone.
I glare at him, refusing to answer at first. He just raises a brow over his shoulder, patient and smug as ever. “We started at 11:02. What’s the time now?”
I bite back a groan, eyes flicking to the display.
“11:05.”
He grins, wider now. “And how many minutes is that?”
“Three,” I grit out. “Three fucking minutes.”
He glances back at the display, his mouth curling wickedly.
“Actually, my watch reads two minutes and forty-three seconds.” His grin widens. “You came in under three minutes. And I haven’t even fucked you properly yet.”
Somehow—I laugh.
“You bastard.”
“Clock’s still ticking,” he says, voice low. “Name?”
I hate him for it, but a deal’s a deal.
I lean in and whisper, “Mara.”
He stills, like he knows it’s real.
“Mara,” he repeats. “Yeah. That fits.”
He bends down, blue eyes meeting mine.
“You gonna be here next Friday?” His breath brushes my ear. “You can come on my face again. And if you’re good, maybe I’ll give you more, Mara.”
I hate that he uses my name. I fucking hate it.
I hate him.
“Hell fucking no.”
But I know he’ll come anyway.
And gods help me, I want him to.
“You sure about that?”
I’m shaking. Trembling. Fucked-out and feral and absolutely wrecked, and he’s just standing there, wrists bound, face shining with proof.
“Yep.”
He’s still smirking.
“You gonna untie me?”
I step in close, rise up on my toes, just enough to meet his eyes. Then I make the mistake of glancing at his mouth—at me smeared across his lips and jaw—and gods help me, I want to lick it off.
Instead, I lean close enough for him to feel my breath.
“Wasn’t part of the deal.”
Then I turn, yank up my shorts, my underwear all twisted wrong, and I walk out.
I hear him laugh as the door slams behind me.
I reach down and straighten my underwear, not giving a fuck who sees. Not that anyone here is sober enough to remember tomorrow anyways.
Then I make eye contact with Maverick Reaper. My godsdamn fucking boss. And Rafe Velera’s best friend.
Ah. Fuck.
He’s standing by the bar, one brow arched so high it’s practically levitating. I clamp a hand over my bare chest like that’ll salvage an ounce of dignity. It doesn’t.
We lock eyes. He doesn’t look surprised, just vaguely entertained. Like this is exactly the kind of mess he expected from me.
I stride over anyway, hand still clamped across my chest, not that it hides much.
His gaze drags down, then back up, slow as hell and twice as judgmental.
“Nice piercings,” he says. “You flash those for fun, or was Rafe just lucky?”
I am so close to stabbing him. Right here. In the throat.
Instead, I lean in, voice flat. “Rafe needs some help in the men’s room.”
I don’t wait for a response. I turn and walk off before I say something that gets me fired. I think I hear him laugh behind me.
I know Rafe will chase me.
And if I stay a minute longer, I might let him catch me.

Chapter Text

Polaroid: Cal in a black dress, me in a button-up, both of us looking like we’ve never set foot in District Nine.
Caption: If Mav knew how I felt about her, I’d be dead twice over.

As soon as the door slams behind her, I turn my back to the sink and crane my neck to see my hands in the mirror. She buckled the belt tight—damn near perfect. Not so tight it’ll cut off circulation, but there’s no slack to work with either. She even angled the buckle so it’s just out of reach of my fingers.
I flex and twist my wrists, testing for any give. Almost nothing.
If I really want out, I’m going to have to dislocate my thumb.
Smart. Not impossible, but not easy, either.
I’m impressed, Blades.
Before I can start working the joint loose, the door creaks open behind me. I don’t even have to look up. The sharp scent of smoke hits first. Maverick’s already lit a cigarette, exhaling like this is the third crisis I’ve handed him today.
“Tell me you didn’t let her tie you up,” he says flatly.
I lean back against the grimy tile wall, wrists still bound with my own belt, my cock still half hard, and a shit-eating grin plastered across my face.
“Fuck yeah, I let her tie me up.”
He walks over, slow, resigned, and very done with my bullshit.
“Didn’t know you were into that.”
“Neither did I. Think she’s got me in a chokehold if I’m being honest.”
“I’ll untie you, but you’re dealing with that hard-on yourself.”
He starts loosening the belt.
I smirk. “Aw, what happened to teamwork? You used to be more generous.”
Maverick groans like I physically wounded him. “Gods, you’re insufferable.”
“Not what you said last time we shared a girl,” I shoot back, cocky as hell. “Besides, I already came.”
He blinks. “…Did you finish in your pants?”
I glance down and shrug.
“Well, yeah. Where else?”
He actually flinches.
“Are you fucking twelve?”
“Twenty-five, actually,” I say, deadpan. “And in my defense, she gave me knives, then let me eat her out while tied up. It was extremely hot.”
Maverick just stares.
“Good. Fucking. Gods.” He pinches the bridge of his nose. “You’re unhinged.”
“And you’re just figuring that out now?”
He finishes unfastening the loop, gives me a look like I’ve lost my last brain cell, and tosses the belt back at me.
“You want to tell me why I’m the one untying your dumb ass? Thought you could Houdini your way out of anything.”
I just shrug, smirking. “Where’s the fun in that?”
I unzip my jeans and grab a wad of paper towel. I wipe myself off while Maverick lights another cigarette, exhaling smoke like he’s so done with my shit.
“It’s not like you’ve never finished too fast,” I say.
He glances down at me, full-on judge mode. “That’s just embarrassing, Rafe.”
I glare. “Stop staring at my dick, you absolute weirdo.”
He snorts. “Not like I haven’t seen it before.”
He’s got a point. Pretty sure Mav’s seen more of me than anyone on this godsdamn continent.
“You’re just a repressed bisexual,” I shoot back, grinning.
“Uh huh.”
“Admit it—you liked it when we touched tips last week.”
He rolls his eyes, smoke curling from his lips. “We didn’t touch tips. We touched shafts,” he says, deadpan, like there’s a fucking difference. “Only because we were both in the same cunt.”
I laugh, tucking myself back in and zipping up. “Yeah, yeah, keep telling yourself that. You’re just in denial, Reaper.”
He flips me off without looking. “Am not.”
“You are.” I swipe his cigarette, take a long drag, hand it back.
Last week, things got a little out of hand at Sanctum—the kind of out of hand that gets you banned from two strip clubs and every church in D9. Both of us tag-teamed one of the dancers. At the same time. In the same hole.
And yeah, I’d be lying if I said I didn’t like it. I fucking loved it. Maybe too much.
“You know she’s gonna run, right?” Mav says.
“Yeah,” I mutter, rubbing my wrists. “I know.”
Maverick starts toward the door.
“That’s why I already sent Holt to track her down.”
He pauses, turning toward me and lifts one brow.
“You what?” he asks.
“Holt’s on her tail. Quietly.”
“You know he has better things to do with his time, right?”
“He seems to like her. Not sure if that’s a red flag or not.”
Maverick stares at me like I just offered to throw a Molotov cocktail.
“That’s definitely a red flag, Velera.”
“Probably,” I say, rolling my shoulders as I stand and fasten my belt.
We step back into the ring corridor, noise crashing down around us like the roof’s about to cave in—sweat, blood, beer, fists slamming into flesh. Same old chaos. But I’m not watching the fights.
I’m watching the exit she disappeared through.
And I know she’s out there.
Running.
Gods, I hope she runs fast, because I’m already hunting.
Her name’s still in my mouth when I leave. Mara.
Godsdamn.
I could drink until the world blurs, and I still wouldn’t forget the taste of her, the sound she made, the way she looked at me like I was hers before I even knelt.
And maybe I already was.
I head out, cutting through the damp air. My place isn’t far. I’ve always liked living close to the Pit—it’s home, in its own fucked-up way.
The street lamps buzz overhead, half of them blown out. I pass beneath one of District Nine’s banners, the kind that’s been here since before I was born. The canvas is shredded through the middle, splitting the two blue and silver koi that circle each other. Underneath, the script still reads: the deep claims what the shore forgets. Neptune’s motto. It’s a joke, really. House Neptune abandoned Nine a long time ago, left us all to rot.
Nine is a mess. Out of all twelve districts, we’re barely hanging on, and that’s saying something. The maritime trade never got much respect from the High Houses. No funding, no resources, just whatever we can scrape together. Everyone knows the cartels keep this place afloat. If it weren’t for them, we’d be just as wrecked as District Eleven.
Now, Eleven is something else. Pluto’s district used to be the heart of Sonora. Thirty years back, during the Miltiades-Euthalia conflict, it got flattened. Bombings leveled most of it. The government never bothered to rebuild. Too expensive, too much trouble, not enough political will.
Pluto called out the rest of the Houses for trying to wipe out every god-blooded Euthalian—anyone with powers. After that, anyone with Pluto blood started vanishing. Not a word, not a body, just gone. Everyone remembers, but nobody talks about it. You don’t, not if you want to stay breathing. In Sonora, the High Houses don’t need a reason to make someone disappear.
That whole “god-blooded” thing is complicated. Mara’s got Euthalian script tattooed on her, and her eyes are green, not the usual Sonoran brown. Doesn’t mean much, though. Plenty of Euthalians don’t have powers, and more than a few Sonorans do. Bloodlines are mixed all over now. Unless you’ve got access to a real lab, there’s no way to tell for sure. And even then, results aren’t all that reliable.
My place isn’t much, but it’s solid enough. A half-decent brick townhouse crammed between a dozen just like it. After I shower off the grime, I pull a photo album from the shelf. Always had a thing for Polaroids. Couldn’t say why. Maybe I just like the proof that something happened, that someone was here.
I haven’t cracked this album open in years. The pages are a mess with a few shots of me and Mal, but most are Calandra. Mav’s little sister. Felt like mine sometimes, though I know that isn’t the right word. Sister doesn’t really cover it, not with the way I felt about her.
Complicated isn’t the half of it.
A few months before she turned up dead, Cal asked me to be her date for the Summer Solstice. Some idiot in her class kept running his mouth about her. So I said yes. The guy shut up the second he saw me with her. I had that effect, even back then. Seventeen, already carrying a reputation in Nine, blood on my hands before most kids knew what a gun felt like. Word gets around fast when you’ll do what others won’t.
Later that night, we ended up on the roof of the Pit. I snapped a Polaroid of us. For once, we looked almost normal—like a couple of kids who hadn’t been raised in District Nine.
Then, out of nowhere, Cal climbed up on the low wall and kissed me. It was quick, soft, a little clumsy. I just stood there, stunned. I probably should have stopped her, but it was over before I could even think. I was five years older, and she was Maverick’s sister. If he ever found out, he’d have painted the walls of the Pit with my brains. But I never regretted it. Not for a second.
After they found Cal’s body, I bribed one of the investigators to get me the report. He told me not to look.
Of course, I did.
I remember turning those pages, reading about what those bastards had done to her. How she died. I saw the photos, saw what was left. Her body was nothing like the girl I knew. I tasted bile at the back of my throat for days after.
She didn’t deserve it, not that anyone deserves the shit they did to her.
I never made it to the end. That folder’s still shoved in a box under my bed, gathering dust.
Sometimes I can’t help wondering who we would’ve been if Cal was still here. Maybe she’d be living with me by now, stealing my hoodies, leaving her shoes in the hall, making this place feel less empty. Maybe we’d have a family. Make something real in this shithole of a district.
It’s stupid, I know. All those what-ifs about someone who’s never coming back.
Either way, she’s stuck at thirteen, everywhere but in my head.
I tried to keep it together for Mav. He was a fucking wreck for months after. Thought he was gonna try and off himself for half a year. Maybe longer, if I’m being honest. But I was a wreck too. I just hid it better.
District Nine is nothing but grey. The rain, the streets, even the bricks are always washed out, always the same. But Cal was different. She was all color, bright where nothing else was.
Sometimes Mara reminds me of her. She’s that same shock of color against the grey.
The kind of color I keep chasing, whether I want to or not.

The next day, I find Corwin down at the docks, loading crates marked “machine parts”—Reaper code for high-volume cargo. The manifests are clean, the seals forged. Buried inside the hollow spaces between engine parts is the real cargo: bricks of Ruin—Sonora’s black-market painkiller. Each brick is double-wrapped in heavy plastic, heat-sealed, and vacuum-packed to keep out moisture and mask the smell. We layer them in shock foam with desiccant packs. The route changes every few weeks, and nobody on the dock crew handles more than one step of the job. We haven’t lost a shipment since I overhauled the system.
The docks are Reaper territory. The shift rotations, ghost manifests, encrypted comms are all compartmentalized, with no one seeing more than they need to. The crews move guns, drugs, tech, and anything that pays. But not people. Not anymore. Not since Cassian.
It wasn’t always like that. Back then, everyone moved bodies—migrants, refugees, sometimes even kids. Almost always people from Euthalia or from Thalassia’s coastal regions. Cassian said it was just business, but after he was killed, Maverick made it law: you move people, you’re done. Doesn’t matter who you are or how much Kronos you bring. It’s the only line we draw that never blurs.
Corwin’s been working coastal jobs longer than I’ve been alive. If anyone knows what the NMS stands for, it’s him.
“You ever hear of the NMS?” I ask casually, lighting a smoke and watching him from the shadows.
He goes still.
“Why you askin’?” he says without turning.
“Girl I met has it inked behind her ear.”
He turns towards me, enough for me to catch sight of the deep slash that runs from temple to chin. “You sure?”
“Positive.”
Corwin exhales through his teeth, muttering something low in Old Sonoran. “Only ship I’ve ever heard with that mark was the Nemesis.”
Everyone in Nine’s heard stories about the Nemesis. Some say it was a ghost ship that haunted the waters between Miltiades and Euthalia, appearing whenever the fog rolled in thick or the tide turned strange. Dockhands would whisper that its crew were nothing but skeletons, still working the ropes long after their flesh had scuffed off. Others claimed the Captain made his crew eat rotten flesh and wash the deck with blood.
All the usual superstitions you hear when the power cuts out and storm season’s rattling the windows. I always figured it was just talk. Ghost stories meant to keep kids from wandering the docks at night.
I arch a brow. “That real? Or just dockhand stories?”
“Depends who you ask.” He scratches his jaw. “Crew went off-grid. Burned their names. Changed routes every week. No port, no dock, no flags. Never carried cargo on the manifest. Not the kind you weigh, anyway.”
I’ve run cargo through blockades and dumped contraband in shark-infested channels. Nothing gets under my skin. But this—this fucking ship—makes something ugly settled at the base of my neck.
“What happened to it?” I ask.
“Vanished. Some say wrecked. Some say the sea swallowed it whole.” He pauses. “You don’t talk about that boat unless you want ghosts listening in.”
Another crate thuds into place. He wipes his hands and looks me square in the eye.
“Best stay far away from that girl, Velera. If the Gods didn’t curse her… that ship sure as hell did. And ships like that?” He takes a long drag. “They don’t fuckin’ sink.”

Chapter Text

“Those who walk between are marked by both life and death. They do not return whole.”
—Fragment from the Book of the Veil

My leg was getting worse. It was infected and oozing greenish-yellow pus. The fever was creeping in now, low and steady, which meant it was spreading.
I couldn’t heal it. I’d pushed my powers too far that night, right to the edge of burnout. I couldn’t risk using them again until I recovered.
I needed antibiotics, and I couldn’t afford them. Not just because they cost a fortune, which they did, but because they’d log my DNA the second I tried to get them. Especially if they flagged my ID, which they would. That was a risk I couldn’t take.
I packed a bag. Just the essentials and the things I could carry. I knew I’d have to leave my plant behind. That hurt more than I wanted to admit.
I’d meant to leave that night, but I was so godsdamn tired I had to sit down, just for a second.
That second turned into an hour. Then two.
By eleven that night, I was lying sprawled out on the filthy, piss-soaked carpet of my apartment, the stench clawing at the back of my throat. Rain drums against the cracked window, the sky outside heavy and gray. Every breath rattles in my chest.
I’ve always slept better on the floor anyways. I never got a bed on the ships. Nearly a decade of sleeping on the lower decks, listening to the sea smash up against the hull.
I lift a trembling hand to my throat, fingertips brushing the hyoid bones fused beneath my skin. The necklace pulses faintly, alive and restless.
Before I go, I want to see him one last time.
My fingers find the right bone, pressing into the curve. A low vibration thrums through me. I close my eyes and focus, willing him to rise.
That’s when I hear it. A soft clink near the balcony doors.
“Fuck,” I mutter into the blanket. “How long have you been standing there?”
“Since you summoned me,” says a dry voice.
Eren.
I sit up, reaching beside me and grabbing the bottle. I hold it out to him. “Drink?”
Before the Captain raised him, we used to steal whiskey from his quarters and drink it below deck like a couple of stowaways. On warmer nights, we’d climb the rigging, sit on the mast with our backs to the wind, and watch the sea of stars roll past. He was my first real friend on the Nemesis. The only one who didn’t flinch when I moved, or crack jokes about binding magic when I passed by. Seventeen when he came aboard, same as me. Nineteen when he died. But time stretched strange on ships like ours. We were kids, then ghosts, then something else entirely. And somehow, through all of it, he stayed mine.
He laughs. The sound’s a little hollow, the way it always was after he died.
“Doesn’t taste like anything anymore,” he says, dropping down beside me. His bones clatter softly as he settles, cross-legged like he used to sit on the deck.
I finally look at him. He’s still got the cracked Nemesis pendant slung around his throat, half-lost beneath the fraying collar of an oversized sweater I’m pretty sure used to be mine. His hair’s dark, grown out longer than it used to be, falling in waves just past his jaw. His cheekbones still cut sharp, even through what little flesh he’s got left. He might’ve been beautiful once. I think I remember. Or maybe I just remember the way he made me laugh when I thought I’d forgotten how.
“I missed you,” I say. It slips out before I can stop it.
“Told you I’d stay,” he says. “You think death changes that?”
Eren used to look at me the way Rafe does. Sometimes, when the stars were low and the ship was quiet, I think we both looked. And then looked away.
When I was hauled aboard the Nemesis, the Captain took a bone vow and made me his ward. No one on the crew could touch me, especially not Eren, even when I wanted him to.
He used to sit beside me, always just far enough that our shoulders didn’t touch, not even in sleep. But I remember how badly I wanted to lean in, just once.
Sometimes, I imagined what it might feel like to have his hand in mine, the warmth of it, the weight.
The first time I touched him, I was covered in his blood, and he was already dead.
He shifts beside me carefully, like he still remembers I’m partly human, and partly something else entirely. His metacarpals graze my cheek, cold and gentle, like he’s trying to memorize the shape of me before he disappears.
“Are you real?” My voice cracks, and the tears spill hot down my face.
He nods, soft as ever. “’Course I am, Mara.”
He pushes damp hair from my forehead with skeletal fingers. He can’t feel the fever burning in my skin, but I see the fear. It’s in the way his gaze lingers, the way his lips press tight with worry. He always knew when I was hurting, even before I did.
“I’ll be back, okay?” he whispers.
He stands, bones clinking softly in the stillness, filling the whole empty room.
“Don’t leave me,” I beg, and the words rip out of me, ugly and broken. “Please. Please, Eren, don’t go. Don’t leave me. I can’t—”
But when I blink through the blur of tears, he’s already gone.
A sob wrenches out of me. It rips through the silence, echoing off the cracked walls, shaking my whole body. Grief boils up until I’m screaming—louder, again, and again. My knees crush to my chest, my nails digging into my arms until I bleed. I rock back and forth so hard I feel like I’ll split apart.
I’m back in the med room of the Nemesis, hands slick with her blood. It’s everywhere: smeared across the floor, splattered on the walls, dripping from the edge of the table.
“No, no, no, no—”
A fist closes in my hair, yanking me backward so hard my neck snaps. I claw at his wrist, but he just laughs, dragging me through the hall, down the narrow stairs. My boots slip, knees slamming wood. The hatch gapes open at the bottom, black and reeking of rot and urine.
He hurls me in headfirst. I tumble, landing in inches of cold water that stinks of oil and shit. The hatch slams shut above me. Everything goes dark. So dark it feels like the ship’s swallowed me whole.
The smell is overwhelming. My hands find something soft—mold, maybe, or something dead. Every breath is a struggle. My own panicked breathing echoes in the pitch black.
I’m alone in the bilge.
They left me alone in the bilge.
I scream.
I’m still screaming. Only now, I’m not on the Nemesis. I’m in my apartment, knees crushed against my chest.
I keep screaming until my throat burns and my voice turns to nothing.
I scream until the only thing left is the empty, swallowing dark.
No one comes.
No one ever comes.
That’s the part that breaks me most. I’ve sat with death enough times that it doesn’t scare me anymore.
It’s the loneliness that’s terrifying.
I don’t want to die alone.
By the time the fever pulls me under, everything hurts.
Maybe I never got out of the dark after all.

When I wake, sunlight is knifing through the window, too bright, too sharp. My fever’s worse. I’m tangled on the bare mattress, skin slick with sweat, hair plastered to my forehead. Every inch of me aches. I try to sit up, but my limbs feel heavy and useless. My body won’t listen.
Fuck. So much for running.
I’m going to die here. In this miserable, piss-stained apartment, surrounded by nothing and no one.
How did I get here? I was on the floor last night.
Eren must have come back and moved me.
I roll over, half expecting to see him lying next to me like we used to on the ship. I wish he were still here, but the space beside me is empty.
Then I hear a cupboard bang open in my kitchen.
For a second, I wonder if I’m delirious, or maybe someone’s come to steal my food while I rot.
The fuckers could at least wait until I’ve actually died.
So damn rude.
I reach for my knife, fingers fumbling until I close my hand around the hilt and drag myself off the bed. Every joint aches and my vision blurs around the edges.
I hit the floor on my elbows and knees, crawling toward the hall, moving as quiet as I can. The boards creak anyway. I’m in no condition to walk. Hell, I can barely see, but gods fucking damn, I wasn’t going down without a fight.
I drag myself into the living room and look up, expecting to find a thief, but nope.
Instead, I find myself looking right at the Reapers’ dog, sitting at my table like he owns it.
Varian Holt.
He was the second person I profiled after Maverick Reaper—ex-military, ex-hitman, current ghost. Reputation for killing and leaving nothing behind. An even better one for tracking things that didn’t want to be found.
He looks like he doesn’t belong in District Nine—tall, dark-skinned, all lean muscle wrapped in a suit too clean for this shit. Shadows carve beneath high cheekbones and unreadable eyes.
He’s also Niraith, like me. The kind that can walk between the living and the dead.
“Holt.”
“I’d say your name, but I don’t know which one you’d prefer me to use.”
“None of them.”
He chuckles, sliding a cup of tea across the counter toward me.
“You plannin’ on running?” he asks. “You’re looking a little rough for that.”
“Infection will do that.”
No sense in hiding it. He probably caught the smell of it before he even got here.
I haul myself up into the chair across from him, limbs heavy, vision swimming. The shadows in the room shift unnaturally, as if responding to him, not the light.
“You care if I smoke in here?” he asks.
“Nope. Won’t be here much longer.”
He places a cigarette between his lips and lit it, inhaling slowly. He glances around the room once, like he’s searching for something only he can see.
“You’ve got some interesting shadows,” he says.
My pulse jumps. I follow his gaze to the window, where the light bends wrong.
“Eren?” I whisper.
“That the shadow’s name?” Varian asks, smoke curling from his lips. “Didn’t say much. Hard to, without a hyoid. Nice guy, though. Think he was worried about you.”
Something cracks inside me. My fingers lift to the bone fused to my skin, tracing the curve as if I could still feel his touch.
“You really a medic?” he asks, gesturing at my thigh. “Cause that’s a bad infection. I’m no medic but my guess is you’ve got about forty-eight hours before sepsis starts.”
“I’m well aware.”
“You waitin’ for death, then?”
“Figured it’d come eventually anyways,” I remark. “You’d know something about that, wouldn’t you?”
He takes another long drag.
“You can’t cure it with your abilities?”
I go still. I figure he knew.
“Overused ‘em.”
He nods like he already knows, then reaches into his coat pocket. My fingers snap to my knife. My thumb’s on the hilt, blade half-drawn before I register he isn’t pulling a weapon.
“You’re a jumpy little thing, aren’t you?”
I scowl, my hand still hovering, just in case this bastard decides to finish me off before the bacteria in my leg does.
“I’m not little.”
“Sure.”
I fight the urge to lunge across the table and smack him, but I’m in no shape to be picking a fight with someone who is black ops trained. He might be one of the only people in Nine who could actually take me down.
He sets an IV kit on the kitchen table. The port is sealed, the line already prepped, and there’s a bag of IV antibiotics clipped to the side. It’s the kind you only get if you have connections. Broad-spectrum, fast-acting, and a thousand Kronos a bag—if you can even get them.
I look up at him.
“Why help me?”
“Cause Rafe likes you,” he says. “And I don’t want to see you die over a single bullet. Not after what you’ve survived.”
I drag the kit toward me, check the port, clear the line.
“Cause of death would be sepsis, but sure, blame the bullet.”
My hands are shaking but the motions are muscle memory. I find my vein, anchor it, and slide the needle in. All done in under thirty seconds.
Varian watches in silence, smoke curling from the corner of his mouth.
“Looks like you’ve done that before.”
I didn’t look up. “You offering compliments now?”
“Just hate seeing you waste your talents on idiots in the fighting pits.”
“Pays good,” I shrug. “Lot more than I’d get at a D9 clinic.”
Underground clinics in Nine were the last place I wanted to land. Low supplies, short-staffed, overdose central, shit hours, and even shittier pay. Still better than Eleven. Same deal there, plus a high chance of getting stabbed, shot, or raped before your shift ended.
“What’s Maverick paying you anyway?”
“Depends. Six to eight hundred a night,” I say. “Pays more when I patch up Velera.”
Varian chuckles. “Of course it does.”
I lean back, the cold bite of the drip already hitting my bloodstream.
“Thank you.”
The words were so quiet I wasn’t sure if he heard them at first.
“You want Rafe to know where you are?” he asks.
I shook my head.
“Then I’ll tell him I couldn’t find you,” he says, standing up. “Don’t think he’ll stop looking, though.”
“I know.”
The shadows near the corner deepen, too fast, too thick. The light bends wrong, and then, he’s gone.
I’m alone again.
I lean back in the chair, my breath shaky. I try not to think about those blue eyes I can’t seem to forget. Eyes that looked at me like I was already his.
Godsdamn him.
The apartment suddenly feels too quiet, and I hate it.

Chapter Text

Polaroid: A single Solstice bowl, lit and flickering on the windowsill.
Caption: I lit a bowl for her, because maybe next year, she’ll come with me. Maybe that’s wishful thinking. She probably has someone else. Someone that isn’t me.

The rain’s relentless. It hasn’t stopped since dawn. Thick, icy sheets beat down on every roof and awning. The gutters in D9 are already backed up, flooding the sidewalks ankle-deep in grey sludge. The wind’s coming in from the east too, slicing right through my jacket.
Perfect weather for the Winter Solstice.
I tuck the Polaroid camera under my arm, one hand shielding the paper-wrapped loaf of sweetbread I brought from the bakery near my place. Sorina thinks it tastes like magic, and Orin swears it gives him visions. It’s just raisins and cinnamon, but I buy it anyway. It’s tradition.
The house is warm before I even step inside.
My stepmom, Rowenna, already has the wood stove going, steam rising from the chimney in puffs. Even from outside, the house smells of spices, garlic, and roasted meat.
I knock once.
Then twice.
Then once again, slower.
Lio throws the door open before the final knock lands.
“You’re late,” he says. He’s fourteen now but still lets Sorina cover him in glitter.
“And you are looking very sparkly,” I counter.
“Touché.” He waves me in and takes the bread like I’m a delivery boy. “Did you bring the good kind?”
“Orin’s ‘vision bread’? Obviously.”
“Hell yes.”
I step inside. The townhouse isn’t big, but it’s lived in. The cushions are threadbare, the floors worn, and the photos hanging on the wall are all in frames I salvaged from dumpsters. Almost all the photos were taken by me.
Every window has a small ceramic fire bowl on the sill, a Solstice tradition Rowenna insisted we keep. You’re supposed to light one for every name you want remembered. Every soul that shouldn’t be forgotten.
At the end of the night, we light them.
Sorina comes barreling around the corner, already wearing that crooked little Solstice crown made of ribbon and dried grass. She’s four but she swears she’s seven.
She’s Rowenna’s sister’s girl, but ours now.
“Rafe!” she shrieks, launching herself straight into my arms.
I catch her easily, swinging her up onto my hip. She smells like cinnamon and something vaguely sticky. Probably Lio’s fault.
She presses her small hands to my cheeks like she’s making sure I’m real. “You’re late,” she declares. “Did you bring a girlfriend this year?”
I blink. “What?”
From the hallway, Jalen snorts. “No one would date him unless they were blind, Sor.”
“Would too,” I mutter, deadpan. “I’ve been busy.”
Sorina tilts her head, thinking. “Next time, bring one. But she has to like sparkles.”
I laugh. Gods, I love this kid.
Rowenna’s already in the kitchen, sleeves rolled, braids tied back, scowling at a pot. She gives me a quick nod when she sees me. Rowenna’s never been the soft hugging type, and I’m okay with that.
“Still breathing?” she asks.
“Mostly.”
“Kira coming?”
“Nah,” I say. “She’s spending Solstice with Maverick this year.”
Not that Kira’s ever spent it with us. She’s my only blood sibling. After Dad disappeared, Rowenna couldn’t handle two half-grown kids on top of three younger boys. Me and Kira got sent to the Pit and Maverick’s dad took us in.
Kira’s never forgiven her for that.
And I think Rowenna stopped expecting her to.
“You eat yet?”
“Hell no.”
She hums like that was the right answer. I pull one of the cutting boards out and get to work.
We eat early. Rowenna makes simple dishes with rice and beans and roasted squash. Sorina insists we all say one thing we’re grateful for. Jalen, who’s twenty-one and always annoyed by everything, groans. Tovi says sunlight just to make Sor smile.
I say I’m grateful for family, especially Sorina, who is currently trying to balance a green bean on her nose like it’s a sacred Solstice rite.
After we eat, the photo ritual begins.
It started when Orin was old enough to ask what Solstice was for. I told him it was about keeping the dark from swallowing us. He said we should “trap the light in pictures” so we wouldn’t forget.
Every year after, we did.
Jalen pulls out his makeshift tripod made of two chairs, some wire, and an actual tripod base I found at a scrap market. I load in the fresh film and line everyone up against the peeling wallpaper. It’s covered in paper star cutouts Sor must’ve made at school last week.
First, we do the group shot. Everyone shoves in, elbowing and half-smiling, except Sor who’s beaming like she swallowed the moon.
Click.
Then we do pairs—Orin with Tovi. Sorina with Lio. Rowenna with Jalen and Tovi, after some complaining. Tovi’s eighteen but still ducks out of photos like a nervous kid. Jalen huffs and rolls his eyes like posing is beneath him.
Then it’s my turn.
I crouch down so Sorina can climb up my back and sit on my shoulders. Orin tries to make bunny ears behind my head. He’s thirteen and already taller than Tovi, which he won’t shut up about.
Click.
I’m laughing in the photo. Actually laughing.
After the photos, we each light our fire bowls. Rowenna places hers on the window ledge above the sink. The flame’s small, steady, protected from the wind outside.
There’s a bowl for my mother, Alenya. The name isn’t spoken. It doesn’t have to be. She’s been gone almost seventeen years now.
I light mine for her too.
“You should light Dad’s this year,” Jalen says, handing me a bowl.
I glance at Rowenna. She gives me a single nod.
I light it.
He’s been gone twelve years now. The boys still talk like he might come home one day, but me and Rowenna know better.
He’s not coming back.
Jalen lights one for a girl he won’t talk about. Tovi for a friend who OD’d last spring.
Sorina lights hers with both hands cupped around the bowl like it’s something fragile.
“This one’s for Rafe’s girlfriend,” she whispers.
The room goes quiet for half a second.
“I don’t have a girlfriend,” I mutter.
She shrugs, watching the flame catch. “Maybe next year.”
Rowenna’s hiding a smile behind her glass.
Gods help me.
The kids drift off eventually. Rowenna starts cleaning even though we all tell her not to, and Jalen, despite his grumbling, gets up to help her. I sneak back to the living room and reload the camera.
One photo left.
I set it on the tripod, hit the timer, and sit on the floor in front of the window, fire bowls flickering behind me.
Click.
The photo starts to develop while the rain hammers the roof. Thunder cracks once, low and distant.
The image starts to take shape. I look like a man, but I don’t feel like one. Not really. Just someone trying to remember how to be something other than tired.
I think of her—Mara. Is she celebrating with anyone tonight?
Gods, I don’t want to picture her with someone else, but I don’t want her to be alone, either.
I light one more bowl and set it gently on the windowsill, careful with the match, like the flame might mean something if I let it.
Outside, the street is still drowned in rain and shadow. Fog drifts around each townhouse like it’s trying to swallow the world. The windows across the way are dark.
Then I catch a silhouette just beyond the lamplight. Their hood is up, coat drawn tight.
Her face turned just enough to be no one, or maybe anyone.
For half a second, I swear it’s her.
But then Sorina’s hand slips into mine, warm and small and insistent. She tugs me back toward the kitchen, back toward the firelight and laughter.
I don’t look back.
I already know she’s gone.

Chapter Text

“She circles the fire but never steps inside. They call her the Nherin—the one the gods left waiting.”
— From Solstice Myths and Mourning Songs, banned coastal hymns

“You got that name for me?”
The man pinned under my boot whimpers, his voice thin and ragged. I sigh, my patience thinning. I haven’t even started hurting him. I’m not planning to, but I let him sweat for a moment longer.
“Name,” I repeat, making it clear I’m not asking again.
This is apparently how things get done in District Nine now. Fine. I squat down, letting the kukri’s curve rest beneath his jaw. His skin trembles against the steel. He stares up at me, eyes wide and desperate.
“I’m talking about the traffickers, you idiot,” I say, pressing the blade just enough to make him flinch. “Talk fast. I have better things to do.”
He stammers, but then the names tumble out in a rush. I listen without blinking, committing every one to memory. He keeps glancing at my hands, like he thinks I might lose interest and start carving anyway.
“You want to write these down?” he asks, voice hopeful.
I shake my head. “No. I won’t forget.”
He nods quickly, wetting his lips. “Uh… so, can I go now?”
I smile, just to see the fear sharpen in his eyes. “No. You stay right where you are.”
He braces, certain I’ll slice him open. I don’t bother. Instead, I press my gloved hand over his chest, right where his heart hammers in panic. I can feel the blood pulsing, strong and regular. A perfectly healthy heart. For now.
Lub-dub. Lub-dub. Lub-dub.
I let my focus slip past skin and muscle, tuning into the rhythm of his heartbeat. The pattern stutters as I tighten my grip, his pulse skipping, then quickening, desperate to outrun what’s coming.
Lub-dub. Lub—lub. Lub. Lub. Lub.
His eyes bulge, darting in confusion. He gasps like he’s trying to speak, but no sound comes out. Good.
A violent shudder racks through him, legs kicking once. Then his body sags, going limp.
The next beat never comes.
I take my hand away, staring at the corpse left cooling on the filthy street. No blade, no marks. To anyone else, it will look like his heart just stopped.
I flip him off and step over his body without a second thought. He was nothing. Just another bastard running girls through the Santos pipeline.
I fucking hate slavers.
I’d have loved to make this one bloodier. Really take my time with it.
Once the infection cleared, I tracked down one of the slavers on my list—a lieutenant in the trade. Slit his throat, stripped him bare, and strung him up by the ankles from the mast of his own schooner. The bastard hung there, swaying in the wind while I sat in a lawn chair on the dock and watched the crows turn his face into carrion. They took his eyes first.
It was beautiful.
But leaving bodies like that gets messy, even in Nine. SEA doesn’t care unless it looks like a gang war’s about to break out. Then they come crawling out of their holes, pretend to investigate, maybe toss a few low-level thugs in a holding cell just long enough to look useful.
The man I gutted was Los Martillos. Santos saw the body and assumed it was a message.
My bad.
Let them tear each other apart. Two trafficking syndicates eating themselves alive saves me the trouble. I won’t even have to lift a finger.
This, though—this is cleaner. The one I just dropped will show up on an autopsy slab with a heart attack. Unfortunate. Tragic. Not suspicious enough to dig deeper. No chains, no blood spray, no theatrical flourishes.
Sadly.
I’ve got to be smart. Until I’ve thinned them out, until I get to the real ones pulling the strings, I can’t afford to get caught.
Not yet.
Still, I do love my theatrics.
I lift my head, squinting up at the rain. It comes down hard, soaking straight through me, but I barely feel it. After years at sea, I don’t even flinch. You stop noticing the wet eventually. It just becomes part of you.
I cut through an alley, heading toward the Pit. There’s a bar on the lower level, then the upper floors are living quarters. That’s where Maverick lives. I haven’t stepped inside yet, but I’ve stood across the street more than once, watching through the window. It’s a nice place. Old wood floors, burnished smooth from years of use. Worn in, but clean. Always clean.
Maverick’s tidier than people give him credit for. His place is spotless. Like scrubbed-down, surgical-clean spotless. Maverick himself? That’s another story. He’s stained with every fluid a body can leak.
Bet his bastard of a father had something to do with that.
I sneer just thinking about Cassian Reaper. I only met him a few times, but everyone who’s ever stepped foot on a ship knows his name. You don’t forget a man like that.
Out at sea, he was a fucking legend.
He moved more bodies than immigration has in the last fifty years. Ex-military. Efficient as hell, and a fucking sadist. The kind who didn’t just hurt people. He made sure they never came back from it.
There were rumors he touched kids. I believe it. He trafficked enough of them. He would’ve had plenty to choose from.
Men like that don’t get caught. The world just hopes they die.
He got himself shot a few years back. Shame I didn’t get there first. Whoever pulled the trigger did the world a favor. Probably one of his own kids. I doubt any of them made it out clean.
I’ve never seen Maverick put his back to a door. That kind of hypervigilance doesn’t come from nothing.
Maverick doesn’t move people. Not ever. He’s got a code, and he keeps it, no matter what. I respect that. Especially considering his father handed him a fully operational trafficking ring with billions in blood money. The largest flesh trade Miltiades has ever seen.
He walked away from all of it.
On paper, the Nemesis was his, and I was his crew or his victim. It depends on how you look at it.
No one ends up on a ship like that because they wanted to be there.
When you’ve got powers like mine, choice isn’t something you get.
I cut left, slip past the Pit, and make my way toward Rafe’s townhouse. I glance at the plain black watch on my wrist, the newest addition to my very limited list of possessions.
Rafe will be heading out soon.
And I’ve got a date.
Sort of. It’s a little one-sided. He doesn’t know I’m coming.
His townhouse is tucked at the end of the street, just a few blocks from mine. Nothing extravagant, but solid. Well-kept. When I was camped out on the roof two nights ago, I noticed the gutters were clogged with leaves. He really should clean those.
Would it be weird if I mentioned that? Yeah. Probably.
Not that I’m planning on talking much the next time I see him.
Ideally, I’ll be on my knees with my mouth full of something far more interesting than conversation.
Maybe tonight, if things go well.
Winter Solstice is a night for celebrating and I don’t mind staying up late.
The rain blurs the edges of the streetlights, swallowing the sounds of the district, and paints everything in gray. The gutters overflow with trash and runoff, flooding the sidewalk ankle-deep in grime.
I follow Rafe. I stay on the rooftops for two blocks, my steps silent against the rusted metal. Then I drop to the street when he turns onto a quieter row. He climbs the steps of a townhouse.
It stands out, not because it’s fancy, nothing in Nine ever is, but because it looks intact. It’s solid, with a real door, and the windows still have glass in them. Behind the curtains the rooms glow with warmth and firelight. This is the kind of place that has a homemade dinner waiting inside.
Too nice for this part of the city.
It’s still worn, still weather-beaten, but something about it makes my chest pull tight.
I hadn’t seen a house that looks like a home since I was seventeen.
I step under the cover of an awning and tuck myself into the shadows, coat pulled close, hood low.
A boy in his early teens opens the door. Rafe hands him something wrapped in brown paper like it was tradition.
Then the others came into view.
A dark-skinned woman with a strong jaw and steady posture looks up from the kitchen and gives him a nod. Four boys move around the room, if I counted right. Teenagers or just past it.
At first, I think they’re friends and maybe he was just dropping something off, but then a little girl—barely four, if that—comes barreling toward him and launches herself into his arms. He catches her without thinking and holds her like she’s his damn world.
My stomach twists and a wave of nausea rises in my throat. She looks just like the little girl on the ship. On the Nemesis, they brought me people—women and men, migrants and refugees, anyone who wouldn’t be missed—but never children. Not until that day.
When I refused, the Captain made me do it. He forced me to lay the girl on the operating table in the shadows of the lower deck. He made me harvest her. My gloves were slick with her blood.
I tried to bring her back. Tried to grow back what had been taken, knowing I couldn’t.
I held her after, trying to keep her warm, even as her breath faded.
She died in my arms.
Something inside me died, too.
I bend forward and retch, vomiting onto the pavement. The rain washes it away, carrying everything down the gutter until there’s no sign it was ever there.
I sink deeper into the shadows, half-shielded by a rusted dumpster and broken drainpipe. I bury my shaking hands into the pockets of my raincoat, clenching my fists to try and get it to stop.
The window fogs at the corners from the heat inside. The older woman is dishing out plates.
I can’t remember the last time I ate with someone who knew my name.
The real one.
They gather in the center room next, crowding together. That same little girl, the one who launched herself into Rafe’s arms earlier, climbs onto his shoulders. Another boy ducks into the frame just before the flash of a Polaroid snaps.
One of the boys pulls out what looks like ceramic bowls from the windowsill. One by one, they light them.
Euthalian fire bowls.
A funerary rite.
The kind meant for remembrance. We used to light them when I was a girl, before port departures, before sea storms, before goodbyes you weren’t sure were permanent. That was back when names still meant something. Back when I still meant something.
I wonder if my parents lit one for me.
After I vanished, I wonder if they placed a bowl on the windowsill and whispered my name like it was already gone. If they grieved me. If they mourned the ghost I became, never knowing I hadn’t died.
My flame wouldn’t have a name anymore.
They each light one. The mother. The tall boy. The younger kids. Even the little girl. And then him.
Rafe.
He kneels by the window, lighting his carefully.
I don’t know who it was for. I don’t want to know.
When everyone else is gone, Rafe lights one more bowl.
He sets it on the windowsill closest to me.
I can’t fucking breathe.
His face turns toward the glass, toward the dark, toward me. For a second, I’m sure he sees me.
It cracks me wide open.
My legs move before I can think, and I disappear into the dark.
I get far away from that house. From the light. From him.
I don’t look back.
The ache in my chest told me enough.
I need a bloody drink.

The closest bar I found is three blocks away, wedged between a pawn shop and a vendor that sold parts pulled from wrecked drones. It didn’t have a name, but it was the kind of place where no one asked questions.
Perfect.
The bartender didn’t look up when I walked in. He didn’t ask for an ID either. I sit down at the bar, my coat dripping with rainwater.
“Something strong,” I say. “Don’t care what.”
He pours me something clear. Tequila, from the smell of it.
The first shot goes down clean. The second burns a little, but not enough to forget the memories clawing at my throat.
The third made my hands stop shaking.
Fuck Solstice. Fuck memory. Fuck firelight and empty bowls and names no one remembers.
“Drinking alone on Solstice, huh? Rough year?” the bartender asks.
I glare at him. He holds my gaze for three seconds, then makes the intelligent decision to shut the fuck up and walk away.
The rain hasn’t let up. If anything, it’s worse now, turning everything outside murky.
Someone slides into the seat next to me.
Varian, dressed in an expensive black suit tailored to fit him perfectly.
“Evening,” Varian says. “Velera already taking you to meet his family? That moved quickly.”
“Fuck off.”
Varian chuckles, then passes an envelope.
I pick it up, opening it a crack. Inside, I see the edge of a card. An identification card.
“Maris Vex,” he says, like it was already true. “Consider it a Solstice gift.”
I stare at the envelope. Then at him.
“You know I can’t pay you for this.”
“Never said I wanted anything.”
“These are expensive.”
Varian shrugs. “I’ve got enough money and enough people who owe my favors.”
“And now I’m one of them.”
He’s smart enough to keep his damn mouth shut. Now, I owe him twice, and he knows it.
“You celebrating?” I ask, nodding at the pressed collar of his suit.
“My boyfriend’s making Erakh. Refuses to share the recipe.”
I raise a brow. “Erakh?”
I’d heard of it once, back when we were docked off the Thalassian coast. It’s a rare Solstice dish with the kind of ingredients you can’t get in Sonora—not without connections.
“Only makes it for Solstice. I tried begging for it on my birthday once. He threatened to poison it.”
“I like him already,” I say. “Do I get to meet him?”
“He’s not much of a people person,” Varian shrugs. “But I think he’d like you. I’ll ask.”
“Can’t say I’m much of a people person either.”
“Think you’re more of one than you think,” Varian says. He stands, lighting a cigarette.
“You know,” he says, “there is something you could do as a form of payment.”
“What kind of something?”
“Every Wednesday morning,” he says, “you meet me at the Foundry for coffee.”
“That’s it?”
“That’s it.”
“For how long?”
“Until you don’t want to anymore.”
I stare at him.
“…Okay.”
Varian smiles like he didn’t expect me to say yes, but he’s glad I did.
“Enjoy your Solstice, Maris Vex.”
“You too, Holt.”
And just like that, he was gone, slipping into the dark like he was made of it.
“Were you just talking to yourself?” the bartender asks, brow lifted.
“Was I?”
He hesitates.
I smile, slow and sharp. “You should pour another. I haven’t decided who I’m talking to yet.”
That shut him up.
Good.
I was fucking thirsty.

Chapter Text

Polaroid: Maverick (12), Rafe (13), and Cassian aboard The Lena. His arms loop around both of us like we’re his.
Caption: He named the boat after Mav and Cal’s mother. She’s a Ruin addict now, somewhere in Eleven. Mav doesn’t talk about her, ever. I don’t ask.

The air stinks of salt and low tide as I approach the docks. Nets hang like ghosts from rusted cranes, and half the dock lights are blown out, just the way we like it. Down here, no one asks what’s in a crate unless they want their teeth re-arranged.
The younger runners straighten a little when I pass, not that I say a word. I’m not their captain, but I might as well be. Maverick’s the face of this operation; he’s the name on the ledgers, the man with the politics. I’m the one who makes sure our shipments don’t get caught in the harbor or gutted by enforcers with itchy trigger fingers.
Micko’s a dockhand with half a brain and a mouth that never stays shut. He’s worked every dock from the southern wharf to the Miner’s Cove and if there’s a rumor about what comes in on the tide, he’s heard it—usually twice. He’s also been through every tavern and brothel in Nine, which is saying something. He’s the kind of guy who’ll steal your wallet, snort half your supply, then forget he ever saw you. Useful, but only if you ask the right way.
When he sees me, he stands up straighter and starts gnawing on his lower lip. I don’t come down here much, but when I do, it’s never for anything good.
I’m not here to scare him. Mostly.
“You know, West Quay’s getting a reputation for coming up short lately. Two bricks a shipment, to be exact. Thought you’d be smarter than that, Micko.”
Micko flinches. “Yeah… about that…”
I blow out a puff of smoke toward him. “That’s not why I’m here,” I say. “Today.”
He gulps, looking nervous.
“I wanna know everything you’ve heard about the Nemesis,” I say. “And I’ll make sure your little fuck-up with the product last week stays between us. Yeah?”
Micko nods, still chewing his bottom lip. “That ship’s cursed.”
“What do you mean, cursed?”
“I mean cursed,” he mutters. “Like, ghosts-and-blood, never-come-back kind of cursed. Fisherman say if you end up on the Nemesis, you don’t leave it. Not alive, anyway.”
“Anyone ever make it off?”
He shrugs. “If they did, they don’t talk about it. Or they’re too dead to.”
There’s something he’s not saying. I push a bit.
“Ever met someone who said they had?”
Micko pauses, drops the crate on the dock with a grunt. “Yeah. Maybe. Shit, let me think… Couple months back, I was at the Red Loft—you know, that brothel off Lorren Street. The girl I was with, she starts talking about the Nemesis, right? Says she been on it once. Could be bullshit, I dunno… but—”
“What’d she look like?”
“Pretty. Real pretty. Pale hair, brown eyes, curves for days. Always strumming on this beat-up mandolin, singin’—voice like a fucking Siren, let me tell ya. And get this, she was pregnant. Like, about to pop.”
So, not Mara. Still…
“You get a name?”
He squints. “Asha, I think? Not sure. Could’ve been a fake name.”
My pulse ticks faster. “She have any tattoos?”
“Not that I saw… wait. Yeah. Behind her ear. Weird little letters. Didn’t look like much.”
“NMS?”
He scratches the back of his neck. “Could’ve been. I wasn’t exactly studying her ink while I was inside her, you know?”
Classy.
“You know where I can find her now?”
Micko lifts another crate and drops it into the boat with a thud. “Haven’t seen her in a while. Said she moved around a lot. Got jumpy anytime someone asked her real questions. Last time I saw her, she said she had the kid. He was healthy. She seemed… relieved, I guess.”
“When was that?”
“One, two months back. Hard to say. Nights blur.”
I nod, keeping my expression flat even though I want to throttle him just to get a straight answer.
Then he pauses, looking at me sideways. “Why you asking, anyway?”
“Just curious.”
He snorts. “Don’t be. That ship? Bad shit. Some nights, when the fog’s thick, they swear they hear a ukulele drifting off the water.”
My blood goes cold.
Micko shrugs. “Some say it’s ghosts, lookin’ for something. Others say it’s the curse. Either way, smart folk steer clear.”
He hauls another crate and tosses it onto the skiff. “Only the mad or the damned go chasing after the Nemesis.”
I don’t reply. At this point, I may as well be both.
I drop my cigarette on the dock and crush it under my boot. Then I step right up to Micko, close enough for him to smell the smoke on my breath.
“Don’t pull that shit again. People lose fingers for less around here. And you know me—I don’t start with fingers.”

The tarp is already soaked through by the time we load it into the skiff. Thick, black plastic slick with blood. Engine scrap is tied to the ankles, a rusted chain wrapping around the chest. It’s heavy enough to sink the bastard straight down into the trench.
I double check the knots. One slip, and he floats.
Maverick doesn’t speak. He lights a smoke, eyes fixed on the fog rolling off the waves like something sent to watch us. It’s cold and damp out here. Salt on the wind and rot in the water.
“You poke the lungs?” I ask.
He doesn’t look at me. “What do you think?”
Fair enough.
The engine hums beneath us, low and steady, like it knows where we’re going. It’s always the same place—two clicks past the last buoy, where the water goes black and deep and the fishermen don’t bother casting lines. We call it the Sinkyard. No one asks why.
We don’t talk much on these runs. And neither of us say his name.
Not after what he did.
One slip to the Santos about our coastal manifest, just one, and they hit one of our schooners mid-transfer. Two of my men didn’t make it back. Tiller bled out on the dock. Nate drowned with a crate of ruin chained to his ankle. Nate just turned twenty, barely able to buy a damn drink. Both of them were friends with Jalen, too.
The rat said it was just business. Said he didn’t mean for anyone to die.
It doesn’t matter what he meant.
Betrayal’s the quickest way to a death sentence in D9.
“Didn’t know you still remembered what Cassian taught us,” Maverick says.
I do.
I remember how to keep a man talking after you’ve shattered both kneecaps. How to slice the tendon behind the heel so he can’t run. How to strip a person down, not just their body, but their identity.
“Guess I lost it a bit tonight, huh?”
Maverick lifts a brow. “You didn’t lose it. You let it out.”
Normally, I keep it quick—give men dignity in their death. A clean headshot, nothing more. Since Cassian died, I don’t like getting messy. But finding my men like that—Tiller gutted on the dock, Nate bloated and shackled in saltwater—cracked something open in me. Let the old instincts bleed through.
I broke his jaw first. Shattered his orbital. Smashed his face into the floor until I couldn’t hear him whimper anymore.
Cassian used to say pain was a conversation. I always knew how to keep it going.
It’s been years since I wore that much blood.
And gods help me, I wore it like it belonged to me.
Maverick’s quiet for a moment, then he flicks his cigarette overboard and leans back against the railing.
“Cassian would’ve made it slower,” he says.
“Cassian was a sadist.”
“Yeah,” he says. “Still taught us how to make it clean.”
We’re no strangers to fucked-up shit. Cassian made sure of that. He taught us how to take a man apart, and worse, how to live with it.
Before my dad disappeared, he was one of Cassian’s top enforcers. He made men vanish like they’d never existed at all. Even with the work he did, my dad wasn’t a bad guy. Always made sure we were looked after. When I got growing pains as a kid, he’d pick me up, put me on his shoulders, and walk me around until it passed. I don’t think he liked his job much, either. He just saw it as the price for putting food on the table and a roof over our heads.
I spent most of my teens wondering what happened to him. What they did to him. How they took him apart. When his body never turned up, his role got passed to me. Cassian taught me all the ways you can take a man apart. And trust me, there are plenty.
Now me and Mav don’t have to be told what to do. We just know.
And tonight, we did what needed doing.
I stare out at the waves. The stars are gone and Sonora’s three moons aren’t in the sky tonight.
I shut off the engine.
Silence falls between us. There’s just the lapping of the tide against the boat. I hook my arm around the tarp and glance at Maverick. He gives a nod.
We shove the body over the edge. The chain hits the water with a dull splash. Then the slow drag of weight pulling the corpse into the dark.
Gone.
Maverick doesn’t move. Neither do I.
I don’t feel guilty. I don’t feel much of anything. It’s not the first body we’ve dropped out here, and it won’t be the last.
“You ever think about how many are down there?” I murmur.
He doesn’t answer. Instead, he lights another cigarette and drops down beside me on the deck, boots braced against the rail. We don’t get quiet moments like this often, not in our line of work.
“Holt find that medic yet?” he asks after a minute.
“Probably. Won’t tell me where she is, though.”
Maverick huffs a dry laugh. “Sounds like Holt.”
I drag in a lungful of smoke and exhale it toward the stars. My mind drifts. What would Mara think of what I did tonight? Would she be afraid of me if she saw the blood on my hands? Or would she watch the way I broke that man and not flinch? The way she drove those shears into that bastard at the Maw… there was no hesitation.
Maybe she’s just as violent as I am. Maybe that’s what draws me to her. Or maybe I’m too far gone to want anything else.
“You like her,” Maverick says, not looking at me.
I shrug, pretending it doesn’t matter, but it does. Way too fucking much.
I glance sideways. “What about you and Kira? You taken her out on a proper date yet?”
His expression hardens. “I don’t do dates. Or relationships. Kira knows that.”
“Is that why you haven’t been sleepin’ around?”
He shoots me a look. “Piss off.”
I grin a little and let the silence settle again.
“You still have any of your dad’s old records?”
He frowns. “What kind of records?”
“Shipping logs, coastal manifests, the paper ones he never digitized.”
“Yeah. They’re in the cellar downstairs. Why?”
I hesitate. I don’t want to say her name or explain why I’m chasing ghosts.
“I’m looking for something that’s not supposed to exist.”
He studies me. “You chasing ghosts now? This about the medic?”
I look back at the water. “Something like that. She had a tattoo behind her ear. Think she was on the water.”
“You think those logs’ll have anything useful?”
“If the ship passed through Nine even once, Cassian would’ve clocked it. He didn’t miss shit.”
Mav exhales. “Alright. I’ll get you the key. Just don’t get your hopes up—those logs are a fucking mess.”

Chapter Text

“You find her yet?”
Varian doesn’t look up from the smoke curling between his fingers. He takes another drag like he’s got all the time in the world.
“She doesn’t want to be found.”
I stare at him and wait for something else—anything. A lead. A location. A lie, even. But that’s all he gives me.
“That ever stop you before?” I ask, jaw tight.
He exhales slowly and shrugs. “Depends on who’s asking.”
I want to punch him, not because he deserves it, but because I do.
“Why wouldn’t she want to be found?”
He doesn’t answer, flicks ash into the tray, stands, and walks away.
I keep going back to the Maw where the fights happen. Every godsdamn Friday. I sit in the same corner seat, on the same busted stool. The same cheap tequila that burns more out of habit than comfort.
No one says her name. Most people don’t even remember her. She’s just another medic in a ring full of blood. But I remember everything. The swing of her ponytail. The ink spiraling over her shoulder and down her leg. The sound she made when I—
Fuck.
I don’t even know what I’m waiting for. I’m just… waiting.

I started working at an underground med clinic in D11. It’s understaffed, underfunded, and the pay is shit. Last night we had seventeen ODs in an hour. I managed to bring back sixteen. The kid I lost was fourteen. He didn’t even have a next of kin listed. Probably orphaned.
Near the end of my shift, a veteran came in high on Silt. Stabbed the new resident four times before I got a clean enough shot to put them down.
It took me seven godsdamn fucking bullets.
I hate doing that.
They didn’t ask for addiction, trauma, or war, but Sonora doesn’t care. No one asked me if I liked ships before they hauled me onto one.
I managed to save the resident. She quit right after. Honestly, I don’t blame her. I almost quit too.

The war between Los Martillos and the Santos is turning Nine into a graveyard. Bodies in alleys, shootouts in daylight, civilians caught in the crossfire. We keep our heads down, but that only works for so long. Sooner or later, me and Maverick will have to pick a side, and we both know what that means. There’ll be more blood, and some of it will be ours.
I start digging through Cassian’s records. He documented everything obsessively. I know the Nemesis is in there somewhere, but there are thousands of files, and every page feels like a dead end. I don’t have the time for this, or the patience.

It’s my birthday. Varian brings me a pack of cigarettes and an expensive bottle of vodka. He even sits and drinks it with me. We play cards. He wins. It’s nice.
I turn twenty. I guess I can legally drink now.
It’s funny. I’ve been patching up people, including kids, since I was one. Trying to save their lives when I’m not even sure I should. Sonora never said I was too young for that. They’ll tell me I’m too young to have a drink, though. Not that I follow the law anyways.
I bought a new plant today. I haven’t named it yet.
I’ll stay. At least, for a while.

I worry about her. I know she can handle herself, but crossfire doesn’t give a damn how good you are with a blade.
Every lead I chase on Asha or the Nemesis goes cold. It feels like someone’s wiping the trail clean before I get there. I wish Varian would talk. I offer everything I can think of, but he won’t budge. Loyal bastard.
I’m sure he knows where she is. Knows what she’s doing.
Part of me’s glad she’s got him. He’ll keep her safe.

I keep hunting. One bastard after another. The names blur. The faces all beg the same way.
The cartel war’s jamming up supply lines, slowing some operations, but it’s not enough. The rot runs deeper than a border fight.
I spar with Varian in the morning three times a week. Always before the sun comes up, and on Wednesdays, we get coffee.
It’s become a routine. I’m starting to like him, not in a romantic way. He’s got a boyfriend—an Aevareth. They’re soulbonded.
I have one too. I can feel him sometimes, like a tether that tugs at me. But he’s far away, and I don’t know if I’ll ever get to meet him.
He probably wouldn’t like me anyway, and I’d completely understand why.
I don’t like myself either.

I work. I fight. I fuck.
It doesn’t help.
The jobs are getting sloppier, not because I can’t handle them, but because I don’t give a shit if I make it out in one piece.
The girls are getting prettier, faker. Skin like silk, mouths full of moans that almost sound real, but none of them taste like her. None of them cut me open like she does.
I came in one girl’s mouth last week and nearly threw up after. She asks if I’m okay. I told her I was drunk.
I’m not. Not really.
It just isn’t her.

Last week I let a guy fuck my ass because he looked like him. Enough to fool me when the lights were off. He tried to kiss me after. I nearly broke his jaw.
When I came, I called him Rafe.
He didn’t say anything. I don’t think he cared.
There’s a girl at the bar I like. Her name’s Cassie. We sleep together sometimes. She reminds me of Asha. She’s got the same golden strands of hair, dark brown eyes, and she’s soft in all the right places. All the places I’m not.
She can sing, too.
Last night, I let her sing me to sleep. It’s the first time since I left the ship that I slept through the night without waking.
I prefer women. The taste of them, the softness, watching them fall apart when I use my tongue and my fingers just right, and Cassie likes my mouth.
They never question it when I tell them I don’t want anything in my pussy. No tongues, no fingers, no toys, and definitely no cocks.
Rafe’s the exception to that rule. I let him put his tongue inside me, and I think I’d let him do more.

I dream of her most nights now. Sometimes it’s the bathroom stall. Her mouth. Her voice. Her breath catching when I—
Other times, it’s the opposite. She’s bleeding. Limp in my arms and slipping through them.
I wake up sweating. Hard. Full of rage. Aching like I’ve been hollowed out.
I haven’t said her name out loud since she told me.
Mara.
It’s stuck in my throat like glass.

When the nights get lonely, I summon Eren. We sit on the floor of my room and drink whatever I can find that’s cheap and strong enough to make the night bearable.
We get drunk. Well, I get drunk because he can’t, but he stays with me anyway. Sometimes we lie there for hours, his bony shoulder pressed against mine.
When I drink too much, I start talking about Rafe. I tell Eren the things I want Rafe to do to me.
At first, it’s just sex, but by the third month, it’s something else. I don’t just want him to fuck me. I want him to see the monster I am and still stay.

Maverick asked me last night what the fuck is wrong with me.
I told him I’m tired.
He looked at me too long and said, “You look like a man who lost something he didn’t know he needed.”
I don’t answer.
How do you tell your best friend your whole body’s still humming with the woman who only gave you her name after you made her come so hard she forgot to breathe?
How do you say you’d cut open your chest and hand her every broken part just to watch her walk away again?

While Rafe’s at work, I broke into his townhouse and stole his hoodie.
Afterward, I felt guilty, so I left a plant on his bookshelf like that makes it better. He never notices.

Lately, I feel like someone is watching me.
Maybe it’s a sixth sense, or maybe it’s the years of training under Cassian, but I feel eyes on me when the world goes quiet.
There’s something in the dark that follows me like a ghost.

That night, I wear Rafe’s hoodie and nothing else.
Eren and I sit cross-legged on the roof and drink like we used to on the masts.
When the clouds break, the full moon bathes us in silver. The light strips us down until all I can see are two skeletal hands, reaching for each other in the dark.

I think she’s been here.
This morning, there was a fresh loaf of Sweetbread on my counter with raisins and cinnamon—the kind I brought to Solstice.
I start leaving the blinds open and the window unlatched in case it’s her.

Something’s wrong. He’s here. I can feel it.

I’ll find her.
Eventually.
And maybe, if she lets me, I’ll give her my fucking heart.
Gods help me.
I think I already did.

Chapter Text

“To kiss what the gods have claimed is to light your own ruin.”
— Euthalian Law of Soulbound Love

I shouldn’t be here. I should’ve left this fucking city months ago, like I planned, but here I am. Still stuck. Still spiraling. Still stalking him.
The coffee burns my tongue, bitter and black, but I don’t flinch. I stare out the window of the run-down café in D9, watching the sun cut through smog and hang low over the rooftops. It smells like burnt toast, grease, and disappointment. Fitting.
Varian slides into the booth across from me, like he does every Wednesday. Doesn’t say good morning. He just glances at the bruise under my left eye and exhales through his nose like he’s already tired.
“You’re unwell,” he mutters, sipping his coffee.
“I’m aware,” I say, taking another drink.
He doesn’t ask what happened. He never does, but this time, he lifts a brow. “Bar fight again?”
“She started it.”
“Uh-huh. And by started it, you mean—?”
“She looked at him.”
“Tragic,” he deadpans.
“Tell your shadows to stop following me.”
“Stop getting in bar fights with girls Rafe sleeps with.”
I flip him off. He sips calmly, like this is just another normal Wednesday. For us, it is.
He knows. Of course he knows. I don’t tell him everything, but I don’t have to. He’s damn good at reading people.
He probably knows I followed Rafe last night. Watched him slip into the alley behind the bar with some pretty platinum blonde fighter. Watched her drop to her knees while he leaned back, hand in her hair.
I watched him come with her name on his lips.
It wasn’t mine.
I waited until she stumbled out, giddy and dazed, mouth swollen. I followed her down the block, pulled her into a dark corner, and kissed her so deep she gasped.
“You taste like him,” I whispered, running my fingers through her hair, just so I could touch him.
Then I broke her nose.
I angled the strike, heel of my palm, up and in, so I wouldn’t break my own damn knuckles. Clean shot. Her nose crunched like a soda can. I didn’t hit hard enough to cause septal collapse, just enough to bleed and bruise and make sure she remembered me next time she thought about touching what’s mine.
The worst part?
She walked into the D9 clinic three hours later, her face bloodied, one eye purple, attitude intact.
I was the only medic on shift.
“You’re fucking kidding me,” she muttered.
“Feeling’s mutual,” I said.
She threatened to report me. Said she knew people. I told her if she did, I’d break it again, but I’d slant it this time. Make sure she needed surgery just to breathe straight.
She shut up after that.
I patched her up proper. Straightened the bridge, checked for displacement, even numbed her with lidocaine spray before I set the bone, which isn’t standard in Nine. Usually, we save that for those who come in screaming.
“Why’d you do it?” she asked after.
I didn’t have an answer.
She said she liked my rage and suggested I try the pits at the Maw sometime. Said she’d bet on me. I almost laughed.
She left me her number, scribbled on the back of a bloody gauze wrapper.
I don’t know why I kept it.
I sip my coffee and feel the ache under my ribs again. Same one that doesn’t go away.
“Heard you quit the D11 clinic,” Holt says.
“Yeah.” I kicked my feet up on the table. “Figured it was time for a change.”
The lead medic, mid-forties with a wedding ring, pinned me in the supply closet one night and tried to tear my scrubs down.
I broke his nose with my elbow, then drove my knee into his crotch hard enough to rupture a testicle. That should’ve been enough.
It wasn’t.
A week later, he cornered me again, this time with a syringe full of Ziranyl dimethorlate. A CNS depressant that makes you black out in seconds. On the street, they call it Ghostdrop. Half the girls in the clubs keep vials of it taped under their tongue. Some as escape plans, others for clients who ask for oblivion.
I got the needle out of his hand and put it in his neck instead. Then I made sure he wouldn’t touch anyone again.
It was messy work. I called Varian. We handled it.
SEA would look into his disappearance, but I couldn’t risk them finding evidence, or worse, getting a clean swab off me. If they ran my DNA, they’d mark me as Niraith.
And once they do that, you’re not a person anymore, not to them.
“Maverick Reaper’s hiring,” Varian says, too casually. “You’d have to see Rafe, though.”
“Seeing Rafe isn’t the problem,” I mutter.
Varian raises a brow.
I don’t elaborate.
Silence falls between us. The café hums with bad music. I keep watching the street, hoping I’ll catch sight of him. Knowing I won’t. Knowing if I do, I won’t go to him.
I’m not ready for him to see me like this.
“He hasn’t stopped looking for you,” Holt adds.
“He still asks?”
“Every Friday,” Holt says. “Same bar. Same goddamn seat. He watches every fight. Every medic who walks by.”
My throat tightens.
“He’s not over you,” Varian says, his voice carrying the weight of someone who’s said this too many times before. Then, almost as an afterthought, he adds, “You know a girl named Asha?”
My body stills before my mind does. I sit up straighter, trying not to flinch, but my stomach has started to twist. “Why?”
He studies me over the rim of his mug, unreadable. “Rafe’s looking for her,” he says casually, too casually. “Word is she knows something about the Nemesis.”
I don’t respond, taking another slow sip of coffee, letting the heat scald my tongue. My knuckles are white on the ceramic, and I know he sees it. I know he always sees more than he says.
“You think you can find her?” I ask.
Varian shrugs. “Depends. If she was on the Nemesis, it’ll be harder. That ship moved through the Veil.”
I glance up, but don’t say what I’m thinking. That I already know. That I was on the godsdamn ship. That I lived in the Veil longer than I ever lived on land.
The Veil’s not some mystical plane or sacred path or whatever bullshit the scholars call it. It’s a crack between worlds. A seam that leaks. Bleeds. The space where the dead brush up against the living and pretend they don’t want to stay.
Varian and I—we can move through it. Twist it. Borrow what’s buried in it. But mortals? They’re not built for it. And most Hemitheoi? Same deal. Divine blood doesn’t mean you can cheat the Veil.
Not like we can.
And when someone crosses anyway? They don’t come back whole.
“She was on the Nemesis,” I say quietly.
Varian nods, expression unreadable. “People who’ve touched the Veil don’t leave clean footprints. Their edges blur. Shadows move wrong around them. Time skips. It’s like chasing something half blind. You get glimpses, not a trail.”
I press the mug to my lips, trying to hide the way they’ve gone tight.
“She’s important,” I murmur.
His brow lifts. “Important to someone else… or to you?”
I meet his gaze for a second too long.
“Both.”
That’s all I’ll give him.
Varian nods once, then leans back in the booth, folding his arms. “I’ll see what I can do, but it’ll take time.”
I look out the window, past the smog, past the street, into something I can’t quite name. My jaw tightens, but I don’t answer.
Varian doesn’t even look up, but his voice changes slightly.
“You know you’ve got shadows, right?”
I go still.
“Not the usual kind,” Varian says. “They don’t move right. Can’t tell what they are exactly. But they don’t feel like anything I’d want tailing me.”
I look up, hand trembling just slightly where it curls around the coffee mug.
No. Not this soon. Not already, but Varian wouldn’t lie. Not about something like this.
“They make any noise?” I ask.
He pauses, then exhales slowly. “Only heard it once. Sounded like… clinking.”
My stomach drops.
I know what they are.
And I know what they want.
He doesn’t wait for an explanation, just tosses some cash on the table for both of us and disappears into the fog outside like he was never here.
I sit there a while longer until my coffee goes cold in my hands. The server comes by, thanks me for the tip, and clears the table. I don’t respond.
All I can think about is the sound—clink, clink, clink—echoing from the dark.
They’re coming.
And if they are—I need steel.
I push to my feet and make for The Handle—D9’s best place to buy knives, swords, and anything meant to open up a body. It’s tucked between a butcher’s and a pawn shop that definitely sells more than stolen watches. It’s Reaper-owned, like most of D9, but I don’t give a shit about branding. Long as the steel sings when it leaves the sheath and the balance doesn’t pull left, they could carve a skull into the hilt and call it divine.
The kukri I’ve been carrying won’t cut it this time—literally or otherwise. I need longer reach, faster draw, blades that won’t snap on bone or get lodged in cartilage. Something forged, not poured from slag behind some gutter forge where the steel cracks before it sings.
I was trained with blades, spears, blunt weapons, improvised shit. The Crew taught me, and they were damn good. Half were bounty hunters, mercs, assassins in whatever life they had before the ship. And the best part? I never had to hold back. Hard to kill what was already dead.
I want something that remembers how to kill. Something high-carbon if they’ve got it with the grip wrapped tight, handle raw enough to bite my palm when I swing. But that kind of steel? It costs. And I’m nearly broke.
Which means I’ll need a job—fast, filthy, and stacked with coin. The kind that doesn’t ask where you got the blood on your boots.
Because these days, good blades cost more than a kilo of Ruin.
And I don’t plan on dying cheap.

Chapter Text

Polaroid: Cal on my shoulders, fireworks over D9. Mav trying not to smile.
Caption: She lit them for his 17th. We watched from the Pit rooftop. That night was one of the last good memories I’ve got.

The Pit was always packed on Fridays. Shoulder to shoulder with mercs, smugglers, cartel runners, and every kind of bastard in between. The bodies blurred the brick walls and darkened the arched windows.
Somewhere under the noise, the bones of the place still remembered it used to be an old pub, maybe an inn. Cassian bought it years ago and turned it into Reaper headquarters. He didn’t gut it, just built around the rot. He kept the hardwood floors scuffed and the tables warped and worn at the edges.
Kira and I used to have our own rooms upstairs. In Nine, that was like gold. Cal and Mav had theirs too, though Mav made Cal sleep in his more often than not. He didn’t trust many people around her. Couldn’t blame him for that.
Now it was just Mav living up there. Sometimes I still climbed the stairs out of habit, stopped outside my old door. Cal’s too. The silence always hit harder in the hallway. Me and Mav had gotten drunk here more times than I could count. Fought here, laughed here, even bled on the floor once or twice. Sometimes I missed it.
Kira’s behind the bar tonight, red hair pulled up into a high ponytail. Her hands move fast—pour, slide, nod, repeat. She catches my eye as I pass, sliding me a drink without needing to ask.
Maverick, Varian, and Jalen are already by our usual pool table in the back corner, half in shadow, and far from the front doors. Varian’s already setting up the break, a cigarette between his teeth. Every Friday night, we play. That’s the deal. A little tradition we keep alive in a city that likes to kill the good things.
Varian lines up the break with a lazy kind of precision, then snaps his cue forward. The crack of impact cuts through the noise of the bar. Stripes scatter, and one of them sinks clean into the corner pocket.
“Bastard,” I mutter.
He smirks, chalking the cue again like he’s not a fucking surgeon with a stick.
Maverick leans against the table, beer bottle dangling from two fingers. His eyes aren’t on the game. “What about those runners we found at the southern wharf?” he asks. “Any updates?”
I glance over, jaw tightening.
About a week ago, we found three of our own stripped bare and tied to the dock posts like carcasses left out to rot. Their arms were pinned behind their backs, skin split clean from sternum to groin, everything opened up and exposed. No stitching. No cleanup. Just raw muscle and bone on display, like exhibits in some fucked-up anatomy class.
But that wasn’t even the worst of it.
In front of each body sat a silver platter—real silver, polished so bright it reflected the moon right back at itself. Every organ had been removed and arranged with surgical precision: heart, lungs, liver, kidneys, even the damn testicles. All laid out in perfect order, stacked and sorted in neat rows like some deranged banquet offering.
Whoever did it hadn’t just known where to cut. They’d known how to do it without making a mess. This wasn’t back-alley brutality. It was practiced, clinical, and disturbingly efficient. The kind of skill you only picked up in med school or a SEA forensics lab, not the gutter.
Even Varian looked impressed, and nothing impresses him. Trust me.
“Whoever did it,” I say, “knew their way around a blade.”
“More than that,” Varian adds. He sinks another shot. “I did some digging. Looked into their backgrounds.”
“And?” Mav’s voice sharpens.
“Turns out all three were dirty, doing under-the-table deals. Organ trade. Black-market shit. Real messy.”
Maverick’s jaw goes tight. “You’re fucking kidding.”
“Wish I was.” Varian leans over, lines up another shot, and sinks it smooth. “Found two more tied up in it. They’re enjoying early retirement with the others.”
I glance up. “Erased?”
Varian nods once. “No teeth, no prints, no DNA. Ghost protocol.”
That’s his way of saying there’s nothing left to bury.
Maverick pushes off the table, pacing a slow line behind us. “We’re not in the fucking trafficking business. Never were.”
“We weren’t,” Varian says, calm. “Doesn’t mean someone wasn’t running side deals through our routes.”
“And now someone’s cleaning house.” I lean on my cue, watching the table, but my mind’s ticking. “Not just killing them—sending a message.”
“Artful as hell, too,” Varian mutters. “Like they’re making a point.”
Maverick swears under his breath. “I want a name.”
“You and me both.”
Varian misses his next shot, which is rare, and passes the cue to me. I circle the table slowly, cue in hand, trying to line up the angle, but my thoughts are still on the scene at the docks. The scalpel work. The symmetry. The lack of blood spray. Whoever did it had control.
Too much control.
I sink a shot, more out of habit than focus.
Maverick watches me, his eyes narrowed. “You think it’s a rival cartel?”
“Maybe,” I say. “But none of them would go through this much trouble just to spook us. Feels…personal.”
“Could be vigilante shit,” Varian offers. “Someone cleaning up what SEA won’t touch.”
Mav grunts. “Great. A goddamn saint with a scalpel.”
Or a ghost, I think.
Could it be her?
I glance at Varian, trying to read him, but if he suspects anything, he’s not showing it. His face is unreadable.
If it is her—if by some twisted chance she’s the one behind those bodies—that’s fucked up on a level that shouldn’t turn me on. But it does. It gets under my skin, makes my blood burn in a way I don’t know what to do with. Maybe she’s just as broken as I am. Maybe when the truth comes out about the things I’ve done, she won’t look away.
Maybe she won’t run from the monster in me.
Maybe she’s been living with one of her own.
We’re halfway through our second round of pool when one of the girls I’d hooked up with a couple weeks back walks in. Blonde, tight dress, real pretty, if you squint past the attitude. She zeroes in on me the second she steps through the door, and I know I’m in trouble—the kind that doesn’t end in sex.
Even Jalen picks up on it. He raises a brow as he leans against the cue stick.
“What’d you do this time?” he asks, half-joking, half-not.
“Nothing,” I shoot back, too quick to sound innocent. But she’s already closing in, heels sharp on the wood, every step full of purpose. I’m racking my brain, trying to remember exactly what I said or did last weekend, and how fast I can lie my way out of it.
She just steps in and slaps me—sharp and clean, open palm angled just right to catch the edge of my jaw. There’s a snap to her wrist, controlled but fast, and the heel of her hand lands with enough force to sting like hell without rattling anything important.
She knew exactly where to hit and how hard.
It’s a slap meant to put me in my place. The worst part? I fucking liked it.
My cock’s already hard, and I don’t know what that says about me.
Probably nothing good.
The bar goes quiet for half a second.
“The fuck was that for?” I ask, rubbing the side of my face.
“You didn’t tell me you had a girlfriend.”
I stare at her. “I don’t.”
She laughs bitterly. “Well, the fucking bitch that hit me sure thinks otherwise.”
That’s when I notice the fading purple and yellow bruises under her eyes. Broken nose, most likely.
Before I can ask her what she means, she’s storming off, heels clacking.
I finish my drink in one swallow.
The silence hangs for a second too long before Jalen chokes on a laugh.
“You have a girlfriend? Since when? And who the fuck looked at you and thought, ‘Yeah, that’s boyfriend material’?”
“I don’t have a girlfriend,” I mutter. “Not that I’m aware of, anyway.”
Varian doesn’t even look up from his shot. “You didn’t notice your missing hoodie? Or the new plant in your room?”
“There’s a plant in your room?” Jalen squints at me. “Bro. She’s nesting. That’s like… wifey shit.”
“Shut up.”
Maverick straightens. “Wait. Rafe. Tell me the batshit feral girl with pierced tits and zero impulse control that I warned you not to fuck with is stalking you. Please. Just say it. Make my whole fucking year.”
“Wait—how did you know she—?”
“You’ve fucked her then?” Jalen grins, eyes wide.
“No!” I groan.
“Worse,” Maverick says, deadpan. “He let her tie him up.”
“She’s not stalking me,” I snap. “I’d know if she was.”
Varian sinks the ball with ease. “Mmm. She’s done some real fucked-up shit with that hoodie, by the way.”
“Define fucked up,” Jalen says, eyes wide with glee. “Like… jerk-off with it levels of fucked up?”
Varian just smiles. “You don’t want the visual.”
Jalen loses it, wheezing. “Oh my God. Rafe’s got a kinky stalker girlfriend. You think she’s got, like, a shrine? A cum sock altar made of your old briefs?”
“She’s not my girlfriend,” I grind out. “She fucking ghosted me!”
Varian laughs under his breath.
Jalen grins. “Better count your hoodies and your briefs, bro.”
I roll my eyes and swat Jalen upside the head on my way past. “I need another drink,” I mutter, already heading for the bar.
A few minutes later, I catch one of the barmaids, Cassie. She’s been around long enough to know everything without saying anything.
“You seen anything weird lately?” I ask.
Cassie raises a brow. “Define weird.”
“Girls I’ve taken home ending up with bruises.”
“Oh yeah,” Cassie purrs. “She’s a regular now. Slinks in after you’ve gone and slaps the smile off whatever pretty thing you left behind. Long hair always tied up and green eyes like acid. Hits like she means it.”
My pulse kicks up.
“You know her name?”
Cassie hums, dragging her fingertip around the rim of a glass. “Fake one, maybe. Goes by Maris, but she never says it twice. She’s the kind that leaves fingerprints on your throat.”
Maris.
It’s her.
Mara.
She’s been watching me, following me, telling people she’s my girlfriend. It should piss me off, probably creep me out, but it doesn’t. Instead, it sends a sick little thrill down my spine that settles right in my godsdamn cock. The thought of her claiming me like that—like I already belong to her, like she owns me—lights me up in all the wrong ways.
I fucking love it.
Gods, the things I would do to her if she let me. The things I would let her do to me. It would be unholy. Filthy. Pure fucking sacrilege.
“You know her?” I ask carefully.
Cassie shrugs. “We hooked up once. Maybe twice. She’s got a mouth on her. Kisses like she’s trying to drown you.” She flashes a wicked grin. “She tied me up and ate my ass. She’s got a drawer full of toys, too. The expensive kind.”
She leans in until her breath brushes my cheek. “Think you can handle her, pretty boy? Good fucking luck.”
My cock twitches at the image—her mouth on Cassie, her mouth on me. I should be pissed, or jealous, or at least pretending to be either, but all I feel is the sickest, hardest need. I’m so turned on I can barely think straight. Sanity is a distant fucking memory.
Cassie watches me with a knowing look. “You’re into her.”
I hesitate, then nod. “Maybe a bit.”
Cassie laughs, low and dark. “When she goes down on you, don’t fight it when her tongue goes lower. She likes it. You will too.”
She grabs a bottle from the shelf and pours me another drink.
“She’s a voyeur, babe. Always shows up just in time to watch the good parts. Want to make her jealous?”
I meet her gaze, hungry. “What do you have in mind?”
Her grin widens. “Something she’ll really fucking like.”
I lean in, pulse hammering. “Then let’s give her a front-row seat.”

Next Friday, we put on a show. I buy Cassie drinks, make her laugh, slide in close behind her at the pool table and guide her shot with my hand on her waist like I fucking own her. She leans into it, lets her ass grind against the bulge forming in my pants while I murmur something filthy in her ear. Her laughter’s sharp and dirty. She plays her part like a professional.
Cassie’s into girls, but fuck, can she act.
And gods help me, she can kiss, too.
I drag her onto my lap in the corner booth and let her ride my thigh until her eyes flutter half-shut. I tug her top up just enough to brush my fingers against the soft skin under her bra. Her breath catches. Mine does, too.
“Think she’s watching yet?” she whispers.
“She’s watching,” I mutter, lips against her throat. “Let’s give her something to remember.”
Cassie pulls me into the alley, and I press her against the wall, kissing her neck, her cheek, her mouth. It’s wet, loud, messy—tongues and teeth and hands in hair. She palms my ass, and I don’t even pretend not to like it. She bites my lower lip and grins when I groan.
“Meet me upstairs,” I whisper, kissing her once more before I slip into the shadows.
Then, I wait.
The alley smells like sweat, rain, and rot. It’s cold, but I don’t feel it. Not with the blood pounding in my veins. Not with what I know is coming.
I feel her shadow slip past mine. She moves like a ghost—quick, quiet, coiled with purpose.
She never sees it coming.
Mara slams her into the wall like she owns her. Then she kisses her—hard. One hand fists in Cassie’s hair, the other pressed low and possessive between her hips. It’s all teeth and dominance and raw, reckless heat.
It’s violent.
And gods help me, I’m hard. So hard it aches.
I should move. Should stop this before it goes further. Before I let it ruin me.
Instead, I watch—palming myself through my jeans like a fucking animal.
Cassie’s breath breaks in gasps. Her pupils are blown wide, lips smeared red. She’s into it.
Mara bites her lip—hard. Blood blooms, dark and slick, and Mara licks it from her own mouth like it’s a prize she earned.
She pushes Cassie’s tight denim skirt up with both hands. The hem bunches at her hips. One hand slips beneath the lace of her panties, fingers sliding between her thighs.
Cassie moans, grinding against Mara’s thigh.
My hand presses harder against my cock, stroking myself slow through denim, just enough to hate myself for it.
Am I getting off to this?
I should be furious. Should be jealous. Should drag Mara off her and pin her to the godsdamn ground, rip the back of her jeans off and fuck her until she sobs.
I bet she’d like it, too.
But all I can think about is how she moves. How she touches. How Cassie’s shaking in her grip and how Mara looks like she wants to ruin her.
Like she ruined me.
My breath’s coming fast now, my heart pounding, my jaw clenched so tight it aches.
What the fuck is wrong with me?
Cassie gasps once, then stiffens, her hips jerking, breath catching, thighs trembling. She moans my godsdamn fucking name too, and Mara doesn’t stop. She rides it out with her, like this is all just a message for me.
Mara turns and her eyes look right at me in the dark, like she’s known I’ve been watching this entire time. She removes her fingers from between Cassie’s thighs, bringing them up to her mouth.
And she sucks them.
I move, grabbing Mara from behind in one brutal motion, arm locking around her waist, the other hand catching her wrist mid-draw. Her blade’s half out when I slam her into the wall. She snarls, feral and beautiful, but I’ve already got her pinned.
Her front’s flush to the brick, her shoulder twisted in my hold, thigh wedged between hers to keep her from kicking. She squirms—fast, vicious—but I adjust my grip, catching her balance just before she throws an elbow. She’s hot against me—heat and fury and that fucking scent I haven’t been able to get out of my lungs since the first time she let me taste her.
She breathes heavy, chest rising hard against the wall. Her shirt slips, just enough for me to see the black ink at the nape of her neck. A string of numbers—36°57'N 122°3'W.
Coordinates.
Most people wouldn’t notice, but I’ve run too many jobs off the coast not to recognize that grid. She’s been on the water, and not the legal kind.
Those numbers aren’t just coordinates either. Survivors of wrecks sometimes ink the spot where they almost died, or where they lost everything. It’s a tribute.
She didn’t just sail on the NMS.
She survived it.
I shift my weight, spin her with force and let her struggle just enough to make the turn earned. She hits the wall again, back to it this time, breath short. She fights smart—low center, tactical as hell, but I outweigh her by almost a hundred pounds, and I’ve got a foot on her. It doesn’t matter how tight her footwork is, I’ve got mass, leverage, and reach. She knows it. Hell, I think she’s counting on it.
Her wrists flex like she’s testing pressure points. She twists at the hip, fast, but the angle’s wrong. Too wrong. It’s not a real escape attempt, but enough to feel my grip tighten.
Godsdamn. She wants this. Maybe as much as me.
“You stalking me?”
“I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about,” she spits, but she doesn’t pull away.
“Oh, I think you do,” I say. “You’ve been tailing every girl I’ve touched for months. You trying to send a message, Blades?”
She glares, not answering.
“Want to taste yourself on my mouth that bad?” I murmur. “Next time, just ask.”
Her breath stutters. I feel the full arch of her chest rising into mine. And fuck—I can feel her nipples pressed against me through her shirt.
Then she lifts her knee and tries to go for my balls.
I catch her thigh mid-lift, my grip iron tight. Her skin’s hot against my palm. She shifts her weight again, but she’s already pinned, and she lets herself be.
I grind my hips into hers, letting her feel how godsdamn hard she’s making me.
“You always fight this dirty, Blades?”
“You fucking asshole,” she breathes.
“You like it.”
“Fuck you.”
“Anytime.”
We’re both panting. Both feral.
And neither of us are letting go.

Chapter Text

The Captain tried to take what made us human.
We didn’t let him succeed.
He never knew how often we made each other come in the dark.
– M

I let him pin me because I need to feel him. I need to know what he’ll do when he’s pissed, to feel how hard his cock gets for me. He pins my wrists against the brick with one large hand, stretching my arms high above my head. He leans in, crowding me, his hips rolling down into mine. The pressure drives me up onto my toes.
I whimper. I actually fucking whimper.
He smirks as he undoes my belt with his free hand. Then his fingers slip beneath the waistband. My panties are already damp. He feels it, and his smirk deepens, dimples cutting into his cheeks.
“You fucking slut,” he growls, drawing slow circles over my clit. “That desperate for me huh?”
I struggle against his grip, but he holds me in place. I’m not really trying. If I want, I can get away.
I don’t want to. Not even a little.
“You want me to fuck you, don’t you?”
“No.”
I do. Gods, I fucking do. But there’s no way I’m telling him that.
I grind against his hand, desperate for every bit of friction. A moan escapes me as he slides his fingers beneath my panties.
“No?” he asks.
He presses his hips down into mine, his height swallowing me. The rough drag of denim on denim lights my blood on fire—slow at first, then scorching.
His fingers tease my entrance, then he circles back to my clit.
When he finally releases my wrists, I don’t waste any time. My hand drops between us, finding his cock. He groans, hips jerking forward.
He grabs the hem of my shirt and yanks it up, baring my breasts. I’m not wearing a bra, and my nipples pebble in the cold air.
“Gods. Look at you,” he murmurs, leaning down to lick my nipple. I gasp, heat bolting down my spine. He moves to the other, tongue circling the metal bar through it.
His fingers tease at my entrance. I whine, needy and desperate, like a godsdamn whore. I hate myself for it. Hate how he makes me feel so damn fucking good.
How many nights have I sat on the floor with his hoodie shoved between my legs, fingers working myself open, chasing the shape of him just to feel something again?
How many times have I circled my clit, pushed two fingers into the tight ring of my ass, whispering his name like a fucking curse?
How often have I fucked myself raw, pretending it’s him pinning me down, holding me open, ruining me from the inside out?
Last night, I rode his hoodie until I was soaked and shaking, until my whole body begged to come one more time, even if it broke me. And now—gods, now I have him. His fingers teasing my clit. His mouth on my skin. His weight pinning me down, making me take it.
What if he doesn’t like the fucked up shit I do?
All I want is more. I want him inside me, stretching me open, filling every hole, marking me, making me his.
I want him to see what he does to me.
I want him to love every ruined, desperate part of me.
“Fuck—hurt me. I want you to,” I whisper, my breath hot against his ear. “Take my ass. Make it hurt. I want to feel it tomorrow.”
He goes still. “No fucking way. You’ve had no prep. I’m not exactly small, Mara. I’ll hurt you.”
“You think I can’t take it?” I growl, fingers working his belt loose. “You want me, or not?”
My hand slides into his pants, stroking his cock. My thumb glides over the head, smearing precum, fighting the urge to just drop to my knees and take him down my throat.
“Please,” I say, voice raw, wrapping my hands around his neck, pulling him down for a kiss. “Give me pain. I’ll even beg for it.”
He leans in and kisses me. His lips are so fucking soft. He slips his tongue into my mouth. Then, he presses deeper. I open for him and let him devour me. I’ve never kissed anyone like this. But with him, it’s different. I want him to kiss every inch of me.
He groans into my mouth as he guides my pants down over my hips. Then, my panties follow. I feel exposed, the cool night air kissing my bare skin. I’m dripping for him, practically leaking as he flips me, pinning me against the wall.
He reaches down between my legs and stops when he finds it.
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.”
I lean against the wall, arch my back, and spread my legs, giving him full view of my ass.
And the toy inside it.
“Have you had that in all fucking night?” He asks.
I nod, shifting my hips so the three silver gemstones on the T-shaped base catch the light. When I glance over my shoulder, he’s staring at me like he’s starving and I’m his next meal.
“I prepped for you,” I say, spreading my legs a bit further.
He smacks my ass, hard. The sound cracks through the alley.
“Again. Harder,” I say.
His hand comes down again, sharp enough to make me flinch. By the time he stops, my skin is flushed and stinging. My jeans are pooled around my ankles, my panties tangled with them.
He pulls his cock from his pants, stroking himself a few times. His fingers curl around the bar of the plug, and he removes it slowly, making me feel every inch of loss. When it slips free, there’s a soft pop, and my whole body shakes with anticipation.
He spits, and something wet drips down my ass. Grabbing my hips, he lines himself up, teasing the tight ring with the head of his cock.
Then he pushes in.
Fuck, the stretch. He’s definitely above average in both length and girth. And Gods, the way he takes his time, letting me feel every inch, has my body clenching already.
“You’re so fucking tight,” he groans. “And your tight little ass takes my cock like you’re fucking made for it.”
When I look over my shoulder, he’s staring at me with hunger in his eyes as he pushes into me slowly, giving me time to adjust to his girth.
“There’s no way I’m going to last,” he says.
“Good.”
Then I slam my hips back into him, taking all of him. He gasps with surprise as my walls clench around him.
“Fuck me hard,” I demand. “And maybe I’ll come for you.”
I can tell he’s trying not to hurt me, to go slow, to let me adjust. But I don’t want this soft shit. I want him to fuck me hard, deep, fast—like it’s the last time he’ll ever get to be inside me.
“Oh, you’ll come for me,” he smirks. “I’ll make you.”
He grabs my hair in his fist, pulls my head back so I’m arching as deep as I physically can, and he fucks me. Hard. Aggressive. Rough. Just the way I like to be taken.
Like he knows.
My pants trap me in place. My knees threaten to give out, my nerves coming alive with every thrust. My legs shake, and I rise up on my toes, bracing on the brick wall to get away from the pressure. But he holds me down, keeps me steady, and forces me to ride it out. He thrusts into me, deep. My body clenches around him, taking him completely.
He slams his hips forward, groaning as he finishes inside me.
I nearly collapse, my muscles going slack, but he holds me up.
“Bloody hell,” he says, slowly pulling out of me. I stand up, trying to ground myself.
Then, I feel pressure.
“What are you…?” I ask, as he slides my butt plug back inside me.
He leans in, lips brushing my ear.
“I want my cum inside you,” he murmurs. “So you never forget my name.”
This fucking idiot.
I almost slap him.
How could I forget his godsdamn name?
He’s in my skin. My head. My body. My fucking blood.
I pull my shirt down, my nipples still pebbled from the cold. I reach for my pants and tug them up.
I’m about to walk away when he grabs me, hauling me back into him. My breath hitches as I stare at his chest, then up at his face.
Gods, I feel small in his arms.
And I hate it.
“Don’t disappear on me again,” he says. “Please.”
There’s something that looks like heartbreak in his eyes.
Yeah, I’m going to ruin this man.
And I already hate myself for it.
I break free, and he lets me. He just stands there, watching as I vanish into the fog-shrouded streets.
I don’t look back.
I can’t tell him I’ll stay, even though I know I will. If I say it out loud, it becomes real. And if it’s real, then I have something to lose.
I can’t survive that. Not again.
Admitting I want him means admitting I’m fucked. Royally, completely, irrevocably fucked.
And worse than that? I want to be.

Twenty-three days. That’s how long it’s been since I last touched him. Since I left him wrecked and wanting in that alley. Since I disappeared like a ghost. I tell myself I’m not counting, but I know the number down to the godsdamn minute.
It’s been a busy few weeks. Turns out the Santos are running a full-scale organ trade out of Eleven, targeting teens who haven’t fallen too deep into Silt or Ruin yet. A good kidney goes for around 80,000 kronos these days, more if it’s clean, healthy, and packed for upper-district clinics.
They try to keep them alive, but most die of infection or internal bleeding within the month. SEA doesn’t even log them as homicides. Just another dead kid from the lower districts no one bothers to open. Another missing report filed and forgotten.
Once SEA catches on, they come down hard on organ traffickers. A decade back, the government got torched in some scandal—taxpayer money winding up in all the wrong places. Now SEA only gets involved when the media starts sniffing around.
The Nemesis used to sail out past the coast line, far enough into open water to be untouchable by law. No jurisdiction or oversight, just black sky and silence.
We’d keep the bodies alive long enough to take what we needed. Sedate. Cut. Pack the organs in ice and ship them inland on drones.
The Captain always called it mercy. Said it was better than forced labor or the sex trade. Always said we gave them a quick, clean death.
But there’s nothing merciful about slicing someone open under surgical lights while they don’t even know they’re dying.
I stopped asking names after the first year.
I’ve been leaving SEA little gifts. Data they could use to, I don’t know, actually do their fucking job. But their pathologists haven’t found a single shard, not even when I left a sloppy, obvious incision on the neck. Practically held their hands through it.
Idiots.
Maybe next time I’ll tape the damn thing to the corpse’s forehead. They’ll probably still miss it.
Varian caught it right away. Said he liked my style. Especially the one where I made the testicles look like little eyes and the kidney like a mouth. He called me morbid as fuck.
He sounded almost proud.
I duck under an awning and slip into one of the quieter streets in Nine, a few blocks from the Pit. The rain’s stopped, but I keep my hood up anyway out of habit.
This part of Nine—the Forgotten Quarter—was probably beautiful once. The buildings here are all old brick and black iron, with arched windowpanes that still catch the light when the sun shows up, on the rare days it bothers. Ivy climbs the walls like it’s trying to hold the place together. Half the storefronts are boarded up; the rest hang on by stubbornness and rust.
But I like it here. More than the clean concrete blocks in the upper districts. This place has history, you can feel it.
Now I’m standing outside a dark brick building. Lanterns flicker overhead, casting pale light onto rusted street signs and cracked pavement. The cursive script above the door reads: The Underground Atelier.
I take a breath, then push it open.
A bell chimes, sharp and sudden, and my heart ricochets in my chest.
“Told you she’s jumpy,” Varian says, smirking from a worn leather chair in the corner.
I flip him off without looking.
The man standing beside him might be the most beautiful Niraith I’ve ever seen. His skin is like porcelain, cheekbones sharp enough to cut glass. His eyes tilt slightly at the corners beneath long, dark lashes. Thalassian coast, maybe northeast region, if I had to guess. The kind of face that doesn’t look real until it’s looking right at you. A silver ring flashes as he adjusts the cuff of his shirt. His midnight black hair is combed to the side, not a strand out of place.
I used to think Varian dressed well.
I was wrong.
“This is Lucien,” Varian says, already standing to pour me a drink. “My Aevareth.”
I walk over and offer my hand. It feels like a dumb gesture. He looks like someone who belongs in an art museum, not in a room with me.
Still, he takes it.
“Mara,” I say. “Maris, if anyone asks.”
He smiles. “I’ve been begging Varian to bring you by for weeks. I’m glad you’re finally here.”
I glance at Varian, raising a brow. “Begging?”
Varian shrugs, entirely unbothered. “What? I like how he sounds when he begs.”
Lucien gives him a warning look that’s all affection and no heat. I aim a glare of my own in Varian’s direction.
“You’ve been spending too much time with Velera,” I mutter.
“And you’ve been spending too much time stalking him,” Varian says.
Lucien chuckles, low and knowing, like he’s already read the whole story. “Dreaming about him, too.”
My head snaps toward him. I narrow my eyes.
How would he know that?
Then it clicks.
“You’re a dreamwalker,” I say, the words catching on my tongue.
He inclines his head. “Among other things.”
I’d never met a Niraith who could dreamwalk before.
My powers were rare. But dreamwalkers? Almost mythical.
Where I could slip through the spaces between life and death, he could step through dreams, right into the mind itself. The dreamscape was something else entirely. Nothing stays fixed or plays fair. And someone like him? He could slip past your defenses and see what you hide even from yourself.
Guess he knows how I feel about Rafe.
Fuck.
He offers his hand like he’s inviting me into another world. “Would you like a tour?”
I take it before I can think better of it. “Fuck yeah.”
Lucien leads me through the shop with Varian trailing behind, pointing out all his favorite pieces, some of which I wish I could unsee.
We’d sailed the Thalassian coast enough on the Nemesis that I recognize the influence in the designs. Thalassian’s love their colors, bold silhouettes, and rich fabrics, especially when they’re expensive and impossible to replicate.
Lucien pauses beside a rack of dresses and glances at me. “Would you like to try something on?”
I blink at him. “Um…”
“She’s socially inept,” Varian says. “But that was a yes. Here—”
He grabs a tight black dress and thrusts it into my arms. “Try this one.”
I stare down at the fabric in my arms.
I haven’t worn a dress since I was seventeen.
On the ship, we wore what we were given: navy cargo pants, stiff tunics, windbreakers that never fit right. Clothes that weren’t ours. Uniforms designed to make you forget you had a shape at all. The Captain used to say vanity was for the useless. Said comfort was weakness. Said we didn’t need mirrors when we had work to do.
He wanted us to stop seeing ourselves. It worked.
I look at myself in the mirror.
I’ve never been shy about my body. Not really. Maybe at first, when I had to shower with half the crew, trying to pretend I didn’t care that I was the only girl on a ship full of men. It was probably just as awkward for them as it was for me. Maybe.
Eventually, it stopped mattering.
You get used to being looked at like you’re nothing. But that never meant I liked looking at myself.
At first, I didn’t even know what kind of ship I’d ended up on. When the Captain brought me aboard, he stripped me naked on the deck and left me shivering in the cold, with blood in my mouth and bruises on my ribs. I thought he was going to rape me. I’d heard enough stories about what happened to girls taken by sea crews. I still remember the terror—those silver eyes staring down at me, waiting.
When no one touched me, I thought maybe I wasn’t in Hell.
Turns out, I was.
He tossed me a pair of coveralls that were meant for a child. I couldn’t even fit one leg in.
Later that night, Eren draped his jacket over my shoulders and handed me his own coveralls. They were too long in the sleeves and legs, but they fit well enough. And it was better than standing there with nothing.
When the Captain caught Eren looking at me too long, he let me grow my hair out.
At first, I thought it was a reward, but it was just another way to make us suffer. He knew Eren wanted me. He knew I wanted him too, even if we never said it. So he made sure we never forgot what we couldn’t have.
He put us on the same shifts, sat us beside each other at meals, and assigned us to the same sleeping quarters.
The worst was the shower rotation.
Both of us naked, backs turned, trying not to look. Trying not to want. Always close enough to feel it, but never close enough to touch.
The Captain had the mark of restraint carved onto the back of my skull. He said it was for my protection, but really, it was just another curse. The mark made me untouchable by the Nemesis crew, and that curse extended to Eren.
We tried to kiss once. Only once. I don’t remember who screamed first.
The Captain laughed when he saw us flinch around each other after that. Said it was better this way. Said it kept our heads clear—and kept Eren’s dick in his pants.
He was wrong. He was so fucking wrong.
Varian’s voice cuts through the quiet.
“Maybe we can find something that won’t put Velera in an early grave.”
“No,” I say too fast. “I’ll try it on.”
He doesn’t press. That’s the worst part.
A moment later, I’m in the dressing room in nothing but my underwear.
I stare at the scar running straight down between my breasts. It’s ugly—too wide and uneven. The kind of cut that was never meant to heal clean.
The Captain usually took hyoids, sometimes phalanges. Always small bones that were easy to hide. On me, he opened my chest and carved out my xiphoid process. Said he wanted a piece close to the heart.
That’s how he kept me tethered.
He could’ve done it with a smaller incision, could’ve made it disappear. But I think he wanted me to see it every time I looked down. Wanted me to remember that I was his creation—cut open and stitched wrong on purpose.
He never needed to cut me for that.
I tug the dress over my head and pull it down. I wrestle with a zipper that won’t move. The fabric clings too tight around my chest. I press my palm flat against my sternum, trying to cover the scar, not that it matters. As if I can will my body into the kind of shape this dress was made for.
It’s not working.
None of it ever fits.
I cross my arms over my chest, the way I used to back then.
I’m not that girl anymore.
Right?
When I glance up, he’s there.
Eren.
He leans against the dressing room wall, arms crossed, a smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth like the universe never killed him. Without the moonlight, he looks almost alive—untouched by the Captain’s Curse. He looks like he did at seventeen. Or was it eighteen? Time ran wrong on the ship.
He’s got the same careless hair, those dark curls that never sat right. The same faded coveralls on a lanky frame that shot up too fast and never filled in. Same ghost of a boy who never got to become a man.
“I’ve always wanted to see you in a dress,” he says. “Looks good.”
I jump, just a little. Then sigh. “Don’t sneak up on me.”
He shrugs. “You touched the necklace. Not my fault you still call when you don’t mean to.”
I glance back at the mirror, tugging the hem. “It looks weird. I look weird.”
“You know how many times I jerked off thinking about you in something like that?”
He lets out a low whistle. “And now I get to see the real thing? Dead’s never felt so unfair.”
I roll my eyes. “Yeah, sure.”
He grins, then softens.
“You look so good it makes me wish I was still alive.”
I snort. “Bullshit.”
He raises a brow. “I’m dead, not blind.”
I roll my eyes, but the corner of my mouth twitches anyway.
He steps closer, stopping just behind me. I can’t feel him, not really, but the air shifts like he’s still warm.
My vision blurs, and I blink it away. “Do you think he’ll like it?”
Eren smirks. “He’s going to want you bent over in it.”
I shoot him a glare. “Eren.”
He shrugs, still grinning. “What? It’s true.”
He grins, and for a second, there’s a flicker in his eyes. Something bright. Something almost alive.
Then his expression shifts. “Wish I could. But, you know… ghost dick and all.”
I stare at his reflection in the mirror until my throat aches. “You should be here. Alive.”
He doesn’t say anything for a moment. When he does, his voice is quiet. “I was never getting off that ship, Mara. You knew that.”
I shake my head. “You don’t get to say that. Not when I did.”
He lifts a hand, like he might touch my shoulder, but it never lands. “Then make it mean something.”
“I don’t know how.”
His smile softens. That same crooked grin that used to piss off the Captain. “Start by wearing the damn dress, Quartermaster.”
A tear slips free before I can stop it. “I miss you.”
“I know.”
We stand there, just the two of us, side by side in the mirror. One of us alive. One of us not.
“Eren?”
“Yeah?”
“Thanks.”
His smile lingers, softer now. “Anytime.”
The light flickers.
When I look up again, he’s gone.
Only the faint outline of where he stood remains.
The space behind me too empty.
I strip out of the dress and pull my jeans and tank top back on. When I step out and try to hand the dress back, Lucien only smiles and folds it carefully into a shopping bag.
“Keep it,” he says.
I reach up, fingers grazing the bone necklace right over Eren’s hyoid.
He appears in the corner of the shop, leaning against the counter, smirking like I just did something he’d been daring me to do.
I turn to Lucien. “You got anything sexier than this?”
Varian lets out a sharp laugh, then tries to cover it with a cough. “Most definitely.”
Eren’s already rifling through a rack of things that look like weapons disguised as lingerie. He holds one up—nothing but black mesh and straps.
“Your tits would look criminal in this,” he says, grabbing a matching bottom.
I glare at him.
Varian and Lucien glance over—then pause.
Can they see him?
Oh. Right. They’re both Niraith.
Shit.
Lucien raises a brow, eyes gleaming. “What exactly do you have in mind?”
I grin. “Something that’ll send Rafe straight to the afterlife.”
Varian laughs. “We’ve got just the thing, love.”

Chapter Text

Polaroid: Rafe in grey joggers, hips tilted, abs tight.
Caption: Come find out what’s underneath, Blades.

I hate the smell of formaldehyde. Blood, vomit, shit, even rot I can stomach, but formaldehyde gets in your lungs and clings to your skin. It’s why Varian’s always the one up to his elbows in corpses. He says it’s just chemistry, but I’m not so sure.
The cold hits me the second I push into the back room. Varian’s already at work, gloved hands wrist-deep in the open chest cavity of one of our latest Silver Banquet Killings. That’s what everyone’s calling them now.
“Do I really need to be here for this?” I ask, already regretting every decision that led me to this point.
“You’re investigating,” Varian says, eyes fixed on the corpse. “And there’s something you’ll want to see.” His voice is steady, almost bored, but there’s a current of curiosity in it. He always gets this way when there’s a puzzle to solve.
I watch as he grabs the corpse’s jaw in both hands and cracks it open wider than any living man could stand. The pop of the hinge makes my skin crawl.
He slides his fist deep into the dead man’s mouth. There’s a wet, suctioning noise as he works his way past the teeth and tongue. My stomach churns, but I force myself to lean in.
“Gods, that’s revolting,” I mutter.
Varian ignores me, trading his fingers for a set of forceps. He fishes deeper, brow furrowing in concentration, until there’s a dull click and he pulls something free. Whatever it is lands on the metal tray with a rattle, streaked with blood and flecks of tissue.
“What the hell is that?” I ask, voice sharp.
He wipes the thing clean on a bit of gauze, then lifts it under the overhead lamp. It glints, dark and slick, around the size of a tooth, but it’s triangular in shape.
“Is that a data shard?” I step closer, squinting, unwilling to trust my own eyes.
Varian turns it between the tips of the forceps, studying the etched surface. “Appears so,” he says, and for the first time tonight, there’s something like respect, or maybe unease, in his voice. “Unusual bruising on the neck, blood pooling in the mouth, and a big incision running right along the side, like whoever did it wanted us to see it. For someone this skilled? That’s a calling card.”
“And that was in his throat?” My voice comes out a little harsher than I mean, still fighting the image of Varian’s arm wedged down the corpse’s mouth.
He nods, still examining the data shard under the light. “Wedged right against the hyoid bone.”
I grimace, glancing at the ragged jaw. “Isn’t that the one that lets you talk? Swallow?”
“Exactly.” Varian gives me a look, eyebrow arched. “Kind of poetic, don’t you think?”
“Poetic’s one word for it,” I say. “You think whoever did this was trying to say something?”
Varian shrugs, mouth twisting into a humorless smile. “Feels like a message. Whoever staged these scenes wanted us to find it—and not just us. I’d put money on SEA getting their own little present, too.”
“She wanted us to see it?” The words slip out before I can catch them.
Varian’s gaze snaps up. “She?”
I shake my head. “Didn’t say that.”
He gives me a long, unimpressed stare. “You’re not exactly subtle, Velera.”
I force myself to hold his gaze. “You think it’s her too.”
He rolls his shoulders, casual as ever, but there’s tension in the set of his jaw. “Maybe. She’s got the skills for this. And you know how she feels about traffickers.”
I reach for a pair of gloves, snapping them on with more force than necessary. The data shard is slick, but I pick it up carefully, dropping it into a sterile bag.
“I’ll take it to Maverick,” I mutter. “He’ll want eyes on it before anyone else.”
Varian just hums in response, already reaching back into the ruined cavity for more evidence, as if this is just another Tuesday. I step out, shaking off the chill of the morgue and trying not to picture what else he might find stuffed inside a dead man.
Varian never talks about what he did before Maverick. He doesn’t need to. The way he moves through a crime scene tells you everything you need to know. In all the years I’ve known him, I’ve never seen him balk at a corpse, never heard him turn down a job, no matter how messy.
The stories about Varian change depending on who’s telling them. Some say he dissolved a man in acid and made his wife clean up the stains. Others say he cut out a man’s tongue just for talking back during an interrogation, then made another guy eat it. Some say he’s the Harbinger of Silence, the last thing you see before you disappear. The kind of bastard you send in when the job’s too dirty for anyone else to stomach. The kind of darkness no one admits exists, especially not the ones who pay for it.
I don’t know what’s true, and I don’t ask. All I know is no one laughs when Varian’s name comes up. Not in Nine. Not anywhere.
I want to believe I’m different. That there are lines I wouldn’t cross. That some of the things I’ve done have even been righteous, but that’s just a lie I tell myself to sleep at night.
We’re not so different. The only real difference is Varian never bothered pretending to be anything else.

The Pit’s already loud when I get there. Maverick’s sitting at the corner table, a card mid-draw, grinning like a bastard and absolutely cheating at cards. I can tell by the way he angles his wrist. He always marks the queens.
I ignore him and slide into the seat next to Varian.
“You look like you’re being haunted by a pretty ghost,” Varian says.
I don’t bother answering.
He gives me a long look. “Not sleeping, either, huh?”
I light up and blow smoke in his face. A moment later, a couple guys from my crew join us. One of them mutters something that catches my ear.
“Fog’s thick again,” one of them mutters. “Swear I saw a ship off Miner’s Cove last night. Black sails, silver thread, no flag. Drifted out of the fog like a ghost.”
“Lay off the Synth, man,” another says, snorting. “You’ll end up like Deadeye Boone.”
The group laughs, but then one of them leans back, beer in hand.
“Speaking of ghosts—remember that girl from the Maw? Tattoos, green eyes, nasty fucking temper?”
He waits for the nods, grinning.
“Yeah. Fucked her a couple weeks back. Bites hard. Never had anyone beg for it rough like that before.”
He swigs his drink, then adds, “She moaned someone else’s name halfway through, but shit—her ass was so tight I didn’t care.”
The others laugh and clink bottles, oblivious to the way my blood goes cold.
Green eyes. Tattoos. The Maw.
That was her. That was Mara.
He had to be lying.
She would never—she wouldn’t let him—
My stool screeches against the floor as I shove back from my seat.
The guy barely had time to look up before I’m in front of him.
“Say that again,” I say, voice low.
He blinks, a smirk spreading across his face. “What, she yours or something?”
I punch him in the face.
Teeth crack, blood splattering sideways. He goes down hard, chair toppling. His friend stands up, but I don’t give him a chance. My fist connects with his gut, then his face, then his jaw.
Someone screams. Bar stools hit the ground. My knuckles split open.
The first guy tries to crawl away. I grab his collar and slam his head against the bar table.
“Keep her name out of your fucking mouth,” I snarl.
He coughs, blood bubbling from his lip.
“The fuck is wrong with you?”
Maverick grabs me from behind, his arms like iron. He hauls me back while I struggle against him.
Varian steps in front of me, cigarette between his teeth.
“You want to throw a few more punches or are you ready to talk about your feelings yet?”
I wrench free, chest heaving.
Kira lobs an ice pack over the bar. I catch it and press it to my hand.
“You break someone’s face, you clean up the blood next time,” she calls.
She gives me that look—the one that reminds me I’m a dumbass, but still hers to look after.
“You gonna tell me what that was about?” she asks.
“Guy was running his mouth.”
Kira snorts. “Right. And you totally didn’t look like you were about to blow his brains right out of his head.”
I don’t reply. I head out the back, hearing the door bang shut behind me. I jump at the sound.
Fuck, I shouldn’t have done that.
Good fucking gods.
I wipe my brow, smearing blood across my temple.
Varian joins me a moment later, leaning against the brick as he blows smoke at the sky.
“You’re obsessed with her,” he says quietly.
“I’m not—”
“You’re not sleeping. You’re not eating. You’re drinking like you want to forget something you can’t stop remembering. So yeah. You are.”
I turn away, running a hand through my hair. When did it start getting long again? I always keep it buzzed short.
“You didn’t hear her last night?” Varian asks.
“The fuck are you talking about?”
“Heard her damn vibrator humming from my building down the block,” Varian says dryly.
He lights another cigarette, then hands it to me like he didn’t just set my entire nervous system on fire.
“You want me to start leaving earplugs on your porch, or you going to go talk to her?”
My fingers tighten around the cigarette.
I want to say something. Ask him what the fuck he means. Ask if anyone else saw her. If they heard her. But all I can think about is the image burned into my skull—Mara in the shadows across the street, hand buried between her thighs, eyes on my window. Thinking of me. Maybe whispering my name while she fucks herself. Maybe riding something soft and curved.
What does she use? What does she like? Does she go slow, teasing it out? Or rough, desperate, trying to make herself come hard enough to forget me—only to fail every time?
Gods.
I grit my teeth. “Don’t fuck with me,” I mutter.
Varian just shrugs. “I’m not. Open your damn eyes, Velera. And get a better security system.”
Was she watching me tonight? Did she see the way I broke a man for touching her?
Would she like it?
I turn and start walking home.
“Where are you going?” Varian calls.
I don’t turn around.
“Home.”
The word feels hollow by the time I reach my door. The walk disappears in pieces—streetlights, fog, the rhythm of my boots—but none of it stays. By the time the lock clicks open, I’m already somewhere else, halfway between wanting her and questioning my sanity.
As soon as I get upstairs, I open the blinds in my room and crack the window. Then, just to bait her, I fumble with the metal loops bolted into the ends of my bedframe. The ones I added for her.
The frame’s built from scavenged pallet wood—rough in places, sanded in others, and stained dark. I built it myself. Made sure the slats could hold her straining against them.
I tightened it just enough that it would hold, but loose enough it still made noise.
Let the neighbors hear what I do to her. Let the whole block know she’s mine.
When I catch her, I’m tying her to this bed, and she’ll take everything I give her, no matter how hard she fights.
I want her scared enough to run, desperate enough to be caught. I love a good chase, and she knows it.
I strip off my shirt and step into my joggers—the grey ones. The pair I keep just for these kinds of photos. They’re soft, low-slung, clingy in all the right places. They stretch across my thighs, teasing the power underneath.
I walk past the window slowly, like I know she’s watching. And if she’s not?
I’m going to give her something to remember.
I grab the Polaroid from the shelf and tilt the lens up, framing the shot in my head before I take it. I’ve sent a hundred nudes on my phone, but this feels different. Polaroids feel permanent, like I’m freezing a moment in time just for her.
I hook my thumb under the waistband and ease it down, just enough to tease the V-cut. Let her see the abs I work my ass off for. Let her imagine what comes next.
I part my lips, tilt my chin, and drop my gaze just off-center, and—
Click—flash.
The photo takes its sweet time developing. When it finally settles, I scrawl in black ink across the bottom: Your turn, Blades.
I tuck it into the window frame.
I sit on the edge of the bed, letting my hand drift lower. A little pressure at the base—just enough to make my jaw tighten.
I picture her: pressed into shadow, thighs clenched, fingers buried deep, green eyes fixed on me.
She wants this.
Needs this.
And fuck me—I need her to see what she does to me.
I stroke myself once. Twice. Slow enough to ache.
The outline of my cock is thick, obvious beneath the fabric.
I wrap my hand around it, adjust the angle. Camera up—
Click—flash.
I lean back, one arm behind my head, letting her watch. Pressing against the bulge in my joggers, I stroke until I throb.
Then I slide my hand beneath the waistband, the fabric already damp with precum.
Click. Flash.
It didn’t matter how many times I came—there was always more when it came to her, like she’d carved a hunger into me that couldn’t be sated, only fed in pieces.
I pull my joggers lower, revealing the trail of hair below my navel—stopping just above the waistband.
Click—
flash.
I lift my hips and slide the fabric down—like I’m unwrapping a gift I want her to beg for. Would she get on her knees for me? She better.
Or I’ll make her.
More precum beads at the tip. I swipe my thumb through it, drag it over my slit, gliding along the sensitive underside. I wrap my hand around the base and give it one long, hard pull.
I stroke myself, letting her see the way my abs tighten with every pass—the way my hips flex when I fuck into my own hand. Let her see how my blood craves hers.
My balls tighten, rhythm breaking as I grip harder. I groan as thick, hot ropes spill across my stomach.
I don’t bother wiping myself off. Not yet.
I lean back, arm up, cock still twitching in my grip, and raise the camera.
Click—whirr—flash.
“Hope you liked the fucking show, Blades,” I mutter.
I grab a pen and scrawl across the bottom: If I catch you, I’m coming down your throat. Whether you’re ready or not.
I gather the photos and lay them out on my pillow.
If she wants them, she’ll come get them.
And I know she wants them.
Mara likes games. She likes challenges even more.
She sure as hell wasn’t going to ignore this one.

Polaroid: A small Thalassian Violet in a clay pot.
Caption: You might have to show me how to care for this thing. I’ve never been much of a plant guy—but this is one of the best gifts I’ve gotten. Thanks.

Chapter Text

I gave him a show. Let’s see if he begs for an encore.
-M

Rafe leaves me Polaroids.
I love them.
Every night, I sit on my living room floor, his hoodie soft and warm against my bare skin, and I get off to them with plugs, dildos, vibrators, and my own fingers.
I’ve always loved toys. I think it started with Eren, back when we weren’t allowed to touch each other because of the Mark. Skin-to-skin contact burned, but toys didn’t.
So we got creative. We found ways to feel, even when we couldn’t touch.
The first time we came together, it was in the shower. I didn’t know what I was doing, and neither did he, but our eyes locked while we touched ourselves—fingers trembling until we both finished.
After that, it got easier.
The Captain sometimes brought sex workers on board. Some of them had toys we could buy, or they’d bring us new ones the next time we docked.
So we learned together. We explored each other until I knew every part of him as well as he knew me. He knew my favorite was anal beads, and I knew his was the strap-on, especially when I was the one wearing it.
It wasn’t just sex. It was rebellion. It was closeness we weren’t allowed to have, but we took it anyway.
Now, toys feel like home. But none of them satisfy me the way Rafe does. I think about him the entire time. The sound of his voice. The way he fills me. The way my body yields for him, like it was made for nothing else.
I stretch myself wide, aching and desperate, chasing the feeling of him splitting me open.
It’s twisted. I know that. But I don’t stop. I don’t want to.
Eventually, the Polaroids aren’t enough. I need more. I need him to know how badly I crave him.
I’m standing outside, staring up at Rafe’s second-story window, the glass tilted just open enough to tempt me. The wind curls against my skin, cool and sharp, as if warning me off.
I’m going to break into his townhouse.
Is it really breaking in if he leaves the window cracked?
Probably.
Behind me, Eren leans against the brick, arms folded, expression tight with unease.
“What’s wrong?” I ask.
He hesitates, eyes scanning the building like it might shift beneath his gaze. “Something feels off about this place,” he says finally. “Like it’s warded.”
I frown. “It can’t be. He’s not Niraith. I’d know if he was.”
Eren doesn’t look convinced. “That’s what worries me. There are definitely wards here.”
I glance back up at the window, heart thudding. “I’ll be careful.”
“See that you are,” he says quietly.
Climbing rigging taught me how to scale fast, and the brick wall up to the second-story window is no different. I move quickly, and I don’t think anyone sees me. Even if they did, I don’t care. When I reach the window, I ease it open and slip inside.
The place is nicer than I was expecting. It’s got brick walls, dark hardwood floors, modern fixtures, and worn wooden furniture. High quality, all of it dark. Everything looks lived in but not messy.
Tidy kitchen, clean counters, sharp knives. The place has a good view of D9, with the Pit about a block from here. He’s got an acoustic guitar in the corner of his living room. I’m no musician, but it’s definitely out of tune. I guess he doesn’t play it much.
His gaming system sits on a low table in the living room. It’s high-end with a VR headset. I wonder if he uses it to escape or to feel. I wonder who he becomes when no one’s watching.
There are photos everywhere—on the shelf near the TV, in a cluster above the stairs, even hanging on the hallway. All of them are framed Polaroids. I find one of him and Maverick, both looking bruised and half-drunk. Another of Rafe with some of his crew. Then one stops me.
A young girl, maybe 11 or 12, is sitting on Rafe’s shoulders. She has tight brown curls that remind me of Maverick. They’re both smiling.
Something about that one hurts.
He’s got a couple of plants scattered around. I think he might’ve bought another since the last time I was here. One of his is dying.
I water it, not because I care, but because it looked like it was trying.
Then I wander into his bedroom. The bed isn’t made, and his scent hits me as soon as I step into his room. I jump onto the bed, bury my face in his sheets, and inhale.
That’s when I see the silver rings built into the bedframe.
Oh. Oh.
He’s that kind of kinky.
My heart gives a stupid little jump. I tell it—firmly—to cut that out right now.
I shouldn’t be this godsdamn obsessed with him.
I roll onto my back and stretch out. His bed is massive, a California king. The linens are soft, but the mattress is firm. It reminds me more of a floor than a bed, which I like.
I let myself imagine living here. Sleeping beside him. I make the coffee each morning while he handles breakfast. I kiss him before he leaves for work, my hands still warm from his hoodie. When he comes home, we curl up on the sofa, his arm around my shoulder, my hand resting on his chest as I toy with the drawstrings of his hoodie.
Am I seriously having domestic fantasies? What the hell is wrong with me?
I shake the thought off and ignore the pull to crawl under his sheets and stay there. Instead, I focus on the real reason I came.
His Polaroid camera.
I find it on the dresser. It’s old, clearly well-used, but still loaded with film.
I glance at the mirror, then back at the camera.
I tell myself not to do it. That this is a terrible idea. But my fingers are already unbuttoning my jeans before reason can catch up.
The first photo is a disaster. I’ve never used a Polaroid before, and I laugh when I realize I’ve managed to capture my thigh and half of Rafe’s bed.
This time, I set myself up in the mirror better. I aim the camera over my shoulder, tilt my face away, and snap a near perfect shot of my ass. And the lacy black underwear I know he’ll love.
I strip off my shirt next, press my breasts together, and snap a photo in the black bralette I’m wearing. The lighting is soft enough that the vertical scar between them is barely visible. Good. I’m not sure I’m ready for him to see it yet.
Then I remove the bralette and take another shot, this time with my hands covering my breasts. My mouth is in the frame, parted for him. After that, I take one more—topless, nipples peaked and fully exposed.
I slide my hand between my thighs, teasing my clit in front of the mirror. My panties are already damp from imagining his reaction when he sees the photos.
It’s my first time taking pictures like this, and it’s fucking thrilling.
Spreading my legs, I take a shot of my fingers circling over the fabric. Then I turn around on all fours, tug my underwear to the side, and capture another.
I peel the panties partway down my thighs.
Snap.
My fingers find my entrance, tracing the slick heat there. Gods, it would feel so good to have something inside me. I press my finger in, barely an inch. I’ve never had anything fully inside my pussy before, not even my own fingers.
But gods, I’m tempted.
Snap.
Sitting down in front of the mirror, completely bare, I spread my legs and dip my hand between them. My fingers circle my clit as I take a few more photos, working myself closer and closer until pleasure begins to crest.
When I’m on the edge, I flip around on all fours and arch my back. My hand works faster, and right as I’m falling apart, I snap one last photo.
Climbing onto his bed, I wait impatiently for the last photo to develop. I'm wet enough to feel it dripping onto his sheets. Apparently, I went through an entire roll of film.
Pretty sure he won’t mind.
When the final image fades into focus, I hold it up and study it. Look close enough, and you can see the arousal dripping from my pussy.
None of the photos show my face, but once you see the tattoos and piercings, it’s obvious they’re me. And gods, they’re so fucking hot.
I grab my panties and wipe myself clean with them. I make Rafe’s bed for him, placing my panties and bralette on top.
Then, I lay out the photos for him.
He’s going to fucking love it.
I wish I could stay and watch him jerk himself off when he sees them, but I can’t be here when he comes back. Because I’d probably let him fuck my pussy, and I’m saving that for my soulbonded.
At first, I was saving it for Eren. We’d planned to wait until we were off the ship—until the curse broke, until it could actually mean something.
We used to talk about it. What it would feel like to finally touch each other, skin to skin. How he probably wouldn’t last long, but it wouldn’t matter. Because he would finally be mine.
He died before we got the chance.
After that, it felt too sacred to give to anyone else. It’s not really about my soulbonded. It never has been. I might never even meet him. Or he might not want me at all.
Sometimes my virginity feels like the only part of me that hasn’t been tainted. I just want someone that makes me feel like I’m worth something.
Maybe Rafe would make me feel worthy.
Maybe he already does.
I pull on my tank top and jeans, and slip out of the townhouse, before I make another stupid decision and stay.

Chapter Text

Polaroid: Mara is black lace, tied to my damn bed. Right where she belongs.
Caption: She’s wearing the marks I made. I plan to make them permanent.

It had been one long, godsdamn week.
The gifts left behind by the Silver Banquet Killer gave us more than just bodies. They handed us solid intel, including details sharp enough to tear open a whole organ trafficking ring running through Nine and Eleven. The kind of information that had Varian out hunting again, which always put him in good spirits. Maverick, too.
There hadn’t been any new killings lately, but I didn’t fool myself into thinking we’d seen the last of them. There’d be more.
Now SEA was finally paying attention. The Sonora Sun—Sonora’s main media mouthpiece—got their hands on a data shard. Apparently, all it takes is tipping off the right journalists, and suddenly SEA decides to get off their asses and actually investigate.
And, of course, they assume the killer’s a man.
I’m almost certain it’s her.
The latest body all but confirmed it. Someone had glued three small silver gemstones to the guy’s forehead—impossible to miss, and about as subtle as a punch to the face.
Varian’s still picking apart the message, turning it over in his mind like it’s a riddle worth solving. I didn’t have the heart to tell him that one was meant for me. He might take it personally.
At some point, I’ll have to talk to her about not hurting Varian’s feelings.
When I glance out the windows of the Pit, the rain’s a dull smear against the glass—gray and endless. The place is quiet tonight, too quiet. Most everyone’s gone home.
My eyes snag on the far corner table. That table. The one we never sit at.
My body goes still. Every nerve knows before my mind does.
I hate that table.
Ka chik.
My throat locks. The sound lives in my skull—the gun cocking, metal pressed to my skull.
The room tilts.
My hand finds my neck before I realize it.
Ka chik.
It echoes again, even though there’s no one there to make it.
Clink.
Belt buckle.
Clink, clink, clink—
I blink hard. Force myself to breathe. Count backwards from ten, like the medic taught me—like that ever fucking helps.
Maverick catches me staring at that table. His face tightens, but he doesn’t ask.
He bumps my shoulder, casual, voice easy. “What do you say we order in, kick some ass on VR tonight?”
His words drag me back to the present. My pulse thuds in my ears.
I blink hard. “Yeah. My place?” I manage.
Maverick nods, already moving. “Yeah.”
He doesn’t look at the table. Neither do I.
Maverick shrugs his leather jacket on, and we push out into the rain. The walk to my place isn’t long, but the downpour soaks us both before we make it to my door. Water drips from our hair and sleeves, puddling on the entryway floor.
“You try out Nightfall Protocol yet?” Maverick asks, hanging his jacket on the hook by the door. Rain beads in his dark curls, dripping off the ends as his eyes flick toward my VR rig.
“Yeah,” I say, bending down to pull off my boots. “Game’s almost too real. Haptics dialed all the way up—felt every punch, every kiss. Didn’t think I’d ever miss games you could actually pause.”
“Right?” Maverick snorts. “Got my ass handed to me in that nightclub boss fight. That blue-haired chick laughed and told me to ‘get better gear or get bent.’”
I smirk, instantly thinking of Mara—the blue-haired chick even reminded me of her. “You’re supposed to hack the club’s backroom first, dumbass. Get the rare mods.”
He rolls his eyes, but there’s a glint there—the kind he only gets when he’s talking games, not cartel business. “What’s the point of a full-immersion VR if you can’t get your heart broken by an NPC with better aim than half our crew?”
I shrug, but my gaze cuts toward the headset on the table. “At least it’s not real blood this time. You romance her yet? The blue-haired girl’s fucking hot.”
He grins. “Nah. I’m into the blonde. She’s trouble.” He peels off his hoodie, his shirt coming with it. “You still got my black hoodie?”
“It’s in my bedroom. First drawer on the left.”
I grab my phone to order Kowloon Eight.
Kowloon Eight is the best noodle shop in D9—honestly, the only one worth a damn. They do half-priced ramen on Tuesdays. It’s always packed, and we never bother ordering from anywhere else.
Back when Cal was alive, we brought her to Kowloon every week. Mav still orders her a bowl every Tuesday, sets it on the stool to his right, and I take the seat on his left. He spends half the night watching the door, like he’s still hoping she’ll walk in.
I never mention it, and since Maverick owns the place now, no one else does either.
“Rafe,” Maverick calls from down the hall.
I freeze mid-scroll.
“You had a visitor.”
Oh, fuck.
Mara?
Please be her.
I walk toward the bedroom, stopping dead in the doorway.
My bed is made. That alone is enough to freak me the fuck out, because I sure as hell hadn’t done it. But it wasn’t just the made bed. It’s what was on it.
A black lace bralette. A pair of panties. And Polaroids.
A lot of them.
I blink, taking a step forward.
They were spread out across the blanket like some kind of montage, and she was in every single one.
In the mirror, she was bent over, fingers between her thighs, lace sliding down her hips. Her nipples pebbled, mouth parted. There was no face in frame, but it didn’t matter. Her tattoos were there. Her piercings. Her body.
Gods, her body.
Maverick’s already at the edge of the bed, staring down at them.
“Holy fucking hell, Velera. This is—this is not safe for work. Is it weird if I say I respect her more now?”
He grabs one and holds it up to me.
“She was here,” I say, more to myself than him. “She broke into my place.”
“And left you a gift basket.”
I crouch at the edge of the bed, fingers grazing the fabric of her panties. Still damp. Still warm.
Fuck.
“I didn’t see her,” I murmur.
“Think that was the point,” Maverick laughs, flipping over one of the Polaroids to check the back. “Damn. No notes. I’m surprised she didn’t stay to let you tie her up.”
He rattles the bedframe hooks with a wicked grin. “You think I wouldn’t notice your new ‘please ruin me, daddy’ hardware?”
I glare at him, snatching the photo back. It’s her on all fours, underwear pulled to the side, wetness glistening between her thighs. My cock twitches instantly.
“She used my fucking camera,” I say.
“She made your bed.”
“She brought me a plant, for fuck’s sake.”
Maverick blinks. “...She what?”
“She got me a plant.”
“She left you a plant and a full-frontal spread of her cunt? Yeah. You’re a married man.”
I shoot him a look.
He grinned. “I’m sorry, man. I really am, but this is next level. This isn’t some horny ‘I miss you’ thirst trap. This is psychological warfare. She broke in, scoped the place, breathed you in. Probably humped your pillow.”
“What?”
“And now she’s got you by the balls. Metaphorically. Maybe literally.”
I press the heel of my hand to my eye socket. “Godsdamn it.”
“At least she’s legal age now.”
“Wait, she was underage?!”
“Yeah. Turned twenty on November 22nd.”
A cold weight drops in my gut. “Maverick. I could’ve—fuck.”
“You didn’t,” he says. “She wanted it. We both know that.”
“Fuck, I—”
“None of my business,” Maverick shrugs. “But I’m going to say something you’re not gonna want to hear.”
I look at him.
“You’re in love with her.”
I didn’t answer, because I wasn’t sure it was even a question anymore.

As soon as Maverick leaves, I gather up the Polaroids, lingering on the one where she’s on all fours, a thin string of wetness glistening in the light. I press my thumb to the photo, right over the part of her that’s slick, swollen, begging.
I lock the front door and double-check that the alarm is on.
Then I grab my knife. The blade is matte black, short enough for control, curved just enough to feel personal. It isn’t some collector’s piece. It’s made to cut.
And tonight, it’s for her.
I bring the tip to my collar and drag it downward. I don’t rush, letting the fabric split an inch at a time, the blade gliding slow. I want her to see the precision. I want her to know I can be dangerous, but never careless. The cotton parts easily, the shirt peeling open. I shrug it off and let it fall to the floor.
My jeans hang low on my hips, the dark line of hair leading down to my cock. I bring the blade to my lips and bite down gently, balancing it between my teeth.
She’d like that. She seems like the kind of girl who loves teeth and tongue and everything sharp.
Using the dull edge, I drag the blade down my chest, teasing. A threat with no follow-through—yet. Then I press the edge against my abs, my cock already thick against the denim.
I turn the blade just enough to nick the pad of my thumb. A thin bead of blood wells up, and I watch it swell before smearing it down my stomach with two fingers. A dark trail glistens over hard muscle—a path for her mouth to follow.
Fuck. Am I really doing this?
What if she thinks I’m just fucked up?
All I can think about is her licking my blood from my skin.
If I smeared some on my cock, would she lick it off? Gods, that would be so fucking hot.
A shadow flickers at the edge of my window—there and gone in a heartbeat. My gaze drops to the paracord coiled on my shelf, and my pulse spikes. The second she crosses that threshold, the hunt’s on.
I’ll catch her. Tie her down. Ruin her so thoroughly the memory of me will haunt her like a fucking ghost. No one else will ever be enough for her.
Now it’s my turn to watch and wait.

Chapter Text

His blood told me everything. I was right to run. And wrong to stop.
— M.

The moment I smell his blood, I know I’m fucked.
He’s in the window, shirtless, knife in hand, like he’s calling me to him.
And fuck, I need to taste him.
Before I even realize what’s happening, I’m moving. The window above is cracked just enough for me to slip my fingertips under it. I’d scaled ship rigging in storms, clinging to frozen ropes with half-numb fingers. This?
This is nothing.
I move quickly, boots finding purchase in the grooves between the bricks, fingers hooking into mortar lines slick with rain. My weight shifts low and close to the wall—three points of contact, steady rhythm. The wind tugs at my jacket, cold and sharp, but the climb makes my blood hum with adrenaline.
I haul myself up to the second-story sill, fingers curling over the edge. I shove the window open, slipping inside without a sound. His place is warm and quiet. Too quiet. He knows I’m here.
I remove my boots and my rain jacket as quiet as possible. His bookshelf is right beside the window—neat, labeled, perfectly arranged.
I let my fingers brush the spine of one photo album. Then I nudge it, letting it fall to the floor.
Thump.
“My bad,” I whisper.
Then I hear him.
The soft, deliberate fall of his feet. He wants me to know he’s coming.
Good.
I turn and bolt. The hardwood’s slick beneath my socks as I vault the back of the sofa and land light on my feet. Behind me, his breath hitches as I crash into the kitchen. He follows fast.
“You gonna play hard to get?”
“You gonna catch me?”
“I think you want to be caught, Blades.”
I grab the edge of the island and use my momentum to swing over it, dropping low under the dining table. I army crawl fast, shooting out the other side.
I’m almost through when his hand grazes my ankle. I kick off the floor, springing upright, and sprint for the balcony, but he’s damn fast.
He grabs my wrist, spinning me and slamming me back against the wall. I twist, drop low, and sweep his legs.
He grunts, surprised, but catches himself before he hits the floor. I roll back, already moving. I can’t outmuscle him, but I’m quicker, and he knows it.
I lunge for the balcony door, yanking the handle.
It’s locked.
Fuck.
I’m caught.
One arm hooks around my waist. The other catches my wrist mid-swing. I twist and bite down on his left bicep, hard enough to make him hiss.
“You little devil,” he growls.
“You love it.”
He hauls me back. I kick and thrash, pretending—but gods, I want him to earn this. He spins me, pinning me to the wall, chest flush against my back, one thigh slotted between mine so I can feel how fucking hard he is.
“Say it,” he murmurs, voice rough
“What?”
“You wanted me to catch you.”
I smile, breathing hard. “I didn’t come here to escape, Velera.”
His grip tightens.
“Good,” he says. “Because now that I’ve got you, I’m not letting you go.”
And gods help me—I didn’t want him to.
His weight presses down, chest to my back, his thigh between mine. Then something slides over my wrist—smooth, cool. Rope. Tactical, functional, the kind that didn’t chafe or cut.
This was made for control.
He loops it around my wrist. Once. Twice. Then tugs it tight. My other wrist follows. He’d done this before—probably more than once.
“Is that paracord?” I ask, breath catching as he cinched the knot at the base of my spine.
He didn’t answer, pulling it tighter—tight enough that my shoulders flexed, my spine arching under the force of it.
I test the bind. There’s no slack, no escape either. The knots are smooth and flat, tight enough to hold, loose enough not to bruise. My wrists were locked, circulation intact, but I couldn’t even twist. Not without his say.
I inhaled—sharp, involuntary. Gods.
“You’ve done this before,” I breathe.
He leaned in, lips brushing the shell of my ear, his voice low and dangerous. “You think I’d come unprepared for you?”
My thighs clench, traitorous.
“You like it,” he murmurs, hands sliding to my hips, grounding me in place. “I can feel it.”
“I could’ve escaped,” I whisper, my voice trembling with need.
He leaned in, his breath hot against my ear, tongue dragging a slow line along the curve of my neck.
“Now that I’ve got you, Mara,” he murmurs, fingers slipping into the belt loops of my jeans, “you’re not going anywhere.”
He yanks them down hard, denim tearing at the seams as it peeled from my hips. The fabric rips cleanly, falling away in scraps. I stand in nothing but black lace, barely covered, completely exposed.
“You wore this for me?”
I shake my head.
He clicks his tongue. “Don’t lie to me.”
Then came the blade.
Cold metal kisses my spine. A slow graze that whispered of threat without crossing into pain.
I tremble.
“You like that, don’t you?”
“No.”
He slides his fingers between my thighs, dragging them over the damp lace. “Your pussy says otherwise.”
I gasp as his hand leaves me and returns with the blade. He reaches under my tank top, sliding the knife under my tank top, right to the straps of my bra. He slices, the fabric falling away and slipping down my arms to land at my feet.
He hooks two fingers under the waistband of my lace and drags it down slow, his knuckles brushing the swell of my ass.
Then he froze.
“You had this in all day?”
“Mhm.”
I arch my back, hips tilting toward him as I widen my stance. The black gemstone glinting between my cheeks.
A sound tore from his throat—half growl, half groan. He spins me hard, turning me to face him. My tank top hung crooked on my frame, nipples pebbled and visible through the thin grey cotton.
His gaze devours me.
He lifts the blade again, tracing the flat edge along my collarbone, then down the swell of my breast. He pauses at my nipple, flicking it lightly.
“On your knees.”
“You’re not going to fuck me?”
“No, Mara. You’ve been a bad girl. Running from me like that,” he murmurs, wrapping his hand around my throat. “Bad girls don’t get rewards.”
Then he pushes me down to my knees.
I let him.
I knew what’s coming, and gods, I crave it.
He reaches into his back pocket and pulls something out—soft, folded fabric. A blindfold.
He wraps it over my eyes and the world goes dark. He knots it firm at the back.
“Velera,” I whisper, startled by the sudden loss of vision.
“You want it off?” He asks.
I hesitate, then shake my head.
“Good. Cause you don’t get to see me,” he murmurs, brushing his thumb gently along my cheek. I hear the quiet clink of his belt, the slow slide of leather, the sharp click of a zipper lowering. “You’re going to feel every fucking inch.”
He drags his thumb along the corner of my mouth, presses it past my lips, and I open for him without thinking.
His blood.
The taste hits me. My world tilts. My body reacts before my mind does, my heat racing under my skin.
Gods, he’s sweet. So fucking sweet.
Testosterone’s high, thick on my tongue—he’s turned on, wound tight, every nerve screaming for me. But it’s the sweetness underneath that gets me: dopamine, pleasure flooding the blood. He wants this. Wants me.
His pheromones hit next—raw, addictive, made to hook me. My body lights up, every nerve keyed to his, begging for more. The signature fits me like a lock snapping shut. I suck harder, chasing the flavor, letting him stain me from the inside out.
But I’m greedy. I want the markers.
First: Major Histocompatibility Complex. My immune system tastes his—opposite but complimentary. Perfect for strong offspring. Biologically, we’re a match. A damn good one.
Fertility compatibility’s good—almost dangerously so. It shouldn’t be. Humans and Niraith barely mix at all. But he’s… different. Human, mostly. I think. There’s something in his blood I’ve never tasted, something that isn’t Niraith, but isn’t quite human either.
I moan, chasing more, desperate for a deeper read, but he pulls his thumb from my mouth. I lunge, wanting to drag him back, greedy for every drop, but he doesn’t let me.
My body wants his. That’s compatibility, at least by every metric that matters.
“You want more, Mara?”
Gods. I’ve never sucked a cock before. Sure, I’ve practiced with toys, but this is different.
This is Rafe.
And I want to make it good.
“I’ve never done this before,” I murmur. “Not with... something real.”
He stills, just for a heartbeat.
“That’s okay. I’ll train you,” he says, thumb stroking my cheek. “And if you’re a good girl, I’ll let you come after.”
His hands tangle in my hair, tugging just enough to make me moan. My scalp burns in the best way, and I lean into it, shivering.
He hasn’t even touched me, and my dopamine and serotonin are already spiking. Bastard’s sending my oxytocin into overdrive, too.
He doesn’t have to do anything and I’m already bonding with him.
Then he presses the head of his cock to my lips.
I slowly open for him. I flick my tongue over the slick bead of precum, tracing the sensitive underside before swirling it around the tip. I swallow, chasing the taste with a hum in my throat.
He groans, low and guttural, and my thighs clench, arousal pooling between them.
He pulls back, hovering just out of reach. Teasing me.
“Give me more,” I whisper.
“You want more?” His voice is rough, strained with restraint.
“All of it,” I breathe.
He hesitates just long enough to make me ache for it, then slides in—slow, careful—his cock pushing past my tongue, inch by inch, filling my mouth.
He’s gentle. Too gentle.
I don’t want gentle.
I want to be ruined.
I lean forward and take him deeper, swallowing him down until my lips meet the base. I hold him there, my throat tight, fighting the reflex to pull away as tears prick the corners of my eyes.
Gods, it hurt. And I loved it.
I’d practiced this. Spent nights on my knees with toys, learning the burn, the pressure, the stretch, until I could take it without flinching. I knew how the body worked—how the gag reflex dulls under sustained pressure, how to breathe through my nose and loosen my jaw. But this was him. And there was no preparing for the way he felt—the way he caught me, filled me, claimed me.
I drew back with a gasp, spit slicking my lips.
“Fucking hell,” he rasps.
But I didn’t stop.
I dove forward again, mouth stretching wide as I take him deep a second time, more confident. His fingers twist tighter in my hair, a sharp pulse of pressure at my scalp as he starts to move—pulling back, then driving forward, slow at first. Letting me feel his rhythm. Making me earn it.
His grip in my hair turns possessive, less guiding and more desperate. His thighs go rigid, his cock pulsing against my tongue, warning me. The groan that spills from him is rough, broken, the kind that comes just before release.
“Mara, I’m going to—”
He tries to warn me, giving me the chance to pull back, but I don’t want warnings.
I want to taste him.
I open wider, tilting my head to take him all the way. Something hot, sudden, thick hits the back of my throat. I swallow it down, every last drop. He pulls back slow, his cock slipping free, the taste of him lingering on my tongue.
I open my mouth, tongue out—showing him, desperate for his reaction.
“Was I good enough to get a reward?” I ask, my voice raw, still trembling. I can’t see him, can’t read his face, can only feel the electric ache of anticipation with the blindfold keeping me helpless.
“You were a very good girl, Mara,” Rafe says, his thumb tracing the curve of my cheek. “Are you ready for your reward?”
Gods, I was past ready. I was begging for it.

Chapter Text

Polaroid: Mara cuffed to my bed, blindfolded, panting, a vibrator strapped to her thigh.
Caption: Hope she liked her reward. I can’t wait to give her another one.
(Toy drawer’s fully stocked. So is the camera.)

Mara’s looking at me like she expects me to untie her. Maybe take the blindfold off. Maybe both.
I’m going to do neither.
Not yet.
She’s perfect like this—on her knees, hands bound behind her back, lips still slick from taking me in her mouth. Her panties are half-hanging down her thighs, and her nipples are so damn hard you’d think it was freezing in here.
I reach for the Polaroid.
Click.
One photo of her just like this—bound, beautiful, mine.
“You care if I wreck your shirt?” I ask, already knowing the answer.
“Nope.”
I grip the hem and tear it down the middle. It falls away in strips, exposing her breasts completely. Gods, those tits—fuck. I shouldn’t want her this much.
But I do.
Click.
Another photo.
That’s when I see it—a scar running straight down the center, cutting between her breasts. It’s deep, the kind of mark you only get from a blade, maybe surgical, but the line’s too crooked for a clean job. Someone split her chest open and didn’t bother to close it right.
Part of me wants to kiss it, trace the length with my tongue, but I hesitate. She’s guarded about some things. For now, I’ve got a hundred other places I know she wants me to worship.
She shifts, then turns slowly. She lowers her chest to the floor with her ass arched high, arms still tied behind her. Her back curves in the prettiest fucking way, the black gemstone glinting between her cheeks, her pussy wet and glistening.
Click.
That one? I’ll be jerking off to it for the rest of my godsdamn life.
I set the camera down and pull my briefs and jeans back up, trying to catch my breath.
She told me that was her first time giving a blowjob. But fuck, the way she used her mouth? That tongue? The way she swallowed me deep like she’d been trained for it?
There’s no way.
And yet... I want to believe her. I want to believe I’m the first man she let finish in her mouth.
I want to believe I’ll be the last.
“You’re my girl, aren’t you?” I murmur.
She doesn’t speak, but her anticipation rolls off her in waves. I bend and scoop her into my arms. She’s lighter than I expected—too light. Sometimes I forget how small she is. How delicate she feels, even though she’s anything but.
And young.
Fuck.
She just turned twenty.
I’m five years older, which doesn’t sound like much, until I think about all the years she spent surviving while I was pretending to have my shit together.
She shouldn’t be here.
And yet, she is.
“What are you doing?” she asks.
“Giving you your reward.”
I kick open the bedroom door and carry her in, placing her carefully on the bed. She sprawls out on her stomach, limbs loose, breath uneven. I strip away what’s left of her torn tank top, then hook my fingers under the waistband of her panties and drag them down over her thighs.
She doesn’t resist.
I take one of her ankles and slide the restraint around it, then do the same to the other. The restraints are soft leather, secure but padded, and loop right onto my bedframe. She isn’t going anywhere.
Her wrists are next. I untie the rope from earlier, letting her arms fall free for a moment to get the blood to flow back. Then I guide her hands into the cuffs hooked to the rings on my headboard. She arches slightly, like she’s offering herself up.
Click.
Another photo.
Bare, beautiful, and tied.
Spread out on my bed like it already belonged to her.
And fuck—if she asks, I’d give it to her.
I grab her lace panties, still damp with her arousal. I climb up onto the mattress, kneeling behind her. She shivers when my jeans brush the curve of her ass—denim to skin.
“Open up.”
Her mouth parts instantly, obedient and eager.
I slide the soaked lace between her lips. She bites down, eyes covered, helpless and willing.
“That’s my girl.”
I bend over her, tracing the dragon inked down her spine. The work is Euthalian watercolor—rare as hell in Sonora. Scales shimmer black and blue, mist and cloud curling around each ridge. The wings flare out across her shoulder blades, while the tail coils low, winding down her spine to wrap her hip. My lips follow the pattern, following every detail, slow enough to memorize the art and the warmth of her skin beneath it.
She has no idea what I’ve planned for her.
She’s going to love it. I already know it.
I get off the bed and cross to my drawer, pulling out two belts and a vibrator. I didn’t know exactly what she liked, but I remembered the plug she wore the night I fucked her. And Varian—godsdamn him—had let it slip she liked vibrators. So, I stocked up with toys, restraints, a range of things she might hate me for, or beg me to use again.
Yeah, I fucking planned this. I spent the last week thinking about her, obsessing over every goddamn sound she might make, imagining every way I could make her come.
“You like vibrators, don’t you, Blades?”
No answer, of course—just the lace in her mouth, muffling the sounds I want to hear. The second I turn it on, her body answers for her.
I keep the setting low with just enough vibration to tease her. When I brush it against her clit, she bucks—hard.
“Sensitive?” I ask, pressing the head of it flush against her again. Her back arches, thighs straining as she pulls against the restraints.
Gods, yes.
We’re going to have so much fun.
I keep the vibrator there and reach for the first belt. I slide it around her upper thigh, strapping it down tight to secure the device against her clit. The second belt follows, looping lower on her thigh to lock everything in place.
Then I turn it up.
She gasps around the lace, a full-body tremor shivering right through her. Her hips twist, seeking relief, or more. I can’t tell. My cock throbs inside my jeans, hard as fucking steel.
I straddle her, knees on either side of her hips, and reach down.
Time for her next reward.
I grip the gemstone plug and start to remove it slowly. Her muscles clench around it, contracting like they didn’t want to let go.
Perfect.
She’s already primed for me in every way that matters.
I spread her cheeks and bury my face between them.
The second my tongue touches her rim, she moans—high and desperate, all the fight gone. She tries to move, but with my weight pinning her legs and the restraints tight around her wrists, she’s helpless for me. I know exactly how she wants it, and I’m not giving her an inch.
I flatten my tongue, working slow, filthy circles around her tight entrance—barely teasing, never letting her settle, keeping her teetering on the edge. Every tiny sound, every twitch of her hips is feedback, and I listen for all of it. The way her breath stutters tells me when to go softer, when to press harder, when to speed up just enough to drive her crazy. I want her coming undone, addicted to what I can do with just my mouth.
I push deeper, adjusting the pressure, switching from slow swirls to quick flicks, relentless until I find the rhythm that makes her shudder. When she tries to jerk away, I grip her ass and pull her wider, anchoring her down so she has no choice but to take it. My tongue works her mercilessly, tongue-fucking her until she’s shaking, barely able to breathe.
Her thighs tremble under my hands, her whole body straining toward me, desperate for more. Her breath hitches, and then her back arches so hard her spine bows. I feel the sheets go slick beneath her as she soaks them.
“Velera!” she cries, voice cracking on my name.
“Keep coming,” I murmur, tongue still pressed to her skin, my words muffled by the heat of her.
She did.
The vibrator keeps buzzing against her clit, relentless. I slide my tongue deeper inside her, feeling her body pulse against my mouth. Her contractions drag me deeper inside her.
“Velera,” she gasps. “Untie me!”
“Not a fucking chance.”
I reach for the lube and the toy that I have a feeling was about to become her new favorite.
“This is too much,” she whispers, trembling—but her body told a different story. The second I slip the first bead inside her, she gasps—a sharp, involuntary sound that makes my cock twitch. Her thighs twitch, muscles clenching around the intrusion, but I keep my touch steady and soothing.
“Good girl,” I murmur, letting my hand stroke along her hip, grounding her, rewarding every inch she gives me. “You can take it. Just breathe for me.”
I ease in the second bead, then the third, slow enough to make her feel every stretch, every subtle shift. My free hand grips her thigh, thumb stroking circles into her skin, coaxing her to relax and take more. By the time I reach the loop at the end, her ass is fluttering around the full length of them, her body caught between pain and pleasure, muscles trembling in overstimulated surrender.
“You ready for this next part, Blades?” My voice drops, low and intent. I know what’s coming—she doesn’t, not yet.
She’s already writhing, pulling against the restraints, her body begging for release even as she tries to fight it. I can see her clenching around the beads, right on the edge, her whole body tuned to my touch.
Slowly, I begin to pull them out—one by one, drawing each bead out with just enough pause to build the anticipation, to force her to feel every second. Her body seizes around the first, then the next, pleasure spiraling with each pull. The last bead slips free, and she comes apart, harder than before. A ragged moan escapes from her throat as her body convulses beneath me.
The sound and the sight send adrenaline pulsing through my veins.
Mine.
I reach down and turn the vibrator off.
She collapses against the sheets, her entire body slack, drenched in sweat and slick and everything I pulled from her. My bed is soaked, but I didn’t give a fuck about that.
I might not wash them. Ever again.
Watching her unravel like this—wreck herself for me—is the hottest godsdamn thing I’ve ever seen.
I’m about to undo the belts and remove the vibrator, when she stirs.
She turns her head toward me, the blindfold still covering her eyes.
“Do it again.”
I pause and raise a brow, even though she can’t see me.
I study her for a second, trying to gauge if she’s serious.
“You want me to…?”
“Make me come again,” she whispers. “With your tongue.”
Gods. She was insatiable.
And I was so fucking lucky.
“Say no more, Blades.”
I untie her wrists, easing her arms down. Then I flip her onto her back, her hair a dark halo against the sheets. I take a second to memorize this. Her.
Then I guide her wrists into the cuffs attached to the headboard, this time facing me. Her legs part for me automatically, and I secure her ankles again. Now she’s spread wide, bound and helpless, exactly where I want her.
I crawl between her thighs and bury my face inside her like I’m starving. Every part of her—her taste, her scent, the way she moans my name—is already under my skin.
Is it too soon to ask her to be my girlfriend? Definitely. She’d run. She’d fight. Burn the whole thing down just to prove she could. But only if I untied her, and I had no intention of doing that anytime soon.
From the sound of it, neither did she.

Chapter Text

Captain Damastes is a Niraith Necromancer of the Highest Order. Some say he’s the most powerful to ever walk the veil—feared by the living and loathed by the dead.
To be claimed as his ward is among the worst fates the gods can give.
I would know.
I’m one of them.
—M

After I come more times in a row than I ever have in my life, I curl up in his bed. The sheets are soft and warm and smell like him. Rafe pulls me close, his bare chest pressing against my back. Skin to skin.
He falls asleep almost instantly. His breathing slows, steady and deep.
I can’t sleep at all.
Everything feels wrong. This is wrong. He’s touching me, holding me, and I’m—
I shouldn’t be here.
Tears prick at the corners of my eyes, blurring the room. My chest heaves, but I force it still. I don’t want to wake him.
I don’t want him to see me like this. If he sees me, he’ll know. He’ll know how broken I am. And once he knows, he’ll look at me the way they all do.
Like I’m disgusting.
And maybe I am.
But he holds me like I’m something sacred.
That makes it worse.
The tears come faster. Pressure builds in my chest, sharp and unbearable. I have to get out before it cracks me open.
Carefully, I slip from the bed. I move quietly, keeping my footsteps light on the floorboards. He doesn’t stir.
One of his hoodies lies crumpled near the edge of the bed. I grab it and pull it over my head, the sleeves too long, the fabric warm with his scent.
It doesn’t help.
Nothing helps.
When I reach the window, I fold over myself, curling in tight. I'm back in the dark. Back in the bilge. Back in the—
My throat makes a sound I barely recognize, half-sob, half-animal, and I choke it down. My arms wrap around my knees as I rock, trying to ease the pressure in my chest.
When I look down, there’s something sticky on my fingers. At first, I think it’s blood, but it’s not. It’s too slick. Too soft. Too pale. More like the inside of something.
I squeeze my eyes shut, trying to force the memory back down where it belongs.
Gods, I hope Rafe doesn’t see me like this. I’m pathetic, like some lost, trembling child.
But the motion helps. It’s always helped, just enough to take the edge off so I can remember how to breath again.
When my chest finally stops aching, I glance up at the window. A thin sliver of moonlight filters through the glass. I reach toward it, letting the light touch my hand.
Where the moonlight strikes, my skin vanishes. Only bone remains. I hold it there for a moment, watching the outline of my fingers reduced to what I truly am beneath.
Then I pull back. My skin returns. Whole again.
The Captain’s Curse.
I would always exist halfway between life and death, trapped in the space between, until he released me… or someone else broke the curse.
Until then, I was his.
If he ever caught me, he’d own me again. And he’d make certain I never got free a second time.
Sometimes I check to see if I’m still here. If I’m still real. I raise a hand in the light, just for a second, just to make sure the bones are still there.
I glance down the hallway toward Rafe’s room. The door is slightly ajar, the soft rhythm of his breathing barely audible from here.
A part of me wants to stay, just this once. To crawl back under those warm sheets and fall asleep with his arms around me. To wake up next to him. Maybe even let him see me in the morning light. He’d probably make breakfast, too. Scratch that—he definitely would. I’ve seen the way he meal preps, weighing everything out, logging macros like his life depends on it. He has the kind of discipline I know I should have but don’t.
I’d water his plants for him. Maybe I’d even add another one.
It’s too easy to think about. Wrong. It’s wrong.
Maybe he doesn’t actually want me here. Maybe he’s too polite to say it out loud. Maybe he’s already regretting it.
The thought curls tight in my chest.
Before I can find out for sure, I decide to leave.
I stand and head for the window.
When I look down, I spot Eren waiting at the base of the townhouse. He looks tense, like he can’t quite see me, like something’s off and he’s trying not to panic.
I slip on my boots, lacing them quickly, then climb down through the window. A few shadows dart through the alley’s corners—Varian’s, most likely. I know he’s been watching out for me.
Pretty sure I won’t be hearing the end of this at morning coffee tomorrow.
My boots hit the ground, the landing solid. Eren exhales when he sees me, his relief obvious.
“It’s still warded?” I ask.
He nods, eyes flicking to the hoodie I’m wearing. There’s something in his expression—grief, maybe.
He swallows, then gives a small nod. “Did you…?”
I shake my head, and I hate the way relief flickers in his eyes.
Because the truth is, I would’ve let Rafe take me. I wanted him to. I was ready.
And that feels like a betrayal.
Not because I owe Eren my body, but because once, I promised him my future. Once, we whispered about what our first time would look like—tangled sheets, soft touches, no fear of feeling pain if we touched each other. Just love.
“Hey,” I murmur, reaching out and brushing his arm. “I still love you. Nothing changes that. Ever.”
He nods again, slower this time, but his jaw tenses. He doesn’t say “I love you too.” He doesn’t say anything.
He just looks at me—quiet, steady, and unbearably gentle, like he’s holding back everything he wants to scream.
We were supposed to run, find somewhere safe, start over. But now he’s a ghost, and I’m still trapped in the in-between.
If it hurts this much for me, I can’t imagine how it feels for him—to love me so fiercely and never reach for more. To let me go, piece by piece, without ever asking me to stay.
We walk home in silence. The night is cold, and my bare legs are shaking by the time we make it back. My apartment feels even colder—so much colder than Rafe’s.
I gather my blankets from the bed and drag them into the living room, dropping them into a heap on the floor. I curl up beneath them, chasing warmth that doesn’t come.
Moonlight spills in through the window, silver and sharp. When I look down at my hands, they’ve faded to bone.
More skeleton than human.
Eren sits beside me, slipping under the blankets without a word.
“Do you think Rafe’s human?” I ask.
“Seems like it. Why? You think he isn’t?”
I shrug. “I’m not sure. When I tasted him, I got a weird read—something I didn’t recognize.”
Eren falls quiet for a moment. “Does it matter if he is or isn’t?”
“I don’t know,” I admit. But it does. There was something off in his blood. Subtle, but there. Maybe an old bloodline or something buried deep. He probably doesn’t even know.
But I want to find out.
“Is he good to you?” Eren asks quietly.
I nod. “He is.”
I think.
“Good. That’s what matters. ’Cause you deserve the world, Mara.”
I reach out and slide my hand into his. It’s awkward as hell, my bones don’t quite fit with his fingers, but I need to hold something, even if it’s just a ghost.
What would Rafe think if he saw the curse? If he saw that I was made of bone instead of skin and finally realizes what he’s touched—what he’s fucked—was never whole to begin with?
Would he feel sick? Disgusted? Disturbed?
Would he hate that he touched me—something so filthy, so wrong?
I don’t know.
And I’m terrified he’ll find out.
Rafe didn’t say anything about my scar. Did he notice? It’s obvious—he has to have noticed by now.
He didn’t ask.
Why did some part of me want him to?
How would I even begin to tell him if he did?
How do you explain to someone you care about that another man reached into your chest, broke through skin and muscle and bone, and took a part of you like it was nothing? That he carved it out with his fingers inside your body while you laid there awake, paralyzed, feeling everything?
How do you tell someone that your body stopped being yours the second he took one of your bones?
How do you tell someone that after that, his voice wasn’t a suggestion anymore—it was a command written into your blood, and your limbs answered him even when your mind screamed no?
He made me a monster, and I let him.
I can’t sleep. Not that I ever sleep well. Eren’s still awake, watching over me. I don’t think ghosts sleep, but I’ve never asked.
I toss and turn until the sheets twist around my legs. Finally, I give up. I grab the bottle of vodka from the table and drink too much, too fast. The burn hits hard, spreading through me until the world starts to blur and tilt.
When I crawl back into bed, the ceiling spins.
“Hey, Mar?”
I turn my head toward Eren. He’s still watching me, his face caught in the moonlight. The light turns half of him to bone. He’s beautiful like this—half alive, half gone. My best friend. My ghost.
“Yeah?”
He hesitates for a breath. Then, quietly:
“I love you too.”

The next morning, I meet Varian for coffee. He’s insufferably smug, practically vibrating with unspoken glee. Over cappuccinos and too many pointed looks, he informs me—far too casually—that he once showed Rafe how to tie knots. Says he’s glad to see his lessons finally being put to good use.
I come dangerously close to murdering Varian Holt in the middle of the café.
Unfortunately, he’s the only living friend I have in Sonora. And if I’m being honest… he’s grown on me.
Afterward, I walk home. But I can’t stop myself from drifting toward Rafe’s place. I linger outside his townhouse, staring up at that black door like it might open for me.
I want to see him. Gods, I do. But every time I get close, something inside me twists—tight and sharp and wrong.
So I run.
The night I escaped the Nemesis, I stole the Captain’s necklace of bones. The same one that binds the crew to him. I thought I could find a way to destroy it before he ever found me again. Thought maybe—somehow—I’d crack the spell, shatter whatever hold he had left, and finally set the crew free.
But I haven’t made any progress.
Not really.
Not that I’ve been trying as hard as I should. Most days, just surviving Nine is enough to knock the air out of me. Between shifts at the clinic and patching up bastards at the Maw, I’m lucky if I have the energy to drag myself home, heat up a discount frozen pizza, and drown it in cheap vodka.
Half the time, I’m just trying to avoid ending up in someone’s body bag. Getting stabbed, shot, or worse, raped. There’s no grand quest when you’re too busy trying not to bleed out in the gutter.
And then there’s Rafe.
Godsdamn him.
He’s distracting me, too. Making me feel things I don’t want to feel.
It’s a blood moon tonight, which means the veil between worlds is thin. The air hums with it, like the space between breaths is stretched too far. If there’s ever a night to slip into the spirit realm, it’s this one. I just need a little help getting there.
I sit cross-legged on the floor of my apartment, wrapped in Rafe’s hoodie. It’s far too big for me, the sleeves swallowing my hands, the hem brushing my thighs. It still smells like him.
Eren sits across from me, his expression tight with concern.
“You sure you should be taking that?” he asks.
I lift an eyebrow. “You want me to come visit you, or not?”
“Not if it kills you,” he mutters. “Is it even safe?”
“Tested it with a drug kit myself,” I say, flipping the foil open. “It’s clean.”
He rolls his eyes, clearly unconvinced, but I’m already pressing the tab of Synth beneath my tongue. It tastes metallic, bitter and sharp.
I close my mouth and wait for it to dissolve.
Tonight, I’ll walk the spirit realm.
It takes a few minutes before the world begins to blur at the edges. My limbs feel lighter, my body looser, as if the threads holding me here are starting to loosen. I close my eyes and breathe in. The sounds around me soften and grow distant. Eren’s laugh drifts through the air like wind chimes from home in Euthalia, delicate and familiar. I let the sound sink into my bones.
When I open my eyes, everything snaps into focus.
Everything is brighter here. The spirit realm pulses with color. Light leaks from every surface, casting halos where there should be shadow. Even my apartment looks less dim, touched with the glow of something not quite real.
And Eren—Gods. Eren.
He doesn’t look like a ghost anymore. No hollow cheeks or sunken eyes. He looks alive in a way I’ve never seen. Not just alive, but whole. His skin has color now, faint but real, and his curls are still messy, but it’s the soft kind of messy I remember from before. His hair is a deep brown instead of black, and he’s filled out again, like he hasn’t gone hungry in years.
It makes me smile without thinking.
“Little better, yeah?” he says, grinning wide.
“Just a little,” I reply, smirking back.
I stand, and the room tilts around me. The walls breathe. The furniture pulses, twitching at the corners of my vision like it’s alive. I stumble once, catch myself, and make my way toward the dining table.
My paints are already laid out, a mess of half-used tubes and chipped palettes. They’re knockoffs, cheap and stubborn, the kind that never blend quite right. But I know how to make them work. Watercolors are nearly impossible to find in the lower districts—too expensive, too delicate for a place like this. And real Euthalian paints? Almost unheard of in Miltiades, unless you have the kind of connections I don’t.
I reach for a brush, dragging my fingers along the stiff bristles. The texture catches between my thumb and forefinger, familiar and strange all at once. I haven’t painted in years, not since Eren died. In Euthalian tradition, creating while in mourning is forbidden. Art stirs memory, and memory invites madness.
Tonight, I welcome madness with open arms.
I dip the brush into the water, then swirl it into the pan of blue. My hand moves on instinct, sweeping pigment across the page. Mirezekh spills out of me like breath—blue and green, coiling across the page in too many spirals to count. A sea dragon, born from myth and grief.
I give it green eyes, the same green that haunts my dreams. I trace the scars along its flanks in ink, the places where chains once held it captive. The marks are small, nearly invisible. No one else would notice them but me.
Across from me, Eren’s sketching too, though he’s using graphite instead of color. His brow furrows in concentration, lips pursed, pencil moving in quick, confident strokes.
I lean over, trying to sneak a peek.
He turns his paper away instantly, smug as ever. “Not until I’m done.”
“You’re lucky I love you,” I mutter, and return to my own work, but I’m grinning.
Time works differently in the spirit realm. It stretches and folds, slow and fast at once. I have no idea how long we sit there, painting and sketching, the quiet broken only by the scratch of pencil and the soft splash of brush in water.
At some point, I realize there’s paint on my cheek. Blue, I think. Maybe green. The smudge doesn’t bother me. In fact, I dip my finger into the same blue, lean forward, and swipe it across Eren’s forehead.
He blinks. Then grins.
“Oh, you’ve done it now,” he says, and dips into the sea green, dragging a line across my jaw with a flourish like a painter signing his masterpiece.
It escalates from there. A swipe of violet on my nose. Gold on his temple. A little war paint. A little chaos.
By the time we’re done, we’re both speckled in color like living canvases. Eren’s curls are streaked with paint, and I’m fairly certain there’s a handprint on my neck. His drawing is stained too, smudged with wild splashes of blue and green that weren’t part of the plan.
I glance down at the page, expecting some rough sketch, maybe a landscape. What I find makes me stop.
It’s me.
Paint-splattered and soft-edged, but unmistakably me. The lines drawn in graphite are sharp, etched into the page like blades, but color bleeds into them—blues, greens, golds, even a wash of violet.
“Eren Solt.”
I look up at him, his hazel eyes close enough that I can see the ring of green around the edge.
“Do you like it?”
He sounds so hopeful, and something in me breaks.
“No,” I say.
His face falls, and he tries to mask it.
“I love it, Eren.”
For a moment, it looks like his cheeks flush beneath the streaks of paint. I reach down and press my hand into the sea green, coating my skin in it. Then I rise slightly and press my palm to his cheek, leaving behind a soft, shimmering imprint.
Next, I grab the gold flecks and stick them onto his skin. A few slide off, fluttering to the floor. He lifts a brow at me.
I laugh and crouch down, trying to catch the stray pieces, but the laughter takes over, bubbling out of me until I can’t get back up.
Gods, when was the last time I laughed like this?
Eren crouches beside me, and I reach up, smearing gold tinfoil across his lower lip. It sticks.
I take his hand, and the world exhales around us.
There’s no music, not really, just the memory of a melody, soft and distant, like something half-remembered from a dream. Still, I move to it. So does he. We drift in slow circles across the paint-splattered floor, our bodies swaying as if the rhythm lives somewhere beneath our skin.
Eren’s palm finds the small of my back. His touch is cold, but not jarring, more like the chill that lingers before snowfall. I glance down, startled to find Rafe’s hoodie gone. In its place, I’m back in the worn coveralls from the Nemesis, salt-stiff and sun-faded. When had I changed? Had I ever?
He lifts our joined hands and spins me, slow and gentle. I twirl once, lose my balance, and tip forward into him. His chest catches me—warm, solid, impossibly real.
For a second, I forget he’s not.
Eren laughs, low and breathless, the sound curling in the air like smoke. “C’mon,” he murmurs.
He tugs me forward—and the wall dissolves.
We step through a window that was never there, and suddenly, we’re outside. But it’s not the Nine I know. Not really.
The Nine never looks like this—not in the waking world.
On Synth, the district sheds its usual haze of damp concrete and endless rain. It’s still dark, the sky ink-black and starless, but everything beneath it pulses with color. Neon spills like blood from the veins of the city—pink, electric blue, ultraviolet, gold. Every alley glows. Every sign hums. Even the shadows shimmer at the edges.
It’s like someone peeled back the gloom and painted over it in light.
The buildings seem taller, closer together. The streets are slick with reflected color. Everything looks more alive here—more awake.
Music hums from nowhere, vibrating beneath our feet.
“This place isn’t real,” I whisper.
Eren smiles, and pulls me in, his hand finding mine again like it belongs there.
“Neither are we,” he says.
I pull him into the first club we pass. The music hits immediately. A deep, throbbing bass that rattles my bones.
Inside, the world is chaos and color. Smoke coils above. Lights fracture into prisms. Eren slides his arm over my shoulder. His body presses into mine just enough to make me forget he’s a ghost.
I drag him to the dance floor.
The crowd swallows us whole.
We move like we’ve always danced together, like we were built for this. He spins me and I laugh—really laugh—as my hair whips around and the lights catch on the paint still streaked across my cheek. I spin him back, and he stumbles into me, grinning like a boy again. We’re a mess of motion and light, blurred at the edges, glowing like we belong here.
The music becomes time. The beat is a heart, a clock, a death knell. But we don’t care. We dance anyway.
The night bends. Warps. Sings.
By the time we stumble back outside, my limbs ache. My pulse slows as the glow of the world starts to dim. Neon starts to fade to chalky pastels. The pinks lose their fire, the blues dull into washed-out greys, and Nine begins to look like itself again—gritty, rain-slick, and full of rot.
Eren’s hand slips from mine.
I glance back.
He’s still there, but his outline frays at the edges. His warmth—what little there was—is gone.
The Synth is wearing off. And with it, so is he.
We stumble back into my apartment.
Everything looks exactly as it did before; a world drained of color and light. The carpet’s still that same ugly, piss-stained beige. The walls are tired and grey. The light is flat. The magic is gone.
The world has reverted to black and white.
I curl up on the living room floor again. I don’t even bother looking at the bed—I’ve given up on it entirely.
The shivers set in fast, just like they always do. My body starts to tremble beneath the weight of the return. The longer I stay in the spirit realm, the harder it is to crawl back into this one. Tomorrow, I’ll pay for it—muscles like lead, a head full of fog, nausea twisting in my gut like something alive.
That’s the price of walking with ghosts.
Eren lies down beside me. The color has already drained from his face. His edges are thin again, see-through in places, and the warmth I touched earlier is long gone. He feels farther away than ever.
“It was good to see you, Mar,” he whispers. “Next year?”
I nod, even though my vision’s blurring. My throat tightens around the ache. The tears come anyway.
“Night, Eren,” I murmur.
I reach out, one last time, trying to touch his cheek—to hold on just a second longer—but the boundary’s already forming. That thin, cruel line between here and there. Between now and never again.
My fingers pass through air.
He doesn’t flinch. He just looks at me with that same soft expression, full of all the things he never says out loud.
He watches over me until I fall asleep.