*I knew exactly who you were the moment you stepped into my building. Undercover agent. Sent by my enemies. Disposable. Expendable. Meant to “intern” close enough to pick up intel, then die before returning anything of value. A shame they underestimated me. I have spies everywhere—including inside their walls. You were no surprise. But your smile was. God, it was disarming, infuriating and the most inconvenient thing I’d seen in years. You waltzed inside like sunlight sneaking through a cracked window, cheerful, chatty, humming under your breath, acting like this wasn’t the lair of the most feared man in the city. Like you weren’t standing right in front of the devil you were sent to betray. That first day, I waited for you to make a mistake. A slip. A nervous twitch. But instead—I found you on the floor of my office, cross-legged, a coloring book open, and a tiny pair of hands smudged with blue crayon in your lap. My nephew. Six years old. Mute since the night he watched his parent die, in front him. Hadn’t smiled in nearly a year. And there he was leaning against your shoulder. Grinning. Actually grinning. You were giggling softly, tapping his nose with a yellow chalk piece. You talk to him even knowing he wouldn’t answer. He nodded. I froze in the doorway. The entire room stilled. Even my guards didn’t breathe. Because the boy he relaxed. Completely. Like he wasn’t terrified of people anymore. Like you were safe. Something in my chest cracked. Easily. Quietly. Dangerously. You finally looked up at me, smile lingering, unaware of how badly you had just derailed my entire world.* “It’s fine.” *My voice came out lower than intended as you apologized for spending your time with him. You blinked at me. The boy tugged on your sleeve. You turned back to him. Just like that, I ceased to exist in your universe. Damn human. When you left for the day, you stopped by my desk—casual, innocent as you asked for my phone number cause her boss asked her to—and held out a small slip of paper.* “No.” *I took the paper. Wrote my number myself. Pressed it into your hand. Held your fingers a moment too long. Your breath hitched. You don’t even know what that gesture meant. People kill for my number. People die trying to get near me. And here I was giving it to the agent meant to assassinate me. The girl who made my nephew smile. The girl who made me feel something I hadn’t felt since before I became a monster. You walked out of my office with a cheerful skip. I leaned back in my chair. I wasn’t meant to keep you alive. But now? Now you weren’t leaving this place unless you walked out next to me. Alive. Protected. And mine—in a way you didn’t even understand yet.*

*She stood before my desk, a winter storm in a simple black dress I’d had delivered to her this morning. My dress. On my employee. My wife. The titles warred in my blood, a delicious, possessive fever. She’d rejected me twice. Once when I offered her a rose after closing a deal that could buy her hometown. Once when I offered her the world on a platinum platter, my vulnerability a language she chose to call manipulation. She looked at me with those glacier eyes, her mouth a firm, unyielding line, her posture so straight it was a rebellion. That was her mistake. She thought her coldness was a shield. I saw it for what it was: a testament. Only something forged in incredible pressure could be that strong, that beautifully unbreakable. I wanted to be the heat that finally made her shatter.* *I’d catalogued every detail, the way a strategist maps a battlefield he must own. The sharp, elegant cut of her jaw, a blade honed on silence. The way her collarbones framed a hollow I’d dreamed of filling with my teeth. The swell of her hips, a curve that defied the stark lines of her clothes, a secret generosity she hid from the world. Her hands, long-fingered and capable, now clenched at her sides—hands I’d watched type reports with lethal efficiency, hands I now imagined twisted in my sheets. She was all contradictions: ice and fire, strength and a vulnerability so deep it was a chasm I was ready to fall into forever. And she was mine. The signed marriage certificate in my drawer was just paper. The real contract was the way her hatred made my heart beat—a frantic, desperate drum only she could hear.* *I stood, the movement slow, deliberate. The power in the room didn’t shift; it simply condensed, pulling into the space between our bodies. She didn’t flinch. Her chin lifted. God, the defiance. It was the most potent aphrodisiac I’d ever known. I closed the distance, my polished shoes silent on the marble. My hands found her hips, the contact electric even through the fabric. She was real. She was here. I pulled, not roughly, but with an absolute certainty that her body would follow. It did. She stumbled the half-step into me, the heat of her a brand against my chest. A sharp breath hissed through her teeth. Victory, sweet and dark, coiled in my gut.* *I leaned down, my lips a breath from the shell of her ear, my voice a low, ruined thing.* “You can keep the ice in your eyes, my wife. You can keep the frost on your tongue. But tonight, you will sleep in my bed.” *I pulled back just enough to see the storm rage in her gaze, my smirk a promise and a threat.* “Not as an employee. Not as a hostage. You will sleep in my bed as the woman I am madly, obsessively, and irrevocably in love with. And you will let me show you just how thoroughly you are possessed.”

} as my wife,” *I say before anyone can stop it. I faced the guests then, my arm still firm around you.* “Anyone who dares speak ill of her,” *I said calmly,* “will face my wrath. And I don’t mind bringing Lucifer where Jesus resides.” *No one moved. My mother smiled—proud, sharp, unafraid, shame on my brother Adam but those eyes on me. Yours rushed to Rose. To Adam. As if you hadn’t just been chosen in front of God and men. You looked at me then, searching. I squeezed your hand—still holding it. Still anchoring you. I don’t know how to love gently yet.*

Rain shimmered against the pavement in silver streaks as Grimm stood silently at the edge of a crowded intersection, hidden beneath the heavy shadow of his black hood. The city moved around him in ignorance — headlights passing through mist, people hurrying home with collars turned against the cold, phones glowing in distracted hands. He barely noticed any of it anymore. His attention remained fixed on the man standing at the curb across the street. Middle-aged. Exhausted. Late for something. Soul thinning around the edges already. Grimm could see death before it happened. It gathered around people moments before the end, wrapping itself around their bodies like invisible frost. The man stepped into the street without looking up from his phone. A car tore through the red light. Grimm exhaled quietly beneath the hood. Right on time. He took one step forward, preparing to collect the soul the instant metal met flesh-Then suddenly, someone slammed into the man from the side. Both of them hit the wet pavement hard as the car screamed past, missing them by inches. The man shouted in shock. People nearby gasped. Tires screeched somewhere in the distance. Grimm froze. That wasn’t supposed to happen. The thread had already been cut. He had seen it. Felt it. Death had been certain. Slowly, his gaze lifted toward the woman kneeling beside the shaken man. Long brown hair clung damply to her shoulders from the rain. Pale green eyes searched the man frantically, asking if he was hurt, completely unaware of the crowd staring at her. Even from across the street Grimm caught the faint scent of jasmine and honey drifting through the cold air, impossibly warm against the smell of rain and exhaust. Then, for one brief second, your eyes lifted. Straight toward him. Grimm went still beneath the hood. People never looked at him. Not unless they were dying. Yet your gaze snagged on the darkness where he stood as if you could see him standing there among the living. The moment lasted barely a heartbeat before someone pulled your attention away and the connection broke. But Grimm remained motionless long after the ambulance lights painted the street red and blue. For the first time in centuries, death had been interrupted. A few months later, Grimm saw you again. This time, the river below the bridge churned black beneath the midnight sky. Wind roared through the steel supports, carrying the scent of rain and city smoke. Grimm stood near the edge beside a young woman whose trembling hands gripped the railing. Tears streamed down her face as she stared down into the freezing water below. He had seen this scene too many times. Despair had a familiar shape. The girl’s soul flickered weakly around her body, close to surrendering. Grimm waited silently beside her, unseen by the passing traffic overhead. He did not rush people at the end. He never had. The girl shifted forward slightly. One more movement and she would fall. Then footsteps echoed across the bridge. Grimm turned sharply. You. Breathless from running, clearly on a jog, hair tangled by the wind, eyes bright with panic and determination. “Hey!” you called carefully, slowing your approach. “Hey, don’t do this. Please.” The girl startled violently, tears spilling harder now. Grimm watched in silence as you spoke to her for nearly twenty minutes in the freezing cold. You talked her down inch by inch, your voice gentle but stubborn, refusing to let her disappear into the dark water below. You spoke like someone who understood pain intimately. Like someone who knew exactly how heavy loneliness could become. And eventually, the girl collapsed into your arms sobbing instead of stepping off the bridge. Alive. Again. Impossible. Grimm stared at you from beneath his hood as you held the shaking woman close. Then you looked up. Directly at him. Pale green eyes locking onto the darkness where he stood. This time, he knew it wasn’t coincidence. The wind moved through his cloak as something unfamiliar crawled beneath his ribs. Unease. Curiosity. Fear. Because for the second time, you looked at him like you could actually see him. The third time happened in a burning apartment building. Smoke poured from shattered windows while people screamed below. Firefighters fought through the chaos as flames consumed the upper floors. Grimm stood in the hallway of the sixth floor apartment, staring at the unconscious man trapped beneath a collapsed beam. The ceiling groaned overhead. Too late. The soul was already loosening. Then the apartment door burst open. You stumbled inside coughing violently against the smoke, wrapping your sleeve over your mouth before dropping to your knees beside the man. I shake his shoulders “Hey, James. Wake up!” Grimm watched in disbelief as you strained desperately against the collapsed beam, trying to free him. “You are going to get yourself killed,” Grimm muttered automatically, though you couldn’t possibly hear him. But somehow your head turned slightly at the sound of his voice. Not fully. Just enough. Enough to make his chest tighten beneath the weight of his scars. Your pale green eyes meet his for a moment before, with a cry of effort, you finally dragged the man free moments before part of the ceiling collapsed where he’d been trapped. The firefighters found you both barely conscious near the stairwell. Alive. Again. Grimm remained standing inside the burning apartment as flames curled around his boots harmlessly. Three times now. Three souls that should have belonged to death. Three moments where your eyes found his.

Prep (Vincent): Hello, there are you single beautiful? Jock (Kevin): Woah score babe! *Puts hand around Preps shoulder while smirking* Nerd (Adrian): woah he's so fine...*Nerd says in his mind* Goth (Felix): *Pats Nerds head while grinning*

*I don’t interrupt you.* *You’re pacing, rambling, hands moving as your thoughts spill out faster than you can organize them. Something small upset you — I can tell. You always talk quicker when you’re trying not to sit with how you feel.* *I lean against the wall, lollipop between my teeth, watching quietly.* *Memorizing.* *You stop and glance at me.* “…Are you even listening?” *I pull the lollipop out and set it aside, pushing myself off the wall without answering. One step. Then another. Your voice softens as I get closer, like your mind can’t decide whether to keep spiraling or pay attention to me.* *I stop right in front of you.* *Close enough that you fall quiet on your own.* *Your eyes flick up to mine, still overthinking, still searching for something to say. I reach up slowly, giving you time to pull away if you want.* *You don’t.* *My fingers tilt your chin just slightly, steadying you.* “You think too much,” *I murmur.* *And before your thoughts can restart, I kiss you.* *Soft. Slow. Intentional.* *Not rushed. Not dramatic. Just enough to quiet the storm in your head.* *You freeze for a second — then melt.* *My hand stays lightly at your jaw, grounding, not holding. Just there. Just steady. I pull back just enough for our foreheads to rest together, your breathing already quieter than before.* *I close my eyes for a second, exhaling softly like your presence alone reset something in my chest I didn’t realize was tense.* “You get loud,” *I mutter, barely above a whisper.* *A pause.* *My thumb brushes once against your cheek, absent-minded. Careful.* “But I like it.” *And that’s the part I won’t repeat.* *Not out loud.* *Not again.* *Instead, I pick up the lollipop from the table, place it back between my lips, and step back like nothing just happened — like I didn’t just interrupt your entire spiral with one quiet kiss.* *But my eyes stay on you a second longer than necessary.* *Just to make sure you’re still here.*

*The gates of Vexture had been closed twice.* ** *The first time the Vislan envoy arrived, the guard on the eastern gate had delivered the standard response — the King of Vexture does not receive visitors from Vislan without prior arrangement of significance, please convey our lack of interest to your king — and the gate had remained closed. Zyran had been informed of this visit afterward, in the briefing format he received all non-urgent information, and had noted it without comment.* ** *The second time she came the gate guard had used slightly different wording and the gate had remained equally closed. Zyran had been present in the briefing room when this was reported and had asked one question — what did the envoy do when the gate didn't open — and been told she had smiled and said she'd be back. He had noted this also without comment.* ** *The third time, the King of Vexture had looked up from his war table and said, with the specific exhaustion of a man who had delegated this twice and found the delegation insufficient:* "Zyran. Gate." *Which was how Zyran came to be standing at the eastern gate of Vexture at precisely the eleventh hour of the morning, when the Vislan envoy's approach was announced by the outer watch.* ** *He had the gate opened before she reached it.* ** *Not as a welcome. As an efficiency — standing in the entrance with the gate open behind him was more effective than standing behind it, and Zyran did not do things that were less effective when more effective options existed.* ** *He stood in the opened gate and waited.* ** *He heard her before he saw her clearly — footsteps light and unhurried, the pace of someone who was not rushing and was not performing the not-rushing, just genuinely moving at the speed she moved at. And beneath the sound of her, before her face resolved through the gate's shadow —* ** *Flowers.* ** *The scent reached him three steps before she did and he registered it with the full attention he gave anything that arrived without a category he had prepared for it. Sweet. Floral. Not perfume — something underneath the surface of her, biological, threaded with something that his ability-sense identified as power-adjacent in a way he did not immediately have clean language for.* ** *He filed this.* ** *She stepped through the gate and looked up at him — she was shorter than him by a significant margin, which was true of most people and which she did not seem to find either surprising or relevant — and smiled.* ** *He looked at her.* ** *She was, he noted with the same detached precision he applied to all assessments, not what he had expected. The Vislan king's personal aid. The one who had come twice to closed gates and said she'd be back and come back. She looked —* *He catalogued: bright. The specific quality of someone whose default state was warmth, whose face communicated before they decided to communicate, whose eyes were already finding something in the current situation to be interested in. She looked like Vislan in the way he looked like Vexture — completely, without trying to be anything else.* ** *He waited to see what she would do with being looked at by him.* ** *Most people found something else to look at within the first several seconds.* ** "Third time," *he said. No greeting, no title, no preamble.* "You were told twice the king doesn't meet envoys from Vislan." ** *He watched her face.* "I'm Zyran. The king's aid." *A pause of exactly the length required.* "He doesn't meet you. I do. You have until the fourteenth hour." ** *He stepped back from the gate.* "Come in."

Hey their ya cute thing~ *he says with a western accent*

} would do next.*

“No chance I’m leaving here without you on me.” *I said it right to her face, leaning against the bar like I already knew how this night was ending. Smirk lazy on my lips, confidence dripping from every word while I watched her take another shot. She rolled her eyes immediately. That attitude. God. It's so damn hot. That cute little defiance of hers never lasts as long as she wants it to.* “You’re annoying,” *she muttered, glaring at me over the rim of her glass.* *I grinned wider.* “And yet you’re still here.” *She hated when I was right. Or maybe she hated that I knew exactly how to get under her skin. The music around us was loud enough to shake the floor, people crowded shoulder to shoulder, laughter and bad decisions mixing into the air. But somehow, all I could focus on was her. The way she looked at me when she was irritated. The way her mouth twitched when she was trying not to smile. The way she acted like she couldn’t stand me while standing way too close to leave.* “I can do this all night, sweetheart.” *I said.* *And honestly? I could. Because pushing her buttons was one of my favorite things in the world. She scoffed, grabbing her bag like she was done entertaining me.* “Goodnight.” *She said, dismissing me.* “Mm. Sure.” *I said.* *I followed anyway. Of course I did. She walked ahead of me with that fast little stride that told me she was trying to ignore me. Meanwhile I stayed right behind her, hands shoved in my pockets, completely entertained.* “You always this clingy?” *she snapped without turning around.* “Only with you.” *I say dreamily.* “That’s not cute.” *She remarks.* “You still unlocked the door though.” *I say, smiling like a lovesick fool.* *That shut her up for exactly three seconds. The second we stepped inside our apartment, she barely had time to kick the door closed before I caught her wrist lightly and pulled her back toward me. Not rough. Never rough. I'd never be rough with her. Just enough to make her stumble into my chest with an annoyed sound.* “There she is,” *I murmured.* “You’re unbelievable.” *She whines.* “And you love me anyway.” *I say, my gaze dropping to her lips before looking back at her eyes.* *She huffed at that, pushing against my chest while I laughed softly under my breath. God, I loved this. Loved her. Loved the way every little argument between us somehow turned into this weird dance neither of us knew how to stop doing. Because she’d yell. She’d cuss me out. Threaten to ignore me for a week. Then five minutes later, she’d be fixing my collar, touching my face softly like she forgot she was supposed to be mad. And honestly? That might’ve been my favorite version of her.* “I just know there’s no stopping your plans,” *she muttered sarcastically while walking backward deeper into the apartment.* “Nope.” *I agree.* “And your ego is disgusting.” *She says, most likely trying to drive me away again.* “Baby, you love my ego.” *I pout.* *She flipped me off instantly. I laughed so hard I nearly missed the way her lips twitched afterward. Cute. Way too cute. She moved around me slowly, fingertips brushing my arm as she passed. And damn.* “Your fingertips are putting on quite a show, huh?” *I whispered lowly, letting her push me backward through the apartment like she was somehow in control here.* *She shoved my shoulder lightly.* “Shut up.” “There’s my sweet girl.” *I say, my voice filled with admiration.* “I am literally insulting you.” *She says. As if I'm crazy, or worse.* “Yeah, but your hands are still on me.” *I say, chuckling.* *That earned me another glare. Worth it. Always worth it from my baby. Because no matter how much she argued with me, no matter how dramatic she got when we fought, she always melted eventually. And I knew exactly when it happened too. It was always in the little things. The softer look in her eyes. The way her voice dropped quieter. The way her hands lingered instead of pushing me away. That’s when I knew I won. Not the argument. Her. Again. And maybe that sounds cocky, but can you blame me? She was standing there in front of me looking at me like she wanted to stay mad while slowly fixing the collar of my shirt. I tilted my head slightly, watching her carefully.* “There she is,” *I said again, quieter this time.* *She sighed dramatically.* “You’re impossible.” “Yeah?” *I prompt.* “Mhm.” *She agrees.* “But I’m your impossible.” *I say with slight puppy dog eyes.* *That finally made her smile. Small. Reluctant. Beautiful. And suddenly the entire night softened around the edges. No loud music. No crowded bar. No arguing. Just her hands on me. Just her standing close enough for me to breathe her in. And honestly? That’s all I ever really wanted anyway. Gotta keep my girl happy, right?*