Someone was breathing down my neck. His breath brushing over my skin like a secret, each slow exhale sending a shiver straight down my spine. The heat of his body pressed against my back, warm and familiar. His arms, circling my waist. Gentle, almost reverent, yet firm enough to remind me that I wasn't going anywhere.
It was the kind that made letting go feel impossible. Like my body had already decided to stay before my mind could protest.
For a moment, I let myself sink into it. Into him. Into the dangerous comfort of being known this way. My back fit against his chest so easily, as if it remembered the shape of him better than it remembered the hurt. I wanted to turn my body, to let myself be engulfed in him, my head against his chest, letting the rhythm of his heart soothe my fears.
But I didn't. For some reason, I couldn't bring myself to move.
It would've been so easy to disappear like this. To pretend the past three years hadn't carved scars into the both of us. To believe that this was still our life. That we were still married, still choosing each other in the quiet hours of the night.
In this fantasy, he'd come to me everything evening, not as a ghost from my past, but as my husband. My ruin and refuge. After all, he had loved me like this once. The slow mornings, the lingering touches, unspoken promise of always.
We had talked about the children we would have. The names and laughter that would fill the rooms that didn't exist yet. We'd imagine the traditions we would start, all the small rituals passed down from our children and eventually, our grandchildren. A future where we'd grow old together. Ordinarily happy.
Lying there, still wrapped in him, made me hate how real the fantasy felt. How my heart betrayed me by remembering a life we were never allowed to finish from the start.
He shifted behind me, a slow inhale brushing the back of my neck before his lips followed. Soft, tentative, as if he was afraid I might vanish if he moved too fast. A kiss pressed into the crook of my neck, warm and familiar, the kind he used to give me in the mornings when the world hadn't yet found a way to ruin us.
"I thought you would've left," he murmured, his voice thick with sleep and something far more dangerous. Hope.
My fingers tightened slightly in the sheets. I didn't turn around. Because if I did, I knew I'd given him something I couldn't afford to. At least not yet.
His arm drew me closer anyway, possessive without force, as if he needed the proof of me there, breathing. Real.
"I woke up and you were still here," he continued quietly. "I kept thinking...this would be the moment I would realize that last night was just another dream."
The words settled heavy between us. I stared at the curtains of my window ahead. The pale morning light creeping through the small cracks, wondering how something that felt this gentle could be built on so much ruin.
"I'm still here," I said finally, my voice barely more than a breath.
"I know," he murmured, his lips brushing my temple, lingering like he was afraid the moment might slip away. "But it still feels like a dream."
I turned then, giving in despite myself. My chin tipped up, my fingers finding the faint stubble along his jaw. Warm and familiar. Dangerous. It felt too much like home, like something I was never meant to reclaim.
"I wish I could stay here," I whispered. "Just like this. Forget the world ever existed."
His hands closed around my wrist, thumb resting over my pulse as if he could feel how fast it had betrayed me. "Me too."
Silence settled, heavy but gentle, until he spoke again. "How are you feeling?"
"Like I've been running for weeks without rest," I said softly, a fragile smile curving my lips. "What about you?"
His gaze darkened, something unreadable flickering there. "Like I could keep going," he said quietly. "Even when I know I shouldn't."
I leaned closer and pressed my lips to his, before doubt could seep in. The kiss was soft, almost hesitant, like a question neither of us dared to ask out loud. Then his hand slid into my hair, his fingers tightening as the kiss deepened. Hungrier, heavier, like he was trying to anchor himself to me before I slipped away again.
I shifted, instinct taking over, straddling him. His breath hitched beneath me, his hands gripping my hips with reverence and restraint. It was so dangerously easy to forget everything else. All the blood, the lies, the ghosts between us.
Then he stopped me.
His hands closing in around my wrists, pulling me back just enough to break the spell. His forehead resting against mine as if the effort cost him something vital. Those green eyes of his searching my face. Too sharp for my liking.
"Wait," he murmured. Not a command, but a plea.
I stilled, my heart hammering in my chest, suspended between want and fear.
"I don't want to do this unless you mean it," he said quietly. "Unless you're willing to stay."
My throat tightened.
"I can give you what you want," he went on, his voice trembling now, devotion fraying into obsession. "All the power. The protection. The happy family you ache for. I'll build it all around you. I'll burn the world before I let anyone touch what's mine. Just name it and it's yours."
"But if you choose me," he whispered, brushing his nose against mine, almost tender, "you don't get to leave again. You don't get to disappear. You'd belong to me. Always."
There was this love in his eyes. Real, consuming but also terrifying. The kind that didn't know how to loosen its grip without bleeding.
"And I'd belong to you," he finished, like it was a promise instead of a sentence.
The words settled between us, heavy and irreversible.
A part of me wanted to say yes. It would've been so easy, to fold myself back into the familiar shape of him, into the life we had almost had. To stop resisting. To let love drown out reason and call it fate.
But another part of me stayed painfully awake, counting the cost.
If I reached for him now, it wouldn't just be my body I was offering. It would be my future. My name. My freedom. Our union wouldn't be the salvation we both longed for. No, there would be many troubles ahead. A quiet war that would ripple through my family, tearing apart the fragile balance my grandfather had spent his lifetime preserving.
All the peace. The unity. The power. All of it would burn.
Alex may believed he had saved many lives, but he also made many enemies along the way.
And still, I wanted him. God, I wanted him.
Even when wanting wasn't the same as trusting.
So I stayed where I was, suspended between his arms and my own resolve, fully aware that whatever choice I made next would be irreversible. Because some loves, no matter how deep, demand a price too devastating to pay.