Sleep had become a battlefield.
Klaus tossed beneath wool-lined sheets soaked in sweat, muscles taut, chest rising with shallow, snarling breaths. Outside the war tent, the Citadel camp slumbered, scouts posted, firelight flickering against makeshift barricades. But inside his mind, the world had cracked open.
And she was there.
A forest unlike any he'd ever seen, branches reaching like claws, trees bleeding sap the color of cinnamon. Mist swirled at his ankles. And standing at the center of it all, her figure bathed in moonlight and menace… was Nejire. He hadn't seen her before but without a doubt,he knew that was the vampire general.
She wore no armor. No crown. Just a flimsy nightwear that stuck to her tempting curves, he had the strange urge to tear it off her.
"You shouldn't be here," Klaus growled, fists clenched.
Nejire tilted her head, eyes gleaming like storm-lit ice. "Says the mutt whose thoughts are loud enough to drown an entire army."
"I didn't summon you."
"No," she purred, circling him. "But you wanted me here."
His jaw clenched. "I want you dead."
"Is that what you tell yourself when your hands shake?"
He lunged, claws extended, breath hot. She danced back, a smirk playing on her lips.
"You're in my head," Klaus snapped.
"And you're in mine," she hissed. "Do you know what that means?"
"It means this is a nightmare."
She closed the space between them in a blink, palm against his chest. His heart stuttered.
The moment she touched him, something snapped. Not pain, not magic but a pull so deep and ancient it felt primal.
Both of them gasped, her hand jerking back, his knees nearly buckling.
"No," Nejire said, voice tight. "That's not—"
"It can't be," Klaus rasped.
But it was. They felt it. The same fire lighting under their skin, the same tether thrumming between their hearts.
A mate bond. Triggered not by blood, or battle, but by proximity, by some cursed fate neither of them had asked for.
Their expressions twisted in mirrored horror.
"No," Nejire said again, more forceful. "This changes nothing."
He scoffed. "If anything, it makes it worse."
"Damn right it does."
Without warning, she struck first, blade slicing the air where his head had been. Klaus ducked, rolled, and came up with claws drawn. Their battle lit the forest with rage and sparks, neither yielding.
She pinned him beneath her, sword to his throat. "Why do you hesitate?"
"I don't."
"Liar."
He pushed back, flipped her over. Now straddling her, his forearm pressed to her chest. "Say it again," he snarled.
"I. Hate. You."
He leaned closer, just enough to be maddening. "Then try harder."
They tore apart from each other, circling like predators. No sympathy. No softness. Just war.
"Every time I see your face, I'm reminded why your kind should be extinct," she spat.
"And every time I hear your voice, I remember why I don't believe in mercy."
They clashed again, neither truly aimed to kill.
Because in the middle of all that fury, something else burned. Something they didn't dare name.
Klaus woke in the cold dawn, staring at the inside of his war tent like it might split open. He dragged a hand down his face.
That wasn't a dream. It felt too real.
He hated himself for wishing the dream had lasted longer.
~~~
Later that morning, he stood over a battle map in the war tent. Roan, Eryk, and Thyra gathered around him, all tense.
"You're quiet," Roan said.
Klaus didn't look up. "I'm always quiet."
Eryk's brow furrowed. "This seems different, did something happen?."
Klaus didn't answer.
Because he didn't know how to tell them their sworn enemy might be his fated mate. Not without breaking something in himself.
He decided there and then to cut her down before this bond fully germinates.
~~~
Back in Vireholt, Nejire jolted upright, tangled in sweat-damp sheets. Her fingers twitched, as if still wrapped around Klaus's throat. Her chest heaved. That dream, it left her feeling unsettled.
She could still feel his presence in her veins.
No. No, no, no.
She threw off the covers and stormed out of her quarters. The cold stone underfoot barely registered. Every inch of her skin still hummed like lightning before a storm.
In the Ember Archives, she ripped scrolls from their resting places.
"There has to be something," she muttered. "Some ritual. Some spell. Anything that severs a bond before it roots."
A cloaked monk stepped from the shadows, one of the keepers of the archive. "What you seek is not easily undone."
Nejire spun on him. "You know what this is?"
"I know that no ritual can break what fate forges. Only destruction. Of one. Or both."
She stared at him, jaw locked.
"I'll take destruction," she whispered. "If it means freedom."
In a heartbeat, she slit his throat and poor old monk bled out his life on the rough floor, shock evident in his eyes.
Nejire checked for any potential witness, when she found none, she left the archive without looking back, no one must learn of the bond. Anyone that's unfortunate to know get to meet their maker.
~~~
That night, the dream came again.
They stood on a frozen lake beneath a blood moon. No wind, no sound, only tension, and the bond that glowed hot between them.
Nejire crossed her arms. "What now? Another round of snarling and pretending we don't feel it?"
"I never pretended," Klaus but out. "I hate this."
She stepped closer. "Not as much as I do."
He met her gaze. "Then why do I keep coming back here?"
"Because fate is cruel."
"Because you're poison," he shot.
"Because you're weak," she returned, striking him.
He caught her wrist. "Try again."
They clashed again, blades and claws, words and wounds. A war waged in silence.
"You'll never have me," she hissed.
"I don't want you."
But every time they touched, the bond grew stronger. It pulsed in the silence. It watched them.
Dreams had a confusing sense of humor because the next thing they knew, their surroundings melted into another scene.
Nejire stood drenched in blood. Klaus lay dying, one hand stretched toward her.
Behind her, fire erupted. A voice rang out, deep, guttural, ancient:
"Finish it."
Moloch.
She turned to see him, cloaked in flame, his silhouette massive and monstrous.
But it was Klaus's broken eyes that held her.
"This is what we are," she whispered, and drove the blade down.
She awoke panting, fear blooming in her mind, not of him, but for him. For what she'll be forced to do.