The room was dark.
Not dim—dark. The kind of blackness that feels alive, like something is breathing just out of reach. Eliana stood frozen in the doorway, her heart lurching violently as her eyes struggled to adjust.
She had only taken two steps inside when the door slammed shut behind her.
A hand clamped over her mouth.
Her scream died in her throat.
Her heels fell to the carpet with a dull thud.
The scent hit her first,alcohol, sweat, and something metallic. Blood.
Her back pressed against the wall, her limbs stiff with panic. The hand covering her mouth was strong, shaking slightly. Whoever it was wasn't speaking. Just breathing heavily, chest rising and falling with wild rhythm.
She fought the instinct to thrash, to scream, to bite.
But then…
He whispered.
"Please. Don't scream."
The voice.
Rough. Frantic. Low. Deep.
But also... familiar.
Not because she recognized it right away,but because her body did.
A strange, electric stillness surged through her veins. The air felt heavier now, like it knew something she didn't.
The stranger let her go.
She stumbled forward, blinking hard. Her fingers reached blindly for the light switch, but nothing responded. The power was out or cut. Her heart was still slamming against her ribs like a trapped bird.
"Who… who are you?" she asked, her voice small.
There was a pause.
Then the sound of him breathing again. Shallow. Strained.
"I didn't know where else to go," he said. "I, I was being followed. I think someone drugged me."
Eliana's head spun. "What?"
She heard him slide down the wall, like his legs could no longer hold him.
"They were trying to stage something," he said, slower now. "A fight. An incident. I heard them outside,talking. Saying they wanted to ruin me."
Her breath hitched.
He wasn't making sense.
But in some terrifying, surreal way… he was.
And that's when it happened.
A voice outside the door muffled but clear enough to twist her gut:
"I put the drug in his drink. Should've kicked in already. He was supposed to lose control. Get caught fighting,maybe worse."
Another voice replied, anxious:
"But we lost the blood trail. He was hit. There's no way he's far."
Eliana stepped back, her spine hitting the wardrobe.
Inside the room, the man didn't speak. He didn't have to.
She suddenly understood why he'd run. Why he was shaking. Why he looked like something wild and cornered.
He was running for his life.
And fate twisted, unrelenting fate had delivered him into hers.
"Help me," he whispered again, softer this time. "Please…"
Her fingers found her phone. But there was no service.
No light.
No help.
Just them.
And then… she heard it.
A change in his breathing.
A quiet, broken growl, almost like a groan of pain. But different. Darker.
"Something's happening to me," he said, voice strained. "My head… my body… I feel hot. Wrong."
He stood suddenly, staggering toward her.
"I can't think straight," he continued, barely above a whisper. "I feel, God ,everything hurts."
Eliana's fear mixed with something else now. A strange, unfamiliar pulse in her stomach. The air between them was shifting. Dense. Tense.
He came closer.
She could see the outline of him now, just barely,a tall figure silhouetted by faint moonlight slipping through the curtains.
Then, he stopped.
And said something that shattered her.
"I'm hard. I don't even know why. I feel like I'm losing my mind."
Her mouth parted, but no words came.
Because the moment she heard his voice like that low, desperate, raw,her whole body responded.
Heat.
Panic.
Want.
She hated herself for it.
No. Not like this. Not him.
You don't even know if it's really
But then, as if the universe was cruel enough to answer her unspoken question…
Moonlight shifted across his face.
And she saw him.
Kai.
God.
It was him.
The same jawline she had memorized from photos.
The scar on his brow.
The way his lips looked when he wasn't smiling.
The storm in his eyes.
He didn't recognize her.
But none of that mattered.
Because her body remembered him.
Her soul remembered him.
And his was unraveling in front of her.
She backed away slowly, trying to think, to breathe.
But then he stumbled and collided with her.
They fell.
Hard.
Onto the bed.
Silence.
Her breath was trapped under him, and he didn't move right away. He was bracing himself on his elbows, eyes barely open, body trembling.
Their faces were inches apart.
His lips parted like he wanted to speak, but no words came.
Then she did the most insane thing she had ever done in her life.
She kissed him.
Soft. Gentle. Nothing like the chaos around them.
A kiss not of lust, but of memory. Of longing. Of a girl who had waited twenty years for something she never thought would happen.
He froze.
Then responded.
And the kiss changed.
It became fire. Starvation. A collision of skin and breath and unspoken hunger.
Their mouths moved like they already knew the rhythm. His hands gripped her hips, not forcefully, but desperately as if trying to anchor himself in the dark.
She gasped against his lips as he bit gently, then kissed her again like she was the answer to everything he didn't know how to ask.
And just before he lost himself completely,he pulled back.
"I'm sorry," he said hoarsely. "I didn't mean to… I'm not myself."
Eliana reached up, touching his face.
"You're safe," she whispered. "Just stay with me. I won't let them find you."
Neither of them said it.
But something in that room shifted.
Fate had returned.
And nothing would ever be the same.