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The cold is a living thing, curling around your skin, creeping into your bones, burrowing deep. It does not simply cling—it seeps, sinking past flesh and sinew, winding itself through your ribs with roots breaking through it’s cracked stone. You press your back against the rough bark of a tree, but there is no shelter here, no warmth. The wind howls through the trees, a mournful, unrelenting thing, whispering through the hollows of your ears, stealing what little breath you have left.
Your limbs are leaden, heavy with exhaustion, your breath thin as if the air itself refuses to fill your lungs. Every step that brought you here was a battle—against the waves, against the cold, against the weight of your own survival. You left the island behind, the place you once called a sanctuary. Now, with distance stretching between you and that lonely shore, you see it for what it truly was.
Not a refuge, but a cage.
Not safety, but solitude.
In the vast, endless dark of this unfamiliar land, you wonder which was worse.
The night presses close, the wind a whispering thing, threading through the trees. You clutch at your chest, fingers digging into the skin above your heart. The sacred gem pulses beneath your ribs, its light faint against the cold that has turned your body to ice. Someone is coming. Someone who will carve it from your flesh, who will steal its power and leave your corpse in the dirt.
Your vision wavers, your eyelids too heavy to hold open. The cold is a tide, dragging you under. You let it take you.
Firelight flickers, carving shapes into the dark. Warmth surrounds you, strange yet soothing, pressing against the cold that had seeped into your bones. The scent of burning wood curls through the air, and the dull ache in your limbs is softened by a heat that is not your own. You shift, barely, and realize—your body is pressed against bare skin.
Your eyes snap open. A man sits beside you, his chest bare, his arms wrapped around you, anchoring you to the present with his warmth. His grip is steady, his touch so careful. He does not flinch when you meet his gaze. He only watches, calm and unreadable, his dark eyes deep as an ocean.
“You were close to death,” he says, voice low releasing embers still holding heat. His eyes flicker with something unreadable—not pity, not fear, but understanding.
You do not fear him. There is no greed in his expression, no shadow of the hunger that has chased you across land and sea. The gift within your heart reveals truths, and in him, you see something rare—something safe.
“Who are you?”
He exhales through his nose, as if already tired of the question. “My title is Protector of the Sacred Path.” The words come out stiff, almost begrudging, in a role he never truly chose, “But my name is Caleb.” His voice softens, as if that’s the part that actually matters. “And you?”
You hesitate. The question shouldn’t be difficult, but it is. You’ve spent so long being something to someone else—a runaway, a target, a vessel for the thing inside you—that you never stopped to consider who you might be if given the choice.
“I don’t know yet,” you admit.
Caleb studies you, and for a moment, you think he might press further. But he smiles—small, understanding. “Fair enough.”
A silence settles between you, broken only by the distant crackle of the fire. He speaks again.
“If you’re running from something, you’ll always have an eye looking over your shoulder.”
You let out a breath. “I don’t think I have a choice.”
His expression flickers in thought but he doesn’t argue. Instead, he nods. “Okay. I’ll help where I can.” His voice carries a quiet certainty, holding a promise he doesn’t expect gratitude for.
Gentler, “Where can I take you?”
You swallow, feeling the weight of your answer. You are exhausted, frayed at the edges. Your entire life has been spent fleeing, surviving. Safety has always been an illusion, a concept dangled just out of reach.
And yet, when you look at him, the thought doesn’t feel so impossible.
“To safety,” you whisper at last.
His gaze holds yours for a moment longer, something knowing in his eyes. He nods.
“Then that’s where we’ll go.”
A ghost of a smile plays at his lips, not mocking, not dismissive—just quiet, understanding exactly what you mean. "I know the perfect place. A place to live a life. one that’s yours.”
You study him, searching for deception, but there is none. Only patience. Only quiet resolve. The fire crackles between you, warmth reaching into the empty spaces you had long stopped trying to fill.
“And what do you call this place?" you ask, tilting your head slightly.
His smile deepens, though it still holds something wistful, something you cannot yet name. "You'll see."
A beat of silence stretches between you, but it is not uncomfortable. It is something else entirely—something fragile, gasping for the first breath after nearly drowning. Neither of you acknowledge it. Neither of you have to.
Instead, he stands. A pause, a breath, a choice. He offers you a hand, and you take it.
Through tangled forests and winding roads. Through ruined cities swallowed by ivy and the bones of bridges long since collapsed. He moves as a shadow at your side—constant and unwavering. He is sharp edges and quiet loyalty, a presence carved inbetween heartbeats. He does not ask for explanations. He does not flinch from the weight you carry. When danger rises, he meets it with steel and certainty. When the cold creeps in, he presses closer. He is a promise of warmth.
At first, it is survival. A necessary truce. Two souls moving in the same direction simply because neither has anywhere else to go. But the road is long, and silence is a fragile thing. It breaks in small, stolen moments.
Awoken so thirsty in the middle of the, you feel him shuffle from beside you. The cold winds slipping between the gaps of what was, just a moment ago, guarded by his chest. He hands you your shared vessel of water. “There’s not very much left, but it’s warm.” Your fingers brush his as you take it. You both still, as if waiting for something unspoken to surface. But it does not. Not yet.
A day beneath a sky stretched wide and endless, the hush of wind through empty fields. He finds an overgrown orchard and plucks a piece of fruit, tossing it to you with a half-smile. “They taste ancient, in a really bad way.” You take a bite. It tastes like dust. He was right. But it also tastes like laughter held too long behind teeth.
A moment at dusk, when the world is painted in shades of dying light. The fire between you flickers low, casting long shadows, stretching time thin. You remember the first moment you saw him. The silence is not heavy, but fragile glass on the verge of breaking.
You feel his gaze before you meet it, a pull as inevitable as the tide drawn to the shore. He’s watching you—not like a question, but like an answer he hasn’t yet learned how to say.
“Didn’t know you hummed,” he says, voice quiet, rough from the long day of hiking.
You blink, caught off guard. “I didn’t either.”
His lips twitch—almost in a smile, but something softer. “Why?”
You hesitate, fingers curling around the worn fabric of your stolen cloak. “I think…” You exhale, shaking your head. “Maybe —for the first time in a long time—I don’t feel like I have to be quiet.”
He doesn’t look away. Doesn’t let you fold into yourself the way you usually do when words feel like too much. Instead, he leans forward, elbows resting on his knees, the short depth between you shrinking with each breath.
“I really like it,” he murmurs.
The words settle deep, an unexpected warmth blooming in your chest. It’s terrifying, how easily he gets past your walls—how his presence has become something steady, something certain, and necessary.
The fire crackles. The wind stirs the trees. And still, neither of you move.
When he reaches out, you’re not surprised, you know he isn’t either, yet he is still slow and careful, as if giving you time to pull away. He cups your jaw, his thumb brushing over your cheek, tracing a path so light it could be mistaken for hesitation. But there is no hesitation. Only the unbearable tension of something long overdue.
You tilt your head, barely a breath between you now. His eyes search yours, and you don’t know if he’s asking for permission or waiting for you to break first.
You break.
The moment your lips meet, the world exhales. It is not desperate, not rushed. It is quiet, steady—the kind of kiss that doesn’t demand, but simply is. His fingers tighten against your skin, as if grounding himself, as if making sure you’re real. You thread your hand into his shirt, holding onto him using the weight of the moment as an anchor.
When you part, the absence is almost unbearable. He lingers, his forehead resting against yours, breath unsteady.
“Seizing what’s yours looks gorgeous on you.” He speaks without even thinking about processing his words. “I’m so proud.”
You climb on to his lap, to make him more proud. Enjoying how the sounds of the leaves fade when his mouth is on yours. His arms hold you with treasure and care, not wanting to let you go but giving you the freedom to move as your please. The rock under your bent knees scrapes each time you grind on his lap, but he will take of any wounds later.
You pull away from his lips to better worship is jaw and his neck and his collarbone and his chest.
“It was very kind of you to save me that day.” Your hands caress the sides of his torso with care before you guide his blouse over his head. “I thanked you many times, but I don’t really know if you felt it yet”
You pull at the laces on his pants.
He exhales a quiet laugh, but there’s something raw in his expression, something that flickers between restraint and surrender. “Should we slow down?” he asks, and there’s no reluctance in his voice—only care. One of his hands finds yours, stopping your movements with a featherlight touch.
“I don’t know,” you admit, voice barely above a whisper. “I really don’t want to.”
You both know how hard he is, the inevitability of it, the way you’ve been circling each other for so long that stopping now would feel like denying gravity.
“We don’t have to go to the stars,” you murmur. “We can just explore the path.”
You shift his hand from yours, guiding it to rest at the crown of your head, before resuming the deliberate task of unlacing his pants.
His fingers curl at the nape of your neck, his touch sending a shiver down your spine. “I can never deny you,” he breathes.
The sound that escapes him when he’s finally freed from the constraint of his pants is nothing short of beautiful—raw, helpless, edged with relief and want. It ripples through you, sinking deep, settling low. And in that moment, you understand—this must be how he felt when he told you he liked your humming. Like hearing something so unexpectedly intimate, so undeniably yours, that it becomes a song he never wants to forget.
You gently grasp his base with both of your hands so you can kitten lick the tip, trying to discover what he likes the best. You lift your gaze to meet his eyes, searching for a flicker of reaction. He stands frozen, caught somewhere between disbelief and awe. You slide one long lick along the underside of the base before wrapping your lips around him.
“Darling, you are an other worldly treasure.” His head falls back.
You hum in response while sliding him in and out of your mouth. His hand on your hair tightens when you swirl your tounge around his tip. His moan settles between your thighs and climbs up your spine.
You glide one hand to cradle his balls and he involuntarily thrusts forward, sending him to the back of your throat, forcing you choke.
“I’m sorry, love, are you alright?” And when he pulls away just enough to meet your gaze, his thumb brushing against your cheek, his voice is nothing but devotion.
You swirl your tongue again and his head leans forward in blissed defeat. His breathing picks up and you feel him pulse against your tongue. His moans are so encouraging, you feel them in your own core. He is so close.
and just when you think you have him in the palm of your hand,
His hand pulls—swift, sure—from your hair to your shoulder, guiding you away with a touch that is both careful and desperate. And then he is on you, over you, pressing you down beneath him. The tide pulling the shore into its depths.
His lips find yours in a hunger that has been simmering beneath the surface, now set free. It is not a question. It is not hesitation. It is the inevitability of gravity, of two bodies drawn together, of something too long restrained finally breaking loose.
“I have never actually thanked you, for falling into my life” He grinds against you
His hand slides up your thigh, a slow, deliberate ascent, before guiding your leg around his back—anchoring you to him, as if you could ever drift away. His mouth maps its way down, pressing reverence into fabric, into skin, into the space between breaths. And when he finally stops, his breath is warm against your pulse, against the place where need and anticipation blur into something electric. Your leg drapes over his shoulder in a claim.
His voice is barely a whisper, but it hums through you like a vow.
“Please, let me make it up to you.”
You would do anything for him.
“Anything you desire.”
His mouth finds you almost instantly, a breath, a press, a kiss through fabric that leaves you unraveling beneath him. The sensation is so consuming, you barely register the hand ghosting up your hip, the slow, practiced tug of your underwear slipping lower, lower. Only when he pulls back do you realize—he’s peeling them from your legs, his gaze dark, reverent. Drawn by instinct alone, he lifts them to his nose, breathing you in like something sacred before leaning down once more, intent on finishing what he started.
You already knew his tongue is divine at teasing you with words, this is so different.
“Caleb.” You arch in bliss.
One hand finds your clit, teasing, circling, setting you alight, while the other wraps around himself, stroking in time with the rhythm he’s building between you. His moans are a melody against your skin, low and reverent, vibrating through you until you can’t tell where you end and he begins. When you breathe, it barely feels like breathing at all—just a sharp, shattered thing, like air caught between want and oblivion.
“Come with me darling.” He is desperate and demanding.
You see the stars—but not just the ones you expected. There are infinitely more, stretching vast and endless, and for the first time, you’re not just looking at them. You’re feeling them. You’re part of them. And the only thing more breathtaking than their glow is the quiet, steady presence of him with you.
You return to earth in gasping breaths, your body still singing with the echoes of him. He shifts, gathering you into his arms, pressing you, cherishing how precious and irreplaceable he has known you to be.
“I’m so grateful for you,” he murmurs, his voice rugged with something deeper than exhaustion.
Your fingers trace your name onto his chest. “I was just thinking the same thing.”
He hums, pulling you onto him, wrapping the cloak from beneath you around both of your bodies, cocooning you in warmth. His hand moves in slow, absent strokes along your back, grounding you, soothing you. The weight of the day settles over you both, but for once, it doesn’t feel heavy. It feels safe. Because you are here. Because he is holding you.
It would be easier to call this survival. Easier to blame the loneliness, the way time and distance have frayed you both down to something raw, and searching. But the thought lingers, soft and certain between words. Was it not someplace I left for, and instead someone? What if it was always meant to be this?
You do not know the answer. Perhaps you never will. But as you walk beside him, step for step, heartbeat for heartbeat, you know this: you are not alone. Not anymore. And for the first time in a long, long time—maybe never again.
The sanctuary is within reach when they come for you.
They strike as wraiths in the dark, wrenching you from Caleb’s grasp before you can scream. His warmth vanishes in an instant, replaced by the crushing grip of your captors. Rough hands pin you down, the cold press of steel against your chest. Then—pain. White-hot, searing, as they carve toward the gem buried within you. You thrash, but their hold is unyielding. Your own screams rip through the night, swallowed by the clash of steel, the guttural cries of men falling—falling to him.
Caleb fights as a man possessed. His voice cuts through the chaos, raw with fury, desperation—his only focus is you. He carves a path through them, reaching for you. He’s almost there. Just a little more—just a moment longer—
Then—an explosion. The world tilts. A shockwave tears through the field, slamming into you in a tidal wave. Sound collapses into a void. The night turns to ruin.
When your vision clears, the world is unrecognizable. Ash hangs in the air, thick as fog. The ground is littered with bodies—lifeless. Your stomach twists as you search for him. The second you see his body, the breath is stolen from your lungs.
Caleb.
He lies amidst the fallen, a broken thing in a world still reeling from battle. His body—too still. His arm—mangled, ruined, the ruin of it staining the earth beneath him. No, no, no— The word thrums through you, a desperate, useless plea. Your limbs barely obey as you pull yourself toward him, the ground unsteady, your breath shattering in your chest. Your hands find his face, trembling violently, as if trying to will him back, as if trying to anchor him here—here, with you.
"Caleb," you whisper, in a voice that is barely there.
His skin is so cold. You didn’t know that was even possible for him.
This wasn’t supposed to happen. You were so close. For the first time in centuries, you let yourself believe—truly, foolishly believe—that you could have something safe, something real. That you could be more than a shadow passing through time. Caleb made you feel like a person, like you could live, not just endure. Like you deserved to. And now—now he’s slipping away.
The cruelest part is that you can’t follow.
And now he’s gone.
Tears blur your vision as you clutch him. You should have been the one to fall. You should have saved him. But you weren’t given that choice. You were cursed to endure, to outlast everyone—no matter how much it destroyed you.
A sob rips from your chest as you press your forehead to his. "Please," you whisper. "Please, don’t leave me."
But the night gives no answer.
“No,” you whisper. “Not you. Not after everything.”
Your vision wavers, grief turning the world to nothing but shadow and ruin. You press your forehead to his, breath unsteady, heart aching in a way no magic, no curse, no wound has ever made it ache before. “Thank you,” you whisper, the words fractured, breaking apart as they leave you. “For everything. I never would have have experienced what living could be, without you.”
A sob tears through you more jagged than his broken dagger. Only one regret lingers—one thing left undone before fate rips him away. Your hands shake as they cradle his face, as you press your lips to his, soft and lingering, a farewell etched in sorrow.
Your heart clenches.
And then, it beats.
Once. Twice.
A pulse tears through your chest—light, warmth, and something else. Something ancient. Something eternal. The gem hums, its vibrations spilling outward, threading into his skin like tendrils of life. They wrap around his still form, caressing, binding, as if pulling him from the abyss with unseen hands that have always known him.
A gasp shatters the silence.
Caleb jerks upright, breath torn from his lungs as though ripped back from the brink. His fingers dig into your arms, grounding himself in the shock of existence. His eyes—wild, disoriented—lock onto yours.
"Why are you crying?" Are you hurt?” he asks, voice thick, oblivious.
A breathless laugh shakes through you, disbelief and relief tangling in your ribs. He doesn’t understand. Doesn’t realize he was gone. That you are the reason for his living.
Your heart beats again, but this time, not just for survival.
This time, it beats for him.
He pulls you into his arms, as if to shield you from a danger already past. Concern flickers in his gaze, as if the tears in your eyes are the only thing that matters..
The protector of the sacred path was destined to protect this path that you walked upon to seek understanding.
The power within you—the eternal blessing of the gem—was never meant to be stolen. Never meant to be wielded through blood and sacrifice.
Amplifying the reason it beats through unwavering, selfless, boundless, tender and unconditional devotion.
A heart cannot be ripped out, and divided to be shared.
It can only be given freely.