I closed the ledger. My hands were shaking.
“I don’t know who I am anymore,” I whispered.
Minji placed her hand over mine.
“You’re still Seori. But now... you get to decide what that means.”
--------???--------
Minji left me in the Archives, and I sat there for a moment looking in the book, who is my real mother? Who is my real father? I had so many questions. Did the guild know? Do they know who my mother and father are? I flip the page and see a page had been burned.
I try to read it but its to far gone, what did this page have? Why would someone burn it?
Rheon
Touched by Fire
I knew she would come to me again. Even after the raid. Even after the mark. After the betrayal in her eyes when she saw the truth carved into my skin.
She would come — not because she trusted me. But because she couldn't stay away.
And neither could I.
The air in the safehouse pulsed with warmth. Faint candlelight flickered against the stone walls, shadows dancing like specters.
I was sitting on the edge of the old bed, shirtless, the scar still faintly glowing over my heart. The mark.
Her mark.
The ache had grown unbearable since our last touch. I could feel her across the city like a thread wrapped around my ribs — tugging tighter with every heartbeat.
When she stepped through the threshold, I didn’t move. But the bond flared like lightning inside me.
She stood there in the doorway, eyes burning, arms shaking. Moonlight slipped through the window behind her and caught in the wild strands of her hair. She was beautiful in that way that ruined a man.
“You saved her,” she said, voice low.
“I couldn’t let her die.”
“You let me hate you.”
“I needed you to live.”
She crossed the room in three steps. Her hand struck my chest — but it wasn’t a hit. It was desperate. Searching. The moment her palm touched the scar, I hissed.
The mark blazed between us — hers flaring beneath her collar, mine responding in kind.
“I feel like I’m drowning in you,” she whispered.
“Then drown,” I said, voice rough. “And take me with you.”
I grabbed her.
Pulled her down onto my lap like a storm. Our mouths collided — desperate, brutal, starved. There was no hesitation anymore. No restraint. Only hunger clawing its way through centuries of silence and sin.
She bit my lip. I groaned against her mouth.
Her thighs straddled mine, hands tangled in my hair as I kissed her like I was dying — and maybe I was.
