Bounded Beyond The Abyss

P.S - This is a teaser only, read the whole story. The sheets were still tangled around them, heat clinging to their skin like smoke after a fire neither of them wanted to name. Outside, the world remained quiet — too quiet. But inside, tension crackled louder than thunder. Elise’s fingers slid beneath the pillow. Her eyes, sharp like a blade unsheathed, locked onto the figure beside her. The pistol gleamed silver in the dim light as she raised it. Vael didn’t even flinch. Naked under the sheets, ink-black runes still faintly glowing across his skin, he tilted his head and smiled — slow, dangerous, unafraid. "Kitten," he murmured, voice thick with amusement and something darker. "I told you. You only have three chances to kill me." Her grip didn’t falter. But her voice trembled with fury, and something else she refused to name. "You killed him. Right in front of me, Vael. He begged. He had a family." His gaze didn’t waver. The stars in his eyes burned hotter now, but colder too — like a supernova before collapse. “And if I hadn’t?” he asked, voice low and raw. “He would’ve put a bullet through your skull. He wasn’t pleading. He was calculating.” “I hate you,” she hissed, the words slicing through the haze between them. “I hate how cruel you are. I hate how you always decide for me.” Vael sat up slowly, unbothered by the gun aimed at his heart. “You still owe me a promise,” he said, voice almost a whisper. “And I always collect, sweetie.” Something in her shattered — not her will, but the fragile line between anger and desire, between pain and the memory of his mouth on hers. The air around them trembled with anguish, thick with burning need. “You haunt me,” she whispered. "And you,” he leaned in, teeth grazing her lower lip, “never stop chasing me, little hunter.” Their mouths crashed together — all fury and fire, hands gripping, tearing, needing. Her pistol clattered to the floor, forgotten. Their bodies knew this war too well — the push and pull, the need to destroy and devour.