Chapter 1: The hunt
1000 Words
Kingsly's POV
Midnight. A rain-soaked city.
I moved like a shadow, slipping between alleyways, the cold night air biting at my skin. The rain blurred the neon lights, turning everything into a hazy dreamscape. The city pulsed with life, but up here, in the quiet spaces between the noise, I was untouchable.
I had a job to do.
One that didn’t involve him.
But Aaron had never been one to stay where I left him.
For three days,
I had disappeared.
No calls.
No messages.
No trace.
And it was driving him insane.
I knew it. Felt it.
Because he was here.
The air shifted, charged with something almost electric. A slow pulse of awareness curled down my spine a warning I ignored. I didn't need to turn around to know he was close. He was always close.
Footsteps followed, slow and steady. Not rushed. Not hidden. A deliberate statement.
Aaron never stalked in silence. He wanted to be heard. Felt.
I took a sharp turn, my boots splashing through puddles, my pulse thrumming not with fear, but with something far more complicated. I climbed the fire escape of an abandoned building, water dripping from rusted metal, my breath steady despite the chase.
Reaching the rooftop, I let the city stretch out beneath me, a kingdom I had already conquered. From up here, the streets were veins of light, the heartbeat of something too big to care about people like us.
But he did.
And he followed.
Like he always did.
The rain clung to him, sliding down the sharp cut of his jaw, soaking his black shirt until it molded against his skin. He was all muscle and darkness, his dark eyes burning with something I didn’t want to name.
He looked like a nightmare wrapped in leather and sin dangerous, relentless.
"Three days." His voice was low, rough. "You disappeared for three f*****g days, Kingsly."
I turned slowly, unimpressed. "Didn’t realize I had to check in with you."
His jaw ticked. Controlled rage. "You don’t. But you should have."
I sighed, pulling my gun, leveling it at him. The metal felt cool and solid in my grip, a familiar weight.
"I don’t have time for your possessive bullshit, Aaron."
That smirk. That f*****g smirk.
"You never do."
He stepped forward. I c****d the gun.
He didn’t stop.
Another step.
Water dripped from his fingertips, his chest rising and falling in steady rhythm, his gaze locked onto mine with the kind of intensity that could burn.
I exhaled, steady. "I will shoot you."
Aaron exhaled a laugh, low and dark. "No, you won’t."
And then he moved.
Fast.
I fired he knocked the gun from my grip in a blur, fingers curling around my wrist, spinning me, caging me against the rooftop ledge.
His breath fanned against my ear, warm despite the cold, his grip unrelenting.
"You think you can disappear on me?" His voice was velvet-wrapped steel. Dark promise, sharp edges. "Like I wouldn’t come for you?"
I twisted, slamming my elbow into his ribs. He grunted but didn’t let go. Instead, he used the momentum to spin me, pressing my back against the cold concrete ledge.
Too close. Too warm. Too much.
Aaron Blackwood and I had spent years crossing paths, always on opposite sides, always one step away from spilling the other’s blood.
He flirted. I ignored him.
He chased. I ran.
Until the next time. And the next.
But tonight? Tonight was different.
"Let. Me. Go."
Aaron exhaled sharply, gaze flicking to my lips. His fingers flexed, as if resisting the urge to grip tighter.
"You can fight me all you want, but you know what I am to you."
I scoffed. "Annoying?"
His smirk widened. "Obsessed."
A growl built in my throat, and I moved to knee him he caught my thigh, pressing his body flush against mine, trapping me completely.
"I don’t care about your mission," he murmured, voice rough with something I refused to name. "I don’t care about your secrets." His grip tightened. "I just want you. And I’ll burn the world down before I let you slip through my fingers again."
My heart slammed against my ribs. Not in fear. In something far more dangerous.
But this wasn’t about me disappearing.
It was about what we had learned as well.
About the problem we both shared now.
"They set us up, Kingsly," he murmured, voice rough. "You and me. They want us dead."
I didn’t react. Didn’t blink.
Because I already knew.
And I knew why.
His gaze sharpened, reading me too easily. "You already figured it out, didn’t you?"
I stayed silent.
"Of course you did." His grip tightened. "Who was it? Which organization?"
I tilted my head, watching him, waiting.
Because Aaron was smart, but I needed to see if he had figured out the rest.
If he knew what they were really after.
His jaw clenched. "Kingsly."
I exhaled slowly. "It’s not just a setup, Aaron."
A beat of silence.
Then, realization dawned in his eyes.
"The artifact."
There it was.
The reason we were both standing on this rooftop, hunted.
The reason they wanted us dead.
And the reason, for the first time, we had to work together.
Aaron let out a slow, dark laugh. "Shit."
Yeah. s**t.
I twisted sharply, using his own momentum to flip him over my shoulder. He hit the ground with a hard thud, the impact echoing through the empty rooftop.
For a moment, there was only the sound of rain, the city humming below us.
Then he laughed again.
"God, Kingsly," he breathed, staring up at me like I hung the damn stars.
A beat. A smirk.
"You’re going to kill me one day."
His eyes burned into mine, wild, unhinged.
"And I love it."
I didn’t hesitate.
I turned and disappeared into the night.
Aaron lay there for a second, chest rising and falling, rain dripping into his eyes.
And he smiled.
Because this wasn’t over.
Not even close.
- Writer
