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Illuga hadn’t expected to run into danger on his trip back to the Final Night Cemetery.
The dark mist of the Hunt stopped him in his tracks, along with the thick, nauseating scent of blood rolling in. There was no time for thinking.
Rushing to the scene, he nearly stumbled over mangled corpses of the exiled, strewn at his feet. Not even a single corrupted monster remained with its limbs intact. It was a complete wipe-out.
What he did see was one dark, iron-clad Knight in the aftermath, drenched in obsidian blood, heaving for breath. The moment those eyes locked on his, Illuga knew this was no nightmare. He could recognize that wicked grin in his dreams.
“Hey, Captain. Fancy running into you here.”
Lohen’s sword, twirled in an idle hand, cut through the moonlight.
“Care to spar?”
There was no mistaking the signs. Lohen’s silhouette flickered, nearly swallowed up by the pitch-dark of this Abyssal wasteland. Short breaths faded into wisps of frost—visibly erratic, losing control of his Vision. It was clear that he’d been soaking in this atmosphere, willingly seeking this fight on his own.
On any other day, Illuga would’ve refused. If his old pops hadn’t just sent him off on a supply run, insisting that he take time off to rest and recover, Illuga would’ve been back on the front lines. There was no time for rest when danger lurked at every corner.
Monsters could take on many forms. There was no mistaking this one.
“Lohen,” he said. “You should've called for reinforcements."
“Worried about me? You’re alone, too.”
Illuga exhaled slowly, flexed his fingers on the hilt of his polearm. Lohen caught the movement and grinned.
“Just think of it as some stress relief. Don’t hold back,” was all he said before charging at Illuga.
It had been a long time since Illuga had been so thoroughly outmatched in battle.
In the blink of an eye, Lohen was coming at him in all directions. The swing of his sword cleaved through the night with lethal precision, relentlessly cold in its pursuit, shredding all illusions. Gritting his teeth against the impact, Illuga could barely counter each strike in time for the next, muscles still aching from patrol. The sweat froze instantly on his skin.
He’d heard tales from Varka and the other Knights about Lohen’s extraordinary feats in battle. To face off against his inhuman strength first-hand was a different experience entirely. Lohen took Favonius bladework to the next level, cutting down hordes of monsters all on his own like a whirling blizzard. Not to mention, those eyes—full of icy passion, pure blood-lust—were now focused solely on Illuga.
This was no ordinary spar.
“Slowing down already?”
Lohen wasn’t even trying to hold back. That attitude, that mocking stare—it was like he wanted Illuga to let loose, baiting his every move. Illuga wasn’t having it.
“Let’s call it here,” Illuga said, grunting as he deflected another bone-shattering strike. The shudder of impact made his jaw ache. “This isn’t a safe zone. You’re clearly injured.”
“So are you. Better watch your back, Captain.”
Lohen’s shadow loomed behind him. Half a second too slow. Before Illuga had time to react, Lohen twisted his arm behind his back and kicked his polearm out of reach, swiftly slamming him to the ground in one fell swoop.
With the recent injuries he’d sustained, Illuga was knocked breathless. The full weight of Lohen’s armored knee on his back made it impossible to move, let alone breathe. The vice grip on the back of his neck locked around him like a collar, nothing short of bruising.
Illuga turned his head, choked on a mouthful of dirt.
“You—” he hissed.
“Would you look at that? You’re pretty fast on your feet.”
Lohen yanked a fistful of Illuga’s hair to let him breathe, kneeling so close that the tips of his hair tickled Illuga’s cheek. For a few moments, the only sounds to be heard in the clearing were their rough, panting breaths—clashing even in the silence.
Their eyes met at the edge. Lohen’s lips cracked in a bloody grin.
“Still not fast enough to beat me, though.”
It wasn’t like Illuga to let his guard down like this. Something about Lohen’s reckless attitude in battle brought years of suppressed rage boiling back to the surface, swept up in a storm that engulfed them both. His tattered coat was ruined, supplies laying in a heap of dirt and snow somewhere. Nothing was going to plan.
“You threw yourself into danger,” Illuga retorted. “What’s the point? You want to die?”
Lohen didn’t bother to respond just yet. He took his sweet damn time, eyeing him from head to toe. Illuga knew where his gaze would linger, where he found the most interest. The torn slits in his clothes revealed a water-color canvas underneath, glimpses of old scars and fresh wounds alike.
“Not quite yet,” Lohen said. “It’s been a while since I’ve had this much fun. You might just make a half-decent Knight, after all.”
Ice-cold fingertips caressed the scar around Illuga’s neck and shoulder. Illuga cursed the shiver that stole through his body.
“Let’s have a rematch. What do you say? Captain.”
Illuga took his chance. He jabbed his elbow in Lohen’s chest and twisted, socking Lohen in the face. Lohen didn’t even seem surprised. Blood dripped down from his nose and lip. Then his eyes refocused, sizing up Illuga with a dangerous sort of glee, a wildfire beyond control.
Illuga felt dizzy.
“Get off. Our sparring session is over,” he said. “This is your last warning.”
“That so?”
Before he realized it, Lohen had him pinned down like a dog, bloody fingers clamped hard around his throat. Illuga’s gasp was cut off almost instantly. Lohen refused to let him up, grinding his ribs into the murky snow and laughing as he thrashed.
Ice crawled up the sides of Illuga’s neck, a faint burn. He refused to let it affect him.
Above him, Lohen’s silhouette blotted out the murky night above, half draped in shadow, a prince among the dead and dying—the world bent to his will. Illuga’s vision started to cave in, ears still ringing from the impact. Trapped in a dark corner of the world, where the foul stench of the Wild Hunt clung to the damp earth, a rogue Knight and a Lightkeeper reached a bloody stalemate. Illuga’s breath rattled in his lungs.
Dark blood matted Lohen’s hair and cloak, more creature than not, staining his armor a much darker silver than moonlight.
“Make me stop.”
Illuga was on relatively good terms with the Knights stationed near Piramida. They were kind, honorable souls. The juniors even addressed him as “captain.”
Lohen was a special case. He saw Illuga’s scars for what they were. Encounters with death that had pushed him to his limits, over and over again—until, like broken glass, the cracks of his body had spread and splintered under the pressure, bending and twisting into a deformed thing of its own.
They had both witnessed the death of their comrades too early. They both knew there were no second chances on the battlefield, not even surrender.
“That won’t work,” Illuga said, his breaths frozen. “If I run, you’ll just catch me.”
Lohen’s laughter was deceptively gentle. He cupped Illuga’s face softly with blood-stained fingers. The two of them were similar in all the worst ways.
“That’s right. It’s a shame that you enjoy this, too,” he whispered into Illuga’s neck, before biting down.
For a moment, the world stood still.
Illuga didn’t cry out. Instinctively, his muscles went tight, shoulders stiff and cramped where the first bite of pain lanced through his nerves. It was a mistake. Lohen took his weakness as an open-mouthed invitation, sucking a heady bruise between Illuga’s neck and shoulder—scarred skin made honest, molded in the shape of Lohen’s teeth, his unwanted devotion. A shudder rolled through Illuga’s senses, in for a brutal awakening.
Easy prey.
Illuga gritted his teeth and turned his head, not willing to give Lohen the satisfaction of seeing him crumble. He kicked Lohen hard in his wounded side. Moaning softly, Lohen licked the blood from his temple, as if it was more precious than tears.
“Stop playing dirty. If you want a fair fight, this isn’t it.”
“What fight? I already beat you once,” Lohen said, sliding a hand up his sweater, casually intruding upon Illuga’s space like it was his. Bloody fingers hooked into the straps of his harness like a leash. “These are my spoils of war.”
That was the end of his good will.
He yanked Lohen down by the collar, forcing him to bite his words.
To call it kissing would be pure delusion. This was all teeth and no tongue, the iron bite of conquest. The heat of Lohen's body possessed him in full. After the physical exertion of their fight, combined with the injuries he’d sustained earlier, Illuga was quickly losing breath as they wrestled in the dirt.
Half-dried blood stuck to his fingertips. Lohen was laughing like he’d won, cheeks flushed from the adrenaline. Heart pounding in his throat, in his lips, Illuga could feel where Lohen’s body had nearly been ripped apart by large monster claws. Red, angry slashes across his back—where he’d danced at the crescent edge of death, courting his own demise. His eyes rolled back as Lohen bit hard on his lower lip.
This pain was the only solace he knew; it reached him where comfort never had. Maybe the emptiness he saw within Lohen’s eyes was just a broken reflection of himself. Maybe this was the only way someone like him could ever truly atone.
Even like this, Illuga wondered about him.
If he melted down those layers of battle-hardened frost, what would he see? What kind of past had led Lohen down a righteous road, with so much pain harbored in his heart?
Perhaps he’d never know. Some distance was better for them both.
Anything but this—this fever dream, scorching hot at his fingertips. When he gasped for breath, Lohen pushed his tongue in deeper. Was the back of Lohen’s head bloody in his hands, or was his vision making everything tinged red? He couldn’t see past the trees; the hunger in their eyes swallowed him whole. Desperate breaths scratched through his throat, wheezing as Lohen shoved his head back into the dirt and snow, twisting both hands behind his back. Illuga grunted, dazed.
“I knew it. You like being handled like this, huh? No wonder it was so easy to track you down.”
“You’re insane,” Illuga hissed.
“See? It’s like we’re made for each other.”
Lohen's thumb parted the seam of his lips. Illuga bit down until he tasted blood, unrelenting in his glare. Something flickered in the bottomless depths of Lohen’s eyes—the only warning he received before gloved fingers shoved down Illuga’s throat. Illuga choked, jaw aching from the strain.
“How about you get these nice and wet for me?”
Light-headed, all Illuga could do was curse around Lohen’s fingers, muffled voice melting into a moan. Even so, his mouth pooled with excess drool—a small mercy. Heat pulsed in his lower abdomen, sharp and jittered like a caged heartbeat. His body was betraying him, heavy and leaking where Lohen shoved a knee between his legs, not even pretending to be gentle.
“Look at that,” Lohen laughed, kneading his erection under his high-rise boot. “Hah! Forgot how much of a freak you were. Did you miss me that much?”
Illuga went limp almost immediately, riding on pure instinct. He couldn’t tell if it was his own body that was trembling or the core of the earth, enveloping him in the dark stage before death. Crows settled upon his still-breathing body—his spirit was alive, flickering, drawing their hungry gaze. He’d rather die than submit like this.
“Fuck you,” he spat out. Lohen’s fingers withdrew, wiping drool on his face.
“That’s not very nice of you, Captain.”
A scathing mockery of politeness, colder than the night-wind that whipped their battered bodies. Illuga wasn’t a crier. He didn’t tremble when his pants were shoved halfway down his thighs. It was Lohen who was desperate to devour him whole, for reasons he would never know.
When he searched for answers, the Abyss stared back at him.
“Beg me to stop,” Lohen said, “and maybe I’ll consider it.”
“Just get it over with already."
Somehow, that seemed to be the wrong answer. Illuga’s hips bucked away on instinct—a futile endeavor. With Lohen’s hands steering his hips, it was impossible to avoid the sharp cracks of pain as he was stretched dry from the inside. A primal gasp clawed out from Illuga’s throat.
“Since you asked so nicely.”
It had been ages since he’d been fucked like this. Illuga’s experience was limited to late-night trysts with junior squadmates on patrol, fumbling hands in the dark, careful to keep their voices down. Years later, those memories were long gone—and the people, too.
Raw heat pulsed between their hips like a second pulse. Illuga knew without a glance that he was bleeding, his guts squeezing and constricting like a snake. A sudden surge of nausea made him throw up a little in his mouth. This was the raw, unfiltered passion of love, a dangerous game of conquest. Illuga was trembling, drunk on sensation.
“You’re as loose as always, Illuga.” His name, spoken slowly, was sweet poison on Lohen’s lips. “How many times have they passed you around like this? Does that guy know?”
“Shut your mouth.”
“Oh? Did I touch a nerve?"
Bruises of this nature would take on all sorts of colors by the time this was over. It must look like he’d been mauled by a feral beast, if he could even stand. Briefly, he wondered what Flins would think when he finally staggered back to the lighthouse, half a day off schedule—or however long it took with his ankle throbbing and insides ripped open. Maybe no one would notice a thing.
“Well, that’s too bad.”
Lohen’s breaths were growing ragged, hips quickening without remorse. Not a hint of self-restraint in those eyes.
“You’re my favorite toy. You know that? You don’t need anyone else.”
Each shallow thrust punched out a strangled gasp from Illuga’s throat, bruised and battered from the labor of breathing. Even so, his hips rolled to meet every thrust, rewarded with Lohen's satisfied groan.
“Lohen—”
“You love this,” Lohen said. “Don’t you?”
There was no point in providing a response. Already, Illuga couldn’t restrain himself. He threw his head back, shuddering without sound. Every part of his body ached under Lohen’s control—breaking with every thrust, every cruel snap of Lohen’s hips. It was a ritualistic form of humiliation, being reduced to Lohen’s lapdog. Their blood was mixing together. Illuga was sure he was bleeding out from his skull, numb to the world, reduced to flesh and bone.
“That’s why you keep seeking me out, little bird. Maybe I’ll tell them all about it sometime. A little gift before I steal you away.”
“Don’t you dare—”
Without warning, Lohen squeezed the sides of his neck, thumb pressing into the frantic pulse that jumped to life under his skin. Just when he was reaching his limit, Lohen bottomed out with a slow grind, forcing Illuga to feel every inch of him, painfully full.
Nails dug into the back of Lohen’s head, clawing at the strands.
“Ack—!”
Illuga’s cries fell into stillness as Lohen’s hips stuttered with a lethal curse, pulsing inside of him. The force of his orgasm hit him like a tidal wave. It made him dizzy, made him cry. It snapped every bone in his body. He couldn’t even come back to his body, not when it had been seized from him so thoroughly—heart outside of himself, lifting its broken wings frantically. Or was his heart the thing that was choking him, still beating? He was losing feeling in his limbs.
Briefly, he had a vision of dying here. Crimson drained from his wounds, every bitter failure and loss seeping out endlessly in a stream under the moon. Lohen had carved him open from the inside, unearthed dirty crevices that no one else would dare gaze upon, pain he thought he’d long left behind.
Was this love? Was this all that he was, all that would ever remain?
Lohen pinched the sides of his jaw, forcing his mouth to fall open. A thick glop of spit fell from Lohen’s tongue onto his own, before it was sealed by his lips in a rough, bruising kiss.
Mine.
There was no room for misunderstandings. Illuga had become an object of possession, and so he let himself be claimed, just for one night. Forever was a luxury for people like them.
Snow dusted his eyelashes. Warmth left his body, mouth to mouth.
Illuga was too tired to keep his eyes open.
He recounted a pledge he’d memorized since the day he joined the Lightkeepers. An oath of eternal vigilance, to never let his guard down against evil; for as long as darkness existed in the corners of this world, Illuga’s debt would never be repaid.
As long as he held onto this promise, Illuga would always chase the shadows of tomorrow’s dawn.
Waves crashed on distant shores, the night sky devoured by a deathly silence, still breathing.
The world exhaled with him.
Illuga returned in flickers of consciousness. His back was propped up against the bark of a tree, coat slung around his shoulders, bleeding into the snow. Lohen kissed the dark rim under his eyes, as a lover would. His messy tangle of hair veiled the rest of the world from view.
“You must be tired,” Lohen said, his voice a soft lullaby, “using your bones and blood as fuel. Why keep fighting? Just submit to me.”
Idle fingernails traced down the bleeding line of Illuga’s throat, the jagged scar that ran deep within him like a knife. So close to death, Illuga still came out alive; even now, Lohen’s touch was one of worship at an altar, the once-raging blizzard within him subdued by gentle light of dawn.
As long the darkness within him had yet to subside, Lohen would always find his way back to Illuga. A cycle of endless devotion bound them together. There was no fighting this.
Illuga’s throat was completely shot when he spoke. It must be ringed with flames—too many bruises and bite-marks to count.
“Don’t,” he said. Paused to breathe. “Not a word to anyone else.”
“Yes, sir. Your secrets are safe with me.” Lohen breathed out a laugh, devoid of humor. “I’m sure it’s obvious enough, even to those brainless idiots.”
That was the best he’d get from Lohen. Illuga cradled the fingers that were re-wrapping his bandages, the only familiar thing in this biting cold. Lohen paused. Just one flicker of warmth—that was all Illuga needed as his eyelids grew heavy.
“Rest well, Captain.”