Page 128 of Shadow Waltz
“How many?” I asked, though I wasn't sure I wanted the answer.
“Forty-seven confirmed survivors scattered across twelve countries,” Ash read, voice carrying the weight of lives hanging in the balance. “But the files suggest coordinated operations to eliminate them within the next month.”
The scope of systematic murder they were planning made something cold and calculating unfurl in my mind, because it meant this war wouldn't end with our deaths. They intended to erase every trace of what we'd built, every person who might remember that love and power could coexist instead of destroying each other.
“Then we make sure they don't get the chance,” I said, producing the thermite charges that would ensure no trace of their intelligence survived our visit.
The explosion that followed turned the warehouse into an inferno that could be seen from Manhattan, flames reaching toward the sky like prayers written in smoke and violence. But more importantly, it eliminated the federal task force's ability to coordinate the systematic murder of everyone who'd ever been part of our world.
As we drove away from the burning pier, I found myself processing what we'd accomplished and what it meant for our survival. We'd bought time, eliminated immediate threats, reminded our enemies that hunting us carried costs they might not be prepared to pay.
But we'd also escalated a conflict that could only end with complete victory or total destruction.
“How do you feel?” I asked Ash as we returned to our temporary command center, noting the way adrenaline was finally wearing off to reveal exhaustion underneath.
“Like we just declared war on the United States government,” he replied, but his smile carried satisfaction despite the implications. “Like we reminded them that some people refuse to go quietly into whatever graves they've prepared for us.”
Back at the warehouse, we processed the intelligence we'd recovered while our bodies cooled down from combat operations. But it was the way Ash moved through post-operation routines that revealed how completely he'd adapted to our new reality—checking weapons, analyzing captured intelligence, coordinating with our remaining people with the competence of someone born to command.
“You're good at this,” I observed, watching him organize captured files with the same systematic attention he brought to everything else.
“I'm good at surviving,” Ash corrected, looking up from intelligence reports with eyes that carried new understanding. “Everything else is just application of principles I learned on the streets.”
The admission reminded me that while I'd been building an empire through calculated violence, he'd been learning to navigate systems designed to destroy people like him. His insights came from experience rather than theory, survival rather than strategy.
But it was later, in the privacy of our secured quarters, that the full weight of what we'd shared hit both of us. We'd killed together, fought together, risked everything together in service of something larger than individual survival.
“Come here,” I said.
Ash obeyed with the kind of fluid grace that had first caught my attention at the auction, but now his submission carried different weight—not compliance driven by fear, but choice made by someone who understood exactly what he was offering and why. Every movement he made was deliberate, a quietsurrender that held all the power of a man who could have walked away and chose instead to step closer.
When I kissed him, it was with the desperate hunger of someone who'd just been reminded how quickly everything could be lost, how thin the line was between victory and destruction. He kissed me back with equal intensity, hands fisting in my hair as he pulled me closer with need that had been building through hours of coordinated violence and adrenaline. The taste of him—sweat, gunpowder, fear and relief—flooded my mouth, grounding me in the present, reminding me of everything we’d survived.
I pressed him back onto the mattress, my body covering his, pinning him down with the weight of everything we couldn’t say. “The collar,” I breathed against his lips, fingers finding the diamond necklace that had somehow survived everything we'd been through. I curled my fingers around the cold, heavy metal, feeling it pulse with his heartbeat. “Keep it on.”
“Always,” Ash replied, and the word carried weight beyond simple agreement, a promise forged in gunfire and blood and the quiet hope that we might actually make it out of this alive.
I took my time stripping away what little clothing he had left, working methodically, baring inch after inch of skin until he was spread out for me, bruised and marked but beautiful, the diamond collar gleaming against his throat like a brand. My hands roamed over him, memorizing every scar and bruise, every place I’d left my mark and every place the world had tried to take him from me.
He shivered under my touch, but didn’t look away, meeting my gaze with a trust that felt more intimate than any confession.
He reached up, knotted his fingers in the collar at his throat, and pulled me down for another kiss—hungry, demanding, a reminder that he was just as desperate for this as I was.
I took my time with him, letting foreplay become its own kind of worship. My mouth found his throat, biting lightly at the pulse point beneath the collar, then licking and kissing the sensitive skin until he was panting, writhing beneath me. I kissed down his chest, sucking bruises over his heart, leaving marks on the pale skin as evidence that he was still mine, still here, still alive.
Ash arched into every touch, his legs falling open in invitation, his cock already hard and leaking against his belly. I didn’t rush—wouldn’t let myself rush—because this might be the last time, the last chance to show him everything he meant to me. I spread his thighs, settled between them, and just looked at him for a moment, greedy for the sight of him open and wanting, every muscle trembling with anticipation.
“Luka,” he whispered, voice breaking on my name. “Please. I need?—”
“I know what you need,” I said, reaching for the bottle of lube I’d stashed under the pillow hours ago, a small act of hope in the face of impossible odds. I poured it into my hand, slick and cold, and warmed it before rubbing slow, messy circles over the head of his cock, then down to his balls, gentle but relentless. I loved the way he shuddered at the touch, his breath coming in shallow, desperate bursts.
I slid a slick finger lower, teasing his hole, not breaching him yet—just circling, making him squirm, making him beg with his body even if he didn’t say a word. His hands fisted in the sheets, his hips rolling up in silent invitation, thighs trembling as I finally pressed the tip of my finger inside.
The moan that broke from his lips was raw and guttural, pleasure and relief and the kind of desperate need that only comes when death is close enough to taste. I worked him open with slow, patient care, adding another finger, then a third,stretching him until he was panting, flushed, his entire body trembling on the edge of something dangerous.
He looked wrecked—sweat-damp hair plastered to his forehead, cheeks flushed, lips bitten red from trying not to cry out too loud. “More,” he begged, voice shaking, “please, Luka, just—just take me, I need?—”
“I’m not done with you yet,” I said, and pulled my fingers free to hear him whimper, then bent and licked a broad stripe up his cock, tasting the salt of his skin, the bitter-sweet precome. I swallowed him down, slow and deep, letting my tongue work him while my hands kept his hips pinned, stopping him from thrusting up, forcing him to take what I gave and nothing more.