The ruins had finally gone quiet.
Fires smoldered in the plaza where Ethan had killed the claimant, thin columns of smoke rising like accusations into the bruised sky. The survivors huddled together in what had once been a subway entrance, their whispers a low murmur beneath the crackle of burning debris.
Ethan couldn't sleep. He sat apart from them, his back pressed against the cool stone wall of a broken overpass, staring at his hands. The blood had been scrubbed off, but he could still feel it. Still see it.
Every time he blinked, he saw the claimant's face—eyes bulging, throat crushed beneath his grip, crimson light pouring through flesh like molten cracks in stone. He saw the boy he'd nearly strangled earlier. He saw Selene's eyes watching him, sharp and unreadable.
And beneath all of it, he heard the whispers.
Alpha. Predator. Hunger.
He dug his nails into his palms until pain cut through the noise. For a moment, it grounded him. For a moment, he was Ethan Carter again—not the monster the Core wanted to carve out of him.
A shadow moved at the edge of his vision.
Selene.
She came wordlessly, her coat brushing the broken ground, her hair pulled back and glinting faintly in the firelight. She carried herself like she belonged here—like the apocalypse had been built for her. She didn't look weary. She didn't look afraid. If anything, she looked… untouchable.
And that only made Ethan feel smaller.
She dropped down beside him, close enough for him to feel the heat radiating from her body, close enough for him to smell the faint trace of steel and blood and something darker, sharper.
"You're shaking," she said. Not a question.
Ethan stared at the ground. "I almost killed a kid."
Selene didn't flinch. "But you didn't."
His laugh was bitter. "Only because you stopped me."
Her eyes softened, just barely. "You think you're the first to nearly lose yourself? You think you're the first to hear the Core whispering, clawing at your head? You're not. The difference is… you're still fighting."
The silence stretched between them. Ethan tried not to look at her, but his gaze betrayed him. The sharp line of her jaw. The faint scar cutting through her lower lip. The way her hand rested casually on her thigh, fingers tapping against the leather sheath of her blade as if even now, even here, she was ready to strike.
She caught him looking. Didn't smile, but her lips curved, the faintest twitch.
Ethan's chest tightened. "You don't trust me."
"I don't trust anyone." Her voice was low, edged with something that wasn't quite threat, wasn't quite confession. "But I trust what I see. And right now? I see someone who's drowning."
Her words dug under his skin. Because she was right.
The Core stirred inside him, coiling tighter. She sees you. She knows you. Take her. Claim her.
He shut his eyes, fighting the heat crawling through his veins. "You make it sound easy."
Selene leaned closer. He could feel the brush of her breath against his ear, soft and deliberate. "It's not. But control doesn't mean silencing the Core. It means learning how to use it… without letting it use you."
Her proximity made it hard to breathe. He could feel every inch of space between them—or rather, how little space there was. She wasn't touching him, but she might as well have been.
"Why are you telling me this?" Ethan asked, voice rough.
Finally, she looked at him. Her eyes, sharp as blades, softened for just an instant. "Because I know what happens when you lose."
Her gaze lingered on his mouth before sliding away. The movement was so slight, so fleeting, that he almost thought he'd imagined it. But the Core didn't.
She wants. She tempts. Take her.
Ethan's pulse hammered in his throat. He leaned back, forcing space between them, terrified not of her—but of himself.
"You're dangerous," he whispered.
Selene's lips curved, slow and deliberate this time. "So are you."
The words hung there, charged, dangerous.
Then she rose in one fluid movement, pulling her coat tight around her. "Get some rest, Ethan. Tomorrow will be worse."
He watched her disappear into the shadows, his chest still tight, his blood still burning with whispers.
And when he closed his eyes, he wasn't sure if he was more afraid of the Core inside him… or of the woman who had just walked away.
The night stretched on like an open wound.
Sleep came for the others, but not for Ethan. Every time he tried to close his eyes, the Core pressed harder—images flashing across his mind. Selene's face caught in firelight. Her voice, low and close, curling like smoke around his ear. Her lips—
No.
He slammed the back of his head against the wall, desperate to silence it. The sting of pain helped for all of two heartbeats. Then the whispers crept back in.
She tempts. She belongs. Claim.
Ethan dragged in a ragged breath, pressing a hand to his chest as if he could cage the Core inside. His veins glowed faintly crimson beneath his skin, a pulsing light that refused to dim. He could feel it—wanting, hungering—not just for blood, but for something else. For closeness. For touch.
He cursed under his breath, forcing himself to his feet. The ruins were silent, only the occasional groan of shifting steel or crackle of fire filling the air. The others slept deeply, huddled together in their corner of the subway entrance. All except one.
Selene.
She sat at the far end of the passage, perched like a sentinel on a broken slab of concrete. Her sword rested across her knees, her coat pooled around her legs. She wasn't asleep. She wasn't even pretending to be.
Her head turned slightly, as though she had sensed him.
Ethan froze. He should go back, force himself to rest, keep the distance she'd drawn between them. But his feet betrayed him. Slowly, carefully, he walked toward her.
"You're restless," she said without looking at him. Her voice was quiet, but it carried in the hollow silence.
"You're not sleeping either," he muttered.
A faint curve touched her lips, though her eyes remained fixed on the shadows beyond. "Sleep is for those who can afford to dream."
Ethan stopped a few paces away, unsure if he should sit, unsure if he even wanted to. His body screamed for rest, but his blood—it buzzed, alive, burning.
"You think the Core… ever shuts up?" he asked.
At that, she finally looked at him. Her eyes caught the faint glow of his veins, the way the crimson light seemed to throb under his skin. There was no judgment in her gaze, only recognition.
"No," she said softly. "It never stops. It only learns new ways to seduce you."
The word—seduce—hung between them, heavier than it should have been.
Ethan swallowed hard, his throat dry. "And what happens when you give in?"
Selene's hand brushed along the edge of her blade, fingers lingering on steel. She didn't look away from him when she answered.
"Then you stop being you."
The Core hissed, But she tempts too. She lies. She hides.
Ethan wanted to believe it. Needed to believe it. But every time Selene looked at him with that sharp, knowing gaze, he saw the same exhaustion mirrored in her. The same battle. The same scars.
He stepped closer without realizing it, drawn by something deeper than the whispers. Selene didn't move. Didn't flinch. But her eyes flickered—once, quickly—down to his mouth.
It was enough. Enough to make his chest tighten, enough to make the Core roar inside him like fire spilling through veins.
He caught himself before he closed the last step between them, hands curling into fists. He wanted to touch her. To anchor himself against her warmth, her strength, her danger.
But if he did, he wasn't sure if it would be Ethan reaching for her… or the Core.
Selene must have seen it. Must have felt it. Because she finally shifted, leaning back, breaking the gravity between them.
"You should try to rest," she said, her voice calm but not steady.
Ethan swallowed hard, forcing himself to step back. The pull stretched like a tether, burning, but he let it snap.
"Yeah," he muttered. "Rest."
He turned away before he did something reckless. Before the Core could push harder.
But when he finally lay back against the cold concrete, eyes half-shut, the last thing burned into his vision wasn't the claimant's face or the blood-soaked city.
It was Selene's lips parting as if she'd been about to say something else. Something she swallowed before it escaped.
And that haunted him more than the whispers ever could.