The Ashen Barrow loomed in a crooked cleft of cragged stone and thick fog, a quiet wound in the desolate shore of the Dream Realm. It wasn't just hollow, thick with the presence of something ancient and dreadful beings. Cassie stood near the jagged entrance, her pale eyes unseeing but alert, her lips moving soundlessly as she communed with something distant and divine. Sunny lingered a few steps behind her, but it wasn't Cassie his eyes had caught.
Nephis sat at the base of a shattered monolith deeper within the crypt, a blade across her knees, her once silvery-white hair where in a mess and dirty falling around her shoulders . The stone beneath her had been black once, but blood—hers or someone else's—had left rust-dark stains across its surface.
She wasn't watching him. But she knew he was watching her.
The dim light leaking in from above played along her pale skin, and something about that stillness—the way she didn't bother to adjust her posture, as if the barrow had become her throne—sent something feral scraping at the walls inside Sunny. He'd seen her fight, seen her bleed and burn and kill without flinching, but now, sitting silent in repose, she looked impossibly distant. He hated how much he wanted to touch her in that moment.
He hated it. But he didn't stop.
Cassie's voice murmured low tone, like prayer, like invocation. She was focused, blind to the heat rising behind her, oblivious to the way Sunny's stare began to stretch into something that didn't belong in a ruined temple.
Nephis's eyes—silver with cold, cold fire—flicked toward him.
Only a flick. Just enough.
Sunny froze. His breath caught, half shame and half hunger. But Nephis didn't avert her gaze. She didn't look away, didn't scowl or chide or turn her face from the heat in his. The moment stretched. Her expression remained unreadable, lips parted just slightly, a breath drawn and held as if she were listening to something far away—or maybe just to him.
His mouth was dry. Gods, what the hell was wrong with him?
She turned her head toward Cassie, as if ensuring the blind girl was still engaged, then tilted it back ever so slightly. Her throat caught the dim light, the hollow there pulsing once as she swallowed. A slow, deliberate gesture. No words.
Sunny's fingers twitched. He looked away. No—he tried to. But his gaze slipped back, dragged like iron toward her form: the pale curve of her collarbone, the lean muscle shifting beneath her skin, the soot-dark smear across her cheek, the barest rise and fall of her chest beneath the tattered remnants of her armor. She was resting, but never vulnerable. Poised like a blade between kills.
And that was what undid him.
The fantasy bloomed sharp and fast in his skull—her breathing harder, her thighs trembling open, that same expressionless gaze locked on his as he touched her, tasted her, as he shoved her down against these very stones. And she'd let him. Not because he was strong enough to take it, but because she wanted him to try.
He dragged a breath through clenched teeth.
She shifted. Slowly, she rose. Not rushed, not startled. She stood like smoke curling up from a dying fire, weapon in hand but lowered. Her expression hadn't changed, but something in the set of her mouth—her stance—betrayed that she knew. She knew what he'd imagined. And she wasn't disgusted.
That alone nearly unraveled him.
Nephis stepped past Cassie without pause, close enough that her shoulder brushed his arm, barely grazing but enough to make his whole body go taut. She didn't look at him, didn't speak. But the warmth left in the wake of her skin against his was blistering, forbidden, magnetic.
Cassie turned then, brow furrowed. "Sunny? You okay?"
He opened his mouth. Closed it. Tried again.
"Yeah," he rasped, voice a little raw. "Just... tired."
Nephis kept walking, her white hair fanning behind her like a war-banner. She said nothing. But her fingers brushed her hip, where her blade hung, slow and almost casual—like she was reminding him what she was.
What she could be.
Sunny followed her retreating form with eyes he could barely keep still, heart pounding harder now than it ever had during battle. And he realized, with something like terror and awe, that the part of him staring wasn't just hungry. It was possessed.
And Nephis—she didn't hate it.
The Ashen Barrow had gone still, the flickering ghosts of heat and movement long since drowned in the cold hush of night. Mist curled in thin tendrils between the fractured stones, and the world outside their shallow refuge had vanished into black, endless silence. Within the makeshift hollow where they had camped, three bodies lay still—separate, cocooned in what ragged comfort they could find amid ancient sand and looming death.
Sunny was laying wide awake though.
Sleep had eluded him from the start. His body refused rest, heart pumping with a stubborn, low thrum that had nothing to do with fear or vigilance. It was need. A craving sunk so deep he could taste it behind his teeth, thick and bitter like iron.
He glanced to the side. Cassie slept peacefully, her back turned, wrapped in her armour that Nephis had lend her, one hand curled beneath her cheek, expression serene. Blind to the shadows. Blind to him. She wouldn't see him move.
He rose without a sound.
The stone was cold under his palms as he crawled over it, slow and cautious, shadows shifting around him like something alive. He crept across the small space that separated them, heart hammering like a war drum. And there she was—Nephis, lying on her side with her back to him, silver hair spilling like spilled light across her blanket, her breathing slow and deep.
He stared at her, breath caught in his throat. Her armor had been peeled away earlier, left in a neat pile nearby. Only the thin remnants of a soft undershirt and worn pants clung to her now—standard issue, functional, frayed at the seams. But they didn't hide much.
Every inch of her seemed sculpted in moonlight and murder. The lean muscles of her back shifted subtly with each breath. Her waist narrowed, flaring again into hips he couldn't look away from, the shape of her thighs pulling at something primal and wrong in him. He should have left it at that. Should've rolled over, closed his eyes, tried to forget how much he wanted her.
But his body moved before the thought could harden.
He slipped down beside her, careful not to wake her—though even as he did, some part of him knew she wasn't truly asleep. Nephis wasn't the kind to fall completely unconscious, even in relative safety. She'd know.
That thought should've stopped him. But instead, it thrilled him.
He pressed close, slow, hesitant at first, until his chest brushed against her back, breath ghosting across her nape. She didn't move. Didn't tense. And gods—he felt it then. The subtle shift of her hips backward, just a fraction. An adjustment, or maybe an invitation.
Sunny exhaled, shaky, and let himself lean in, hardening against her thigh. The friction—light at first—burned through him, the fabric separating them a cruel tease. He rocked forward, hips gently grinding into her, heat surging as he felt the softness of her ass shift into the motion, the slightest, almost imperceptible arch of her back.
Still no protest. No recoil. No breath of a word.
She felt warm. Softer than he had imagined—and he'd imagined it far too many times. Her body accepted the pressure with a slow, deliberate stillness, as if she wasn't ignoring it… but absorbing it. Sunny bit his lip hard, his breath coming quicker now, hips moving in a low, rhythmic press, grinding against the curve of her ass with growing urgency.
And then—he felt it.
Wetness. Not his.
A humid patch, bleeding through the back of her thin pants, meeting the outline of his cock through his own. He shuddered, jerking forward harder, his hand sliding to grip her waist without even thinking. Still, no protest. She let him. Gods, she was wet. She'd been wet the moment he touched her. It wasn't a mistake. It wasn't a dream.
He nuzzled the base of her neck, lips brushing her skin, not quite kissing but just feeling her. Her scent, light and clean and maddening. The raw, carnal heat between them made the edges of reality blur. He wanted to push further, peel the fabric aside, bury himself inside her while Cassie slept ten feet away.
But he didn't. Not yet.
The tension built without release. He slowed eventually, pulling back just enough to let the cold air sting his skin where her heat had been. Nephis breathed deep once, just once, and her hand shifted beneath the blanket.
Not to push him away.
But to press down between her thighs.
Sunny watched, barely breathing, as her fingers moved ever so slightly. Just once. And then went still.
He lay there for the rest of the night, pulsing hard against her, eyes wide in the dark.
Morning broke cold and pale, light trickling down through the cracked ceiling of the Barrow like water through fractured glass. Cassie was already up, crouched by the entrance, meditating with her head tilted to the sky she couldn't see. The air smelled faintly of ash and dew.
Sunny woke slowly, blinking crusted sleep from his eyes. Nephis was gone from beside him.
He sat up, and there she was—by the remnants of their fire, crouched as she adjusted the straps on her greaves. Her expression was neutral. Her hair was damp from a quick wipe-down, and her shirt clung faintly to the curve of her chest. She didn't look at him.
But her lips quirked. Just barely.
And his breath caught all over again.