Ritual of Ruin
Lucien
I watched her sleep for a long while after. The room was quiet, save for the subtle rustling of worn curtains that stirred in the cold breeze from the broken window panes. The cracked walls breathed with shadows, and I found myself counting each one just to anchor my mind.
She murmured once in her sleep—something soft, unintelligible, but it scraped at my resolve like glass under skin. I almost reached for her, nearly whispered her name just to hear how it tasted in the dark, but stopped myself.
She’d nearly undone me. The feel of her grinding against me, pleading without words—gods, it had taken everything I had not to let her free me from my jeans and bury myself in her right then.
It would’ve been easy. So damn easy.
But not right.
Not like this.
Because t
