Pov Author
The scream never reached anyone.
It dissolved into the darkness as the void shattered like broken glass.
Anna fell.
Not down—
but back.
Air rushed into her lungs violently as her body hit solid ground. Stone. Cold. Real. She gasped, coughing, fingers clawing at the surface beneath her as if the world might vanish again if she didn't hold on tightly enough.
"Anna."
The voice cut through the chaos like a blade.
She froze.
Slowly, trembling, she lifted her head.
He stood a few steps away—tall, unmoving, darkness wrapped around him like a living thing. Long black hair stirred despite the absence of wind. His eyes burned, not with rage alone—but with fear he refused to show.
Shou Feng.
The ground around him was cracked, scorched in patterns that pulsed faintly, as if reality itself had bent to allow him through. Whatever barrier had hidden her, whatever spell had torn her away—
It was gone.
"You disappeared," he said, his voice low, controlled. Too controlled. "Do you understand what that does to a world already on the edge of collapse?"
Anna tried to stand.
Her legs gave out instantly.
Before she could fall again, Shou Feng was there—faster than thought—catching her against his chest. Power radiated from him in waves, dark and ancient, yet his grip was careful. Protective.
Real.
"She was here," Anna whispered hoarsely. "Zara. She—"
"I know."
His arms tightened slightly.
"She's gone."
Anna stiffened. "Gone?"
"For now," Shou Feng said, lifting his gaze to the fractured sky above them. The shadows that had once clung to the air were thinning, retreating like a tide forced back by something stronger. "She doesn't stay where she's finished playing."
He looked down at Anna again.
"But she wanted you to see her."
That sent a chill through Anna far colder than the void ever had.
Shou Feng moved without another word, lifting her fully into his arms. The world blurred as power surged beneath his feet—darkness folding inward, space tearing open like fabric.
Anna clutched his clothing instinctively.
"Where are we going?" she asked weakly.
"My castle," he answered. "Where nothing touches you without my permission."
The transition was violent and instantaneous.
One moment—broken ground and fading shadows.
The next—vast black stone beneath their feet, towering pillars rising into a ceiling lost in darkness. Torches ignited one by one as if sensing their master's return, bathing the hall in deep amber light.
Anna realized, distantly, that she was shaking.
Shou Feng did not put her down immediately.
He carried her through the corridors, ignoring the kneeling figures who bowed as he passed, their eyes wide with awe and fear. He stopped only when he reached a chamber guarded by ancient seals carved directly into the walls.
He set her gently on the bed.
"This place is warded," he said. "Against gods. Against witches. Against her."
Anna swallowed. "She knows about my father."
Shou Feng's jaw tightened.
"She knows many things she shouldn't."
He turned away briefly, shadows gathering around him like a cloak—then stopped.
"I failed to protect you once," he said quietly. "I won't make that mistake again."
Anna looked at him, heart pounding.
Outside the castle walls, something ancient stirred.
And far away, in a city that never slept, Zara smiled—
because being taken to safety was never the end.
It was only the next move.
•
•
•
The temple of the God of Destruction was not a place of gentle worship. It was a cavern of obsidian and shadow, high in mountains that scraped a perpetually stormy sky. The air thrummed with a silent, potent energy, the same energy that coiled within its master, Shou Feng. Anna, a woman stranded centuries from her own time, felt it in her teeth, in the marrow of her bones. She had come for answers, for a way home, but found only him.
He stood before a window that framed a lightning-veined night, his back to her, a silhouette of lethal grace. His black robes seemed to drink the faint light from the braziers.
"You persist," his voice was a low tremor that vibrated through the stone floor. "Like a moth circling a flame it knows will char its wings."
"You haven't given me an answer," Anna said, her own voice sounding terribly small, terribly human in the vast space. She wrapped her arms around herself, the Ancient alien against the ancient, cool air.
"And I will not." He turned. His eyes were not pupils and iris, but pools of condensed night, stars going supernova in their depths. They held no warmth, only a cold, hungry fascination. "Your father left you when you were only 6 .
Frustration, fear, and a strange, reckless anger boiled in her. "Yes"
In a breath, he was before her. He did not walk; the shadows simply re-configured, placing him there. The scent of ozone, of cold stone, and something wild like a coming tempest washed over her. He was close enough for her to feel the unnatural heat radiating from his skin.
"It is dust," he whispered, his gaze dropping to her mouth. "And you are here. A spark in my endless night."
The attraction had been a live wire since their first meeting, a terrifying pull towards the void he represented. Now, it snapped taut. Anna's breath hitched. She should step back. She should run.
She did neither.
With a sound that was half-sob, half-defiance, she closed the last inch between them and pressed her lips to his.
It was not a kiss of love, but of conquest and surrender. His mouth was shockingly warm, and he went utterly still for a heartbeat, as if no one had ever dared such an affront. Then, with a growl that seemed to shake the very temple, he answered.
His hand cradled the back of her head, fingers tangling in her hair, holding her not with tenderness, but with a possession that made her knees weak. His other arm banded around her waist, crushing her to him. The kiss was deep, devouring, a clash of tongues and teeth. It was sloppy with desperate hunger, a frantic tasting. He kissed like he wanted to consume her essence, to absorb the strange, foreign light of her soul into his darkness. Anna met him , her hands climbing his chest to clutch at the impossibly fine fabric of his robes, then at the hard muscle beneath. She tasted power and eternity, and it was more intoxicating than any wine.
He broke the kiss, his storm-cloud eyes burning. "You play with annihilation, little spark."
"I know ," she whispered , her voice trembling.
A flicker of something like shock, then dark approval, crossed his face. In the next moment, the world dissolved into shadows. She felt a vertiginous rush, and then her back met the sublime softness of furs and silks. They were in his inner chamber, a room that felt like the heart of a starless night. The only light came from his own faint, eerie aura.
He loomed over her, shedding his outer robes with a shrug. His torso was sculpted alabaster, marked here and there with silvery scars—memories of ancient battles. He was perfection and terrible power made flesh. Anna, feeling clumsy and painfully mortal, fumbled with her robes. Impatient, he simply brushed his hand down the front, and the fabric fell away, not torn, but unmade. A gasp caught in her throat at the display of casual power, at the cool air on her exposed skin.
His gaze was a physical weight, traveling over her breasts, her stomach, her legs still sheathed in denim. "So fragile," he murmured, but it sounded like a vow. He hooked his fingers in the waistband of her jeans and, with another effortless gesture, they were gone.
Now, bare before the God of Destruction, Anna felt no shame, only a wild, screaming need. He lowered himself, his body covering hers, and the heat of him was immense. He kissed her again, his mouth leaving hers to blaze a trail down her jaw, her throat. He took a nipple into his mouth, laving it with his tongue before sucking deeply, and a sharp cry tore from Anna's lips. The sensation was electric, arcing straight to her core, which throbbed with a desperate, empty ache.
His hand slid down her trembling stomach, fingers trailing through the wetness that already soaked her. He groaned against her skin, the sound profoundly male and satisfied. "You burn for the darkness," he breathed.
"Yes," she panted, arching into his touch.
One long finger entered her, then two, curling expertly. Anna cried out, her head thrashing back into the furs. He fingered her with a relentless, rhythm, his thumb circling the sensitive nub above, building a pressure so intense it bordered on pain. He watched her face, studied every flutter of her eyelids, every hitch in her breath, as if her pleasure was a fascinating, novel phenomenon.
"Please," she begged, not knowing what she asked for.
He withdrew his hand, and she whimpered at the loss. He shifted, settling between her thighs. The broad, silken head of his erection pressed against her entrance. He was immense, and for a second, fear spiked through the lust.
"Look at me," he commanded, his voice guttural.
She forced her eyes open, meeting his star-destroying gaze.
"This will change you," he warned, and there was no lie in it.
"I know."
He thrust hard and deep. Ah!
Anna screamed. It was a rending, a joining, a violation and a completion all at once. He filled her utterly, stretching her to a breathtaking limit. He held himself there, buried to the hilt, his body trembling with the effort of his own control.
Then, he moved.She felt it so deep , her walls were clutching around his member , so hard~ .
The bed, an ancient frame of petrified wood, began To creak-creak-creak a frantic, protesting rhythm against the stone floor. He set a pace that was devastating, each deep, driving stroke pushing her higher up the furs. There was no gentle lovemaking here; this was a claiming, a storm making landfall. Anna wrapped her legs around his hips, her heels digging into the hard muscles of his backside, urging him deeper, harder. Her fingers, desperate for an anchor, raked down his back. She felt the skin part beneath her nails, leaving vivid red trails on his marble flesh. A hiss escaped him, not of pain, but of fierce pleasure, and he drove into her with renewed, brutal force.
The tension coiled tighter, a spring within her wound to breaking. His mouth found hers again in a messy, breath-sharing kiss. He licked into her mouth as he plunged into her body, a dual invasion that shattered her last defenses. The orgasm detonated without warning, a supernova in the dark chamber. It ripped through her, wave after wave of blinding, incandescent pleasure, pulling a raw, continuous scream from her throat that was his name and a prayer and a curse all at once.
Each kiss was messy and electrifying .
Feeling her convulse around him shattered his own control. With a roar that echoed through the temple, a sound of primordial release, he buried himself one final, searing time. His heat flooded her, a shocking, intimate claim. He collapsed upon her, his weight a solid, comforting anchor in the receding tide of sensation. She could feel his own tremors, the god of destruction undone by a mortal woman.
For long moments, there was only the sound of their ragged breathing and the slow, settling creak of the bed. The storm outside seemed to have quieted.
Slowly, he rolled to the side, gathering her against him. His skin, slick with sweat, was cooling. He looked down at her, his fingers, surprisingly gentle, tracing the line of her cheekbone. His dark eyes were still fathomless, but the stars within them seemed to burn with a quieter, more profound light.
Anna, nestled in the arms of annihilation, felt something shift. Not in the world, but in her. A piece of her old life, the desperate need to return, crumbled to ash. She was marked now, by his darkness, by his touch. The path home was gone, erased in the sweat-slick, breathless reality of his bed.
She was, irrevocably, here. And he, the endless night, held her as if she were the only star he had ever wished to capture.
He says "Now you belong to me in every way that matters."