The Hollow had a way of silencing the soul. But not tonight.
The wind, usually quiet as a corpse's breath, churned with something different now—expectation. The ground was still fractured from her rise, the crater pulsing with restless embers, like it remembered the scream she hadn't released.
Vex lay half-submerged in the carved-out onyx basin, where molten water seeped from beneath the rock. Her skin glistened with red heat, steam curling around her like incense, or warning.
The flames didn't burn her anymore.
Nothing did.
A jagged crown of bloodstones rested nearby—unclaimed but watching. Agni, the voice in her veins, hummed low and pleased. The Hollow fed her now, made her whole. She was no longer starving. No longer human.
But she was still hungry.
She knew the moment he arrived.
He made no sound, this man of war. Not a snap of twig nor breath of metal. But the Hollow whispered of him—of something sharp and male, waiting at the tree line like judgment. Not afraid. Just… watching.
He's beautiful, Agni murmured in her head, amused.
He looks like he'd ruin nations just to kiss your throat.
She didn't glance toward him. She didn't have to. His energy was too clean, too precise to be anything but one of them. A wolf of Velgrave. Cold-blooded, silver-eyed. Born to kill in the name of kings.
But even wolves had a master once.
She rose from the bath, water sheeting off the curves of her transformed body, her nails glinting like obsidian, her phoenix-red eyes half-lidded with boredom. Her wet hair clung to her back like dark wine. The Hollow's heat kissed every inch of her, but she was the inferno now.
"Most men would announce themselves," she said aloud, voice honeyed with death. "Unless they were afraid I'd tear their tongue out."
The wind shifted. She smiled.
A slow step forward. Leather boots on ash.
Rhydir Velgrave emerged from the shadow of the scorched trees like war incarnate. Tall, armored, black as a storm. His hair was midnight pulled back into a soldier's knot, and the scar across his mouth made him look like he'd smiled at death and won.
He didn't draw his sword. He didn't speak.
She liked that.
"Did you come to watch, assassin?" she asked, stretching one arm above her head as if she were truly alone.
She turned her head slightly, just enough for him to catch the glimmer of those eyes—the fire-red eyes that seemed to burn with something ancient, something dangerous. A smile tugged at her lips, cruel and knowing. "Are you here to kill me, Rhydir Velgrave?"
There it was. Her first words to him in years—since that time long ago when she had been a girl he barely knew. She had been different then, a stepdaughter, a political pawn. She was nothing now, or perhaps everything. Either way, she was more dangerous than any battle he'd ever fought.
Still, no answer.
She turned. Slowly. Entirely bare in the firelight, save for the heat that wrapped around her like worship.
And only then—only then—did he let his gaze drop. Not to ogle. To assess.
And that was worse.
Because he looked at her like she was something he couldn't name. Something sacred and dangerous. Something beautiful that should've been burned long ago, yet somehow survived the pyre.
He opened his mouth. Then stopped.
She raised a brow. "Is this your first time seeing a woman rise from the dead, or just your first time seeing one who looks this good doing it?"
That got him.
Rhydir exhaled, a breath like thunder against stone. His voice, when it came, was low, graveled. "I thought you were a myth."
Vex smiled. "Then you should've stayed with bedtime stories."
He took another step. Closer. And the Hollow watched.
"You were V—" He hesitated, as if saying her old name would summon the ghost. "Vaeloria."
She stepped toward him, water still glistening across her skin like warpaint. "Was I?"
"You spoke in court," he murmured, more to himself than her. "They listened. They feared you. You held the court in your palm."
"And they crushed me for it."
A beat passed. Rhydir's eyes burned into her—not with pity. Never that. But with remembrance.
"You were the girl who looked kings in the eye and made them sweat," he said. "And now…"
His gaze slid down to the flame licking at her ankles. To the fire that didn't consume, but obeyed.
"Now I am the fire," she said, stepping into the robe Agni conjured from the steam—black and clingy as sin.
Silence.
Then, finally, he moved closer. Close enough to strike. Close enough to kiss. Close enough to die.
"You were the girl who stood before kings with a crown of wit instead of gold. The one who tamed chaos with words and made generals kneel without touching a blade."
Vex's smile faded, replaced with something rawer.
"And you were the prince raised to conquer. To silence kingdoms like mine."
He didn't deny it.
"I was sent to assess the danger," he said again, slower. "But no one warned me the danger would have your face."
"And no one warned me that the assassin would look like a wolf too tired to pretend he's still hunting," she murmured, stepping closer.
The air between them thickened. Power pressed into power. Not a clash—yet—but a spark waiting for breath.
"You've changed," he said.
"I died," she replied.
She moved past him then, towards the altar behind them, where ancient stone runes glowed faintly. Her fingers slid along the surface, and the Hollow pulsed with her presence. Not like it was resisting her. No. The Hollow wanted her. It breathed for her.
"Do you know what they said about me?" she asked, voice low. "That I murdered my own mother for power. That I burned the duke's estate in madness. That I seduced the ministers and poisoned their sons."
"Did you?" Rhydir asked, not out of accusation. Curiosity. Respect.
She turned, flame crackling behind her eyes. "No. But I will now."
⸻
Later, he stood at the cliff's edge while she carved her new kingdom out of ruin. He didn't offer to help. Didn't tell her what to do.
He simply watched her make it hers.
Every stone that rose from the ash was commanded, not begged. Every vine that slithered to create her throne did so like it had been waiting centuries.
She didn't return to a palace.
She built one.
Not a castle, but a sanctum of fire and fang. Her own throne, wrapped in the bones of the old world, rimmed with ash and blessed by no one but herself.
The Hollow bent for her. The wind, the blood, the magic—it all circled her like a queen who never needed a coronation.
And Rhydir?
He stayed.
Not because he'd failed his mission.
But because he hadn't.
The threat had been assessed. The danger confirmed.
And he was in love with it.
—————
For the first time in a long time, Rhydir Velgrave felt something he wasn't used to. A stirring in his chest. A spark.
He stepped forward, closing the distance between them, until he was just a breath away. "I came here to see the danger," he whispered, his lips brushing against her ear. "Now I think I've found something far more interesting."
The tension between them reached a boiling point, and for a moment, the world seemed to stand still. It wasn't about the power he could take from her or the danger she could bring. It wasn't about the mission.
It was about the fire between them.
And Rhydir was ready to burn.
⸻
That night, as fire danced on stone and her name echoed in the dreams of dying kings, she stood under the bleeding moon, her eyes catching the light like twin phoenixes reborn.
Rhydir stood behind her, not too close, not too far. Watching.
"Why haven't you left?" she asked without turning.
His voice was steady. "You're not done becoming."
"And when I am?"
His words were iron. "Then I'll kneel, or I'll burn."
She looked back at him, head tilted.
"And you'll enjoy both."
He smiled. "I already am."
⸻
Deep in the Hollow, where only monsters walked, the prophecy stirred again—an old echo reborn in whispers:
"When the Hollow bleeds fire, the wolf shall kneel."
And this time, it wasn't just myth.
It was happening.
———————
He should've asked more. He should've been cold, clinical, assessing. But gods, she was standing there like vengeance wrapped in velvet, and he… he was already hers, and didn't even know it.
She turned toward him again, slower this time. Her expression unreadable.
"Do you want to try to kill me?" she asked.
Rhydir smiled, just a twitch of his lips. "Depends. Will it be fun?"
And then she moved.
Faster than she had any right to. One second there was air between them, and the next, she had him pinned to the stone wall with a single sharp-nailed hand curled under his chin.
Her nails grazed his throat—too close to the artery. Her breath smelled like fire and blood.
He didn't flinch. Gods, he grinned.
"I like you," she said, voice low, molten.
"You're not so bad yourself," he replied, even as his pulse quickened under her hand.
And then something shifted.
The air grew hotter. Not just from her body—something else. A force behind her eyes, something alive. Agni. It stirred, restless, curious. The flame within her pulsed, and with it, an ancient magic bloomed beneath her palm.
A mark.
It seared onto his skin with a flash of red-gold light, a whisper of old flame. Rhydir hissed, more out of shock than pain.
"What the hell—?"
Vex jerked back, eyes wide. "That… wasn't supposed to happen."
She looked at her hand. Then at his neck.
There, just below his jaw, shimmered a faint sigil—something ancient, something forgotten. The mark of a claim.
Agni purred in her head, pleased.
Mine. Oops.
"You marked me?" Rhydir asked, incredulous, but—smiling?
"I didn't mean to. It's… the flame. It acts on instinct." She sounded annoyed. At herself. At Agni.
He tilted his head, fingers brushing the faint heat of the mark. "So… what does that mean? Are we married now?"
She glared.
He laughed.
Gods, she hated that she liked the sound of it.
Rhydir leaned back against the wall, still casual, still fearless. "So let me get this straight. You rose from the dead, took control of corrupted flame magic, claimed the Hollow… and now you're collecting pretty boys?"
"I will end you," she said, stalking toward him again.
He didn't move.
"I bet you will," he murmured.
She was too close. He was too calm. And for a moment—just a moment—they weren't assassin and target.
They were something else. Two broken, dangerous things orbiting the same gravity.
"You should leave," she said quietly.
"You should make me."
She didn't. Couldn't. Something about him—his silver eyes, his maddening grin, his refusal to look at her like she was anything less than divine—froze her.
This man… wasn't afraid of her.
He saw her. And worse—he liked what he saw.
Her lips parted. A thousand things she could've said. None of them came.
Then he reached out. Slow. Gentle.
He tucked a strand of blood-red hair behind her ear. His fingers lingered on her jaw.
"Next time," he said, voice low, "warn a man before you brand him. I might've dressed up for the occasion."
Then he turned. Walked away. Just like that.
She stared after him, heart pounding.
Bastard.