Chapter 16: First Loss of Control

Selene

Everything stopped when I threw myself at Cassian. It was as if the entire world had come to a standstill, I was unable to move or breathe. I was suspended in mid-air, just a few inches away from Cassian's throat. I could feel the heat radiating from his body, and my breath moved across his skin, sending shivers down my spine. Time itself seemed to have lost all meaning, leaving only the two of us locked in this eternal moment, with the world around us melting away into nothingness.

Everything was completely silent. The kind of silence that does not calm you down instead it warns you. The room was like an angle full of pressure. It was like reality itself was holding its breath to see what I would do next.

I should have taken a step back but I did not.

Cassian did not move either.

He just stood there like he had chosen not to move. It was not because he was scared or shocked. It was like he was in control. His eyes did not look away from me.

They just kept looking at me, measuring me like I was a knife hovering over his skin and he was waiting to see what I would do.

The hunger inside me noticed him.

Not as a person but a signal.

I could feel his heartbeat, his pulse, his life under his skin. It was like a rhythm that was too loud for the room. My vision started to break like it was splitting into different layers. I could see the veins under his skin like they were pathways. His breath was like waves of pressure.

He was not just standing there yet he was too loud for me and I did not know how to make it stop. My mind tried to focus.

It thought of my name.

“Selene”.

It came to me slowly like someone was saying it from behind me.

Then I thought of my training, my mission and the word “control”.

But each thought came late.

Cassian moved first.

Not with his body.

With his voice.

"Selene."

It was one even word.

The word was not sharp, it was just placed like it was a hand gently placing something back in its rightful place. 

It affected me in a way, like a sense of order and balance was restored

Not because it hurt.

Because it worked.

For a moment, it pulled me back.

It's like something in my mind was racing out of control, but then it just slowed down.

I did not like that it worked and I did not like that I needed it either.

Afterwards, my awareness became sharper. Cassian's voice did not calm me down. It just made me more aware of him. He was too close to something that was starving and he was not scared enough.

That thought did not feel like mine.

My hand moved before I knew it.

It was just a minor movement at first, then it touched him.

My palm was on his chest.

It was not a hit, It was not a touch. It was something in between.

My curiosity had become so strong that it felt like it was biting me, and I was eager to see what it could sink its teeth into.

His heartbeat was strong against my skin.

It sounded too alive.

Cassian did not react like a man whose life was in danger.

He lifted his hand and put it over mine.

Not to pull my hands away, not to hold me back but to hold it there.

It was a decision. It was not a defense. It was trust or something close to it.

My fingers moved a little under his.

It was the wrong kind of reflex action .

Inside me something started to shut down. Fear went away. It's not completely lost, it wasn't just there, it was like when a door locks from the inside and we can't get to it.

Then grief went away.

Then my memories. The things that usually defined me, started to slip off 

What was left was my senses.

Unfiltered.

Uninterpreted.

Hunger without any thought.

Cassian's throat was still close. Too close.

My head tilted slightly, and I wasn't even aware it was happening.

Like my body had forgotten what it meant to be hesitant. I could feel the point where my instinct would take over. The point where everything would be resolved cleanly, efficiently and permanently.

Cassian leaned in a little.

His voice was lower.

Not softer. Just stripped of everything

"You are still there."

It was not a comforting word.

It was not a word of hope.

It was a fact.

A reminder that something inside me still had a name.

Selene.

It struck something inside me and caused a fracture that was not healing, not breaking.

It was just a stop.

It felt like I had reached a point where I just couldn't move forward anymore, like there was this huge obstacle in my way that I couldn't get past.

My fangs started to form.

I could feel this weird sensation, like something was pressing against the back of my teeth, and it was really noticeable.

They did not come out completely, something inside me resisted it.

My breath shook a little.

Then again.

The shaking spread through my body like a system that was overloaded.

Kill.

Do not kill.

Take.

Remember.

Stay.

Yet I did not bite.

I did not move away either.

Cassian was still under my hand.

He still had his arms wrapped around me, like he had made up his mind that if I was going to stumble, he would be the one person I could count on to catch me, the one place where I wouldn't fall apart.

That thought should have calmed me down but it did not.

It made everything worse.

Now that I was aware of just how simple it would be to cause him pain and exactly how close I was to being the thing that ended him.

And worse, how close I was to wanting it.

The moment just stretched out.

Not breaking.

Not resolving.

Just suspended between choices that were too sharp to touch.

I felt my body shake all over, like it was stuck between two things that couldn't decide what was real.

Cassian did not move.

I did not step back.

And somewhere, betwe

en his heartbeat and my hunger I understood the most dangerous truth yet:

If I lost control completely...

I would be completely empty, with no remaining desire to resist or hold back.