The Contract and the Seal

Selena stared at her computer screen like it was slowly unraveling her will to live.

The data wasn't making sense. The report was half-corrupted. Her email client refused to open unless offered blood or human sacrifice. But wors was the strange, slithering pressure blooming behind her forehead.

Like a whisper made of static. Like something ancient knocking softly inside her skull. Her stomach twisted. Her chest tightened like an invisible hand was squeezing around her ribs.

She blinked and gripped the desk.

“Selena? Are you okay?” Nezumi’s voice floated in, concerned.

Selena didn’t look up. “I’m… just lightheaded. I think the break room coffee is finally retaliating.”

“Sit down and breathe,” Ericka muttered, glancing at her sideways. “We can’t have another incident. HR is already pretending to care.”

Selena inhaled sharply and forced herself to stand, grabbing a thick stack of documents. She sighed. “No time. His Broodiness called for these again.”

Nezumi winced. “Didn’t he just send you an email titled ‘Deliver. Now.’ with zero context?”

“Yeah,” Selena said as she adjusted the weight of the files. “Classic Theo. A man who communicates like a Greek tragedy, makes my life harder on purpose, and calls it ‘workflow.’”

“Maybe it’s a weird power play,” Ericka said. “Maybe he still likes you."

“He did confess once,” Selena said dryly. “Now he tortures me with paperwork as a coping mechanism.”

“Wow,” Nezumi whispered. “Romantic, truly.”

They could only watch Selena as she head down the hall, shoulders squared like she was going into battle.

She didn’t know—couldn’t know—that there was more to Theo than brooding cheekbones and a terrifying ability to silence a room with a single raised eyebrow.

She didn’t know that the reason he made her deliver documents by hand was because of a centuries-old contract.

Inside his office, Theo stood by the window once again, still as glass, watching the clouds roll past like time itself owed him a refund.

He heard her footsteps before she even reached the door. Of course he did—he could track her heartbeat without trying.

The door opened and she entered. She dropped the documents on his desk with a loud thud. "There,” she said flatly. “Another offering to your highness’s paper throne.”

He didn’t turn.

“You’re late.”

“I’m early,” Selena shot back, voice flat and unimpressed. “You sent the request thirty minutes ago. If I moved faster, I’d violate the laws of physics and labor policy.”

For a moment, Theo said nothing.

Then—finally—he turned to face her.

Gone was the theatrics, the brooding melodrama, the flair for dramatic pauses. This time, he looked… dangerous. Focused. Not like a man delivering a snarky retort—but like something ancient momentarily shedding its skin.

He stared at her with those unreadable eyes and muttered darkly, “God, how I hate your guts… and that insufferable aura of yours.”

Selena raised a brow, unimpressed. “Then by all means, demote me, your exalted and chronically constipated grace. Let me go back to my peaceful, underpaid, underappreciated life.”

“Oh, that’s never gonna happen,” Theo said without hesitation.

His lips curled into a slow, unsettling grin as he stepped forward. The room seemed to tense with every footfall.

Selena didn’t flinch.

Didn’t back down.

Just watched him with the same face she used when the office printer jammed for the sixth time in one day.

Theo stopped directly in front of her, towering, immovable, all sharp suits and divine irritation barely wrapped in human skin.

Then, to her complete confusion, he reached for her hair.

His hand, cool, graceful, annoyingly well-moisturized, ran through a strand of it, brushing it between his fingers as if inspecting stardust.

“I’d enjoy every piece of you,” he said softly, voice low and dangerous.

The air shifted. Selena only blinked then slapped his hand away with the energy of a woman too tired for corporate nonsense and divine seduction.

The slap wasn’t hard, but the audacity of it left his pride slightly stunned. Selena stared him down, eyes heavy with fatigue and a migraine she suspected might be caused by either divine awakening or slow poisoning via office coffee.

“I believe this is not part of my job description,” she said. “Sir.”

There was a long, tense beat of silence before Theo slowly lowered his hand. The twitch in his brow was almost imperceptible.

He hated her the very moment he knew about her succession. Truly, he knew about her before she's even born and created this entire Vermillion Cyberspace just to lure her.

Talking about strategic planning. That's Theo for you.

And the moment he met her, true to his words, he hated her right away. Even her long, straight hair. Her tired brown eyes that never lowered under pressure. Most especially her fair skin that still somehow held a quiet glow despite the exhaustion, the overwork, the weight of his constant pressure.

He had pushed her. Tormented her. Tested her. And yet, she still stood tall. Still endured.

But now… he could see it. In her face. Behind the steady eyes and tight expression. She was exhausted.

Not the kind of tired that sleep could cure—but a deeper, unraveling weariness. Something fraying at the edge of her spirit.

Theo sighed. “You may leave,” he said quietly, almost without edge.

He turned his back to her, stepping toward the desk where she had dropped the stack of papers. Petty irritation still simmered in his chest, but it was dulled by something else now—something colder.

That’s when he felt the sudden shift of air. Too fast. Too sharp. A pulse of unnatural cold swept the room like a dropped veil.

He turned instinctively, but too late. His eyes widened as he saw her collapsed on the floor.

Selena lay motionless, her body crumpled against the leg of his spare desk, forehead grazed and already bruising from the impact.

For one agonizing moment, everything went silent but in that silence, Theo gasped, staggering back a half step as a burst of heat erupted beneath his sternum. His hand flew to his chest, clutching the surge of energy that suddenly burned through his core like molten fire.

No. Not fire. Power. He looked up and froze. A soft golden light pulsed from Selena's chest. Faint at first, then brighter. Radiating outward in slow waves like a heartbeat long suppressed.

The mark.

The seal.

The symbol of the Land God was glowing, vivid and unmistakable, etched above her heart like it had been waiting for this exact moment to awaken.

This was a calling. The time had truly come. The mark on her chest flared with divine light, ancient and undeniably warm.

But Theo, the beast once feared across a thousand kingdoms, the spirit who once made gods kneel and rivers run dry, could feel that warmth to be truly suffocating.

A hiss escaped between his teeth. His chest burned with the heat of the awakened contract, a holy tether he could no longer resist.

“Nexus…” he growled, voice low, hoarse, splintering under centuries of repression. “You filthy… runaway… maggot.”

He stumbled forward as if something greater had seized control of his limbs. Each step toward Selena felt like an insult to everything he’d sworn he'd never become.

Theo clenched his teeth, his hand curling into a fist above her as the contract continued to flare beneath his ribs.

“Fuck this contract,” he spat. “Fuck being a familiar.”

The seal pulsed again, blinding in its defiance of his resistance. The force of it sent a sharp pain through his ribs, and his body bent forward in response.

He could feel it binding him, stitching his soul to hers, knotting threads he could never untangle.

His pride cracked.

His voice broke.

“FUCK YOU, NEXUS!!”

The cry echoed through the office, but nothing changed—except the burning now crawled into every inch of his body. It was too painful, he'd almost considered praying to the gods to smite him right there and then. But not yet. He had things to do. He needed to know what happened to the empire and the emperor he used to serve 1000 years ago.

Something Selena, a mortal, could never give him answers, but then again... fuck fate and its stupid eyebrows.

The contract was activating. The seal was awakening. And Theo, who had spent centuries hating humans for reasons even he no longer remembered, was being forced to kneel before one.

Slowly, Theo felt the final condition.

The binding would only be complete through a kiss—an ancient rite, older than language. Refusing it meant death. His spirit would burn, along with the last remnant of Nexus’s power inside him.

Theo stared at her, face twisted in loathing.

“I will definitely murder that damned god if I survive this,” he muttered.

Then, with every ounce of rage and reluctance in his bones, he leaned in and pressed his lips to hers.

Thus, the seal ignited.

The moment Theo’s lips touched hers, ancient magic surged to life, a blinding burst of gold that erupted from Selena's chest and wrapped around them like celestial thread. Symbols older than written language danced in the air, circling their bodies in a quiet, humming storm of light. The office, for one breathless second, transformed—no longer four sterile walls and a desk, but a sanctified altar suspended between mortal and divine.

The bond snapped into place with a searing rush, soul to soul—unforgiving, eternal.

It was done.

Theo staggered back as if struck, his chest heaving, hands trembling from the power that had just laced into his very being.

And then, with all the dignity of a divine wolf spirit turned reluctant desk-bound familiar, he lurched to the side and violently threw up into his office trash bin.

“Ugh—godsdamn ancient rites!” he gagged, gripping the edge of the bin. “This is not how the old scrolls said it would feel!”

His shoulders shook, not from emotion, but from revulsion. The sacred kiss of binding… tasted like vending machine coffee and exhaustion.

It was truly, officially, the worst moment of his eternal life.

Theo was still hunched over the trash bin, wiping his mouth and muttering ancient curses under his breath when a loud bang shuddered the entire office. The door slammed open with the force of a divine trial.

“SELENA?!” Ericka’s voice rang through the room like a war cry.

She stopped dead in the doorway, eyes locking onto the limp form of her best friend on the floor—pale, glowing faintly, and very much not moving.

Her eyes widened. Her hands flew to her mouth.

“Oh my god, she died!” Ericka shrieked. “I knew this job was going to kill her! I told her! I TOLD HER!”

Theo opened his mouth to correct her.

Too slow.

With the grace and drama of a woman wronged by the heavens themselves, Ericka sprinted across the office and dropped to her knees beside Selena.

“She was too young! Too underpaid! Too beautiful to die like this!” she wailed, cradling Selena like a tragic heroine in a stage play written by caffeine and capitalism.

Then, for-who-knows-how, Ericka scooped Selena into her arms bridal-style.

“I WON’T LET THIS BE HER END!” Ericka cried, hair flying behind her as she turned and sprinted out the office door at full speed, heels clicking like war drums.

“She deserves better than spreadsheets and spiritual burnout!!”

Theo stood there, slack-jawed, still tasting divine light and shame in the back of his throat.