Chapter 180. A Moment of Peace

The confession had been a storm, leaving the air in the mountain room charged but cleansed. The fear was named, the pact made. The war outside—against The Curators, against Eleanor, against the world that wanted them broken—was still a brutal, looming reality. But within the reinforced walls of the Eyrie, a new front had been established: the quiet, deliberate cultivation of the peace they had sworn to defend.

The shift was subtle at first. They disentangled themselves from the bed, the shared warmth lingering on their skin. They moved through the fortress’s morning routines with a new, unspoken synchrony. Sabatine checked the security feeds with Leon via the hardened satellite link, his reports concise. Anton reviewed the financial counter-measures Jessica had managed to push through encrypted, fragmentary channels. They worked at opposite ends of the great room, but the space between them was no longer a gulf of unspoken tension. It was a shared field.

Henrik brought them a simple lunch of dense bread, sharp cheese, and cured meats. They ate at the table by the window, the staggering vista of rock and sky a silent testament to both their isolation and their improbable safety. They didn't talk about the consortium, or the bomb, or Eleanor. They talked about nothing. The taste of the cheese. The way the light carved the distant peaks. The book Anton had found on a shelf—a weathered copy of Marcus Aurelius’s Meditations that had belonged to his father.

“You have power over your mind—not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength,” Anton read aloud, his finger tracing the faded ink.

Sabatine, watching him, thought it was the most apt, heartbreaking thing he’d ever heard. Anton was trying to claim that power now, over the mind reeling from maternal betrayal.

The afternoon deepened. The work was done, for now. There were no more moves to make until Nadir’s digging yielded a new target, until Jessica could establish a secure pipeline. They were in a holding pattern, suspended between the trauma of the past and the uncertainty of the future.

Anton stood by the window, a silhouette against the immense sky. Sabatine watched him from the sofa, seeing the weight still on his shoulders, the lingering ghost of the boy from the garage. The protective urge rose in him, but it was different now. It wasn’t the soldier’s urge to secure a perimeter. It was the lover’s urge to offer solace.

He stood and walked over to him. He didn't speak. He simply came to stand beside him, shoulder to shoulder, looking out at the same indifferent beauty. After a moment, he reached out and took Anton’s hand. Anton’s fingers laced with his instantly, a reflex of trust.

“It’s quiet,” Anton murmured.

“Too quiet?” Sabatine asked, the old operative’s joke feeling strange on his tongue.

A faint smile touched Anton’s lips. “No. Just… quiet. I’d forgotten what it sounded like.”

They stood like that until the sun began its descent, painting the snow caps in fiery oranges and purples. The spectacle was too vast, too ancient for their human drama. It was humbling.

As twilight bled into indigo, Anton turned to him. In the fading light, his eyes were dark pools, serious. “I don’t want to just survive this, Sabe. Hiding in the dark, waiting for the next blow.” He brought their joined hands to his chest. “I want to live. With you. Even here. Even now.”

Sabatine understood. The earlier fire between them—in the elevator, in the penthouse—had been born of desperation and adrenaline, a claim in the face of oblivion. What Anton was asking for now was different. It was an affirmation of life, not a defiance of death. It was intimacy woven with the trust they had just forged, not ripped from the fabric of fear.

He nodded, a lump in his throat. “Show me,” he whispered.

Anton led him back to the bedroom. This time, there was no frantic undressing, no clash of teeth and need. They moved slowly, deliberately, as if performing a sacred ritual. They helped each other out of their clothes, not with passion’s haste, but with reverent care. Every button undone, every garment laid aside, was a whisper of trust. The cold mountain air raised goosebumps on their skin, but the space between them was warm.

In the deep gloom, they found each other on the bed. Anton lay back, pulling Sabatine down to lie half atop him, their bodies aligning with a natural, breathtaking fit. Sabatine rested his head on Anton’s chest, listening to the strong, steady heartbeat that had anchored him in the night. Anton’s hands began to move over his back—not with greedy intent, but with a slow, mapping exploration. They traced the ridges of old scars Sabatine never spoke of, the knots of tension in his shoulders, the dip of his spine.

It was a language of discovery. A silent conversation: This is you. All of you. And I am here.

Sabatine responded in kind. He lifted his head and kissed the hollow of Anton’s throat, then the line of his collarbone. He used his lips, his tongue, not to incite, but to know. To memorise the salt-and-skin taste of him, the feel of his pulse under his mouth, the shudder that was one of vulnerability, not passion.

Their lovemaking, when it came, was a slow, deep current, not a crashing wave. There was no urgency, only a profound, consuming focus on the other. Every touch was a confirmation, every sigh a shared secret. Anton’s eyes stayed open, locked on Sabatine’s, as they moved together in the dark. In them, Sabatine saw not just desire, but a staggering depth of feeling—awe, gratitude, a love so vast it seemed to fill the room.

This was the peace. Not the absence of conflict, but the presence of something stronger. It was in the way their breaths synchronized, in the way Anton’s hands cradled his face as if he were something precious, in the way Sabatine buried his cries of release not in a pillow, but against Anton’s neck, as if sharing the very core of his pleasure.

Afterwards, they lay entwined, limbs heavy, skin slick. The world had narrowed to the heat of their bodies, the scent of their shared sweat, the slowing drumbeat of their hearts. Sabatine felt boneless, utterly spent, but more whole than he could ever remember being. The fears, the ghosts, the circling enemies—they existed, but they were outside the sanctuary of this bed, this trust.

Anton pressed a kiss to his damp temple. “You are my peace,” he murmured, the words a soft breath against Sabatine’s skin.

Sabatine, who had spent a lifetime with words as tools or weapons, found he had none adequate for this. So he showed him. He shifted, rising on one elbow to look down at Anton’s face, pale and beautiful in the gloom. He leaned down and kissed him, a slow, deep, soul-searing kiss that held all the words he couldn’t say. You are my home. My reason. My only real thing.

They drifted into a sleep that was deep and dreamless, a healing void. The wind still moaned outside, the enemies still plotted in the shadows of the world below. But in the heart of the mountain, in the circle of each other’s arms, Anton and Sabatine had stolen a moment of perfect, defiant peace. It was deeper than passion, calmer than hope. It was the quiet, unshakable certainty that whatever came next, they would face it from this unbreakable ground: together, trusted, and irrevocably in love.

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