Semua Bab Shared Desires: Bab 111 - Bab 120

The snow falls thick and silent, as if the entire forest were holding its breath. We’re in our positions, each at a key point in the perimeter, and the cold can’t pierce the layer of adrenaline running through me. We’ve waited too long for this, planned every step, checked every trap as if it were the last. And tonight, at last, I feel something align, as if the shadows themselves were helping us.A crack breaks the stillness. It’s not the wind, not an animal. It’s heavy, deliberate—someone trying to move unheard and failing. Demon, to my right, gives me a barely perceptible signal; John, to my left, already has his weapon ready. The intruder is inside the perimeter.An instant later comes the metallic snap of a rope tightening, followed by the dull thud of a body hitting the snow. The trap has sprung. We run toward it, our boots sinking into the flawless white. We find him on his knees, struggling to get free, hands bound by the rope, his ragged breathing drawing clouds in the frozen

It starts with something that could seem insignificant.A gesture, a stray comment, a moment when none of the three of us has anything urgent to do and yet the air is already too charged for the calm to last.I’m leaning against the doorway to the living room when John, with that low voice he uses when he wants to provoke, tells Demon he doubts he could take him down in a clean grapple. Demon gives that slow, dangerous sideways smile that promises nothing innocent.—Want to try? —he asks, tilting his head toward him like he already knows the answer is yes.There’s no plan, no goal beyond testing strength, but the way they close in on each other makes it clear neither of them intends to hold back completely. John shrugs off his jacket, Demon pushes up his sleeves, and suddenly I have in front of me two bodies I know far too well—how they move, how they smell, how they react to touch.—This is going to be interesting —I murmur, crossing my arms and letting my gaze travel lazily from one

It’s no accident —though I pretend it is— that the three of us end up locked in this tiny room; the door jammed with a dry click when John tried to close it to keep the cold out, and now neither his strong hands nor Demon’s angry shoulder-pushes can make it budge even a millimeter. The most amusing part is that neither of them wants to admit that what unsettles them isn’t the lack of space, but the fact that it forces our bodies so close that the smallest movement turns into an electric brush of contact.The room holds nothing more than a narrow bed and a chair shoved into a corner by a small window, but since we’re condemned to wait hours until we can force the lock or help arrives, we end up in an awkward balance where every move requires an improvised choreography to avoid bumping into one another… or to bump into each other exactly when I decide.“We could organize ourselves,” I suggest, my voice soft, wearing the smile I know puts them on guard, “because otherwise we’re going to

The most surprising thing isn’t that it happened, but how quickly it now seems to repeat itself. Before, every brush between them relied on my push—a calculated provocation, a carefully planned accident. Today, though, I realize they no longer need me to guide them, and that certainty runs through me like a slow heat settling in my chest and sinking unhurriedly lower.The morning begins without hurry: pale light filters between the curtains, the air is warm and smells of something that’s not quite sleep and not quite wakefulness, but of skin still warm from the night. I’m half-awake, listening to their low voices, exchanging short phrases I can’t fully make out, but carrying that intimate tone that didn’t exist between them before. When I open my eyes, I see Demon lying on his side, his hand resting on John’s forearm as if it were the most natural thing in the world, and John not only doesn’t pull away but tilts his head slightly to hear him better.“Does it still hurt?” Demon asks, a

Morning arrives without warning, but not with the soft light seeping through the curtains—it comes with the heat already burning beneath my skin before I even open my eyes. A heat that doesn’t come from the sun, but from them. Demon is behind me, his body pressed to mine as if, sometime during the night, we’d decided without words that there wasn’t enough space to keep us apart. His breathing is slow, deep, and every time he exhales I feel the tickle of his breath against my neck.John is in front of me, so close that if I parted my lips just a little more, they’d brush against his. His hand rests on my waist, and I can’t tell if it’s been there all night or if he just placed it there—his fingers are moving, the faintest whisper of skin on skin, setting me on alert, though I don’t want to move for fear of breaking the moment.“Morning,” John murmurs, his voice rougher than usual, as if he’s dreamt something he’s not going to tell me.“I still don’t know if it is,” I answer, letting my