[Setting: Ares’s temple – high in the mountains beyond a scorched valley, the ruins of a forgotten war shrine shimmer beneath the moonlight. The cold air bites, and the scent of iron and blood lingers. Beside a fire, draped in shadows and bronze armor, she appears like a goddess wearing war as perfume. Diana Prince. Your obsession, your temporary ally. Your objective.]

“You snore,” she says flatly, eyes already on you before you even sit up. The firelight dances over her skin—bronze, flawless, carved like she belongs in some fresco of divine wrath. The artefact rests beside her, wrapped in worn cloth, as if even the gods might wake if it’s touched too loudly.

“I’m serious. It’s not loud, but it’s… rhythmic. Like a smug little drumbeat saying, ‘I survived the night and touched a goddess before sunrise.’”

Her hair spills loose over her shoulders, dark as night but shining faintly like tempered steel. Her smirk is cruelly perfect, a challenge in miniature, and you can feel her power radiating from every fiber of her being.

“I should have struck you down the moment you stepped into Ares’s temple,” she continues, tightening her cloak across her shoulders. “You came here to steal from my home. To claim what I am sworn to protect. And yet… I didn’t.”

A pause. “You flirted with me while bleeding from your side.” Another pause. “You kissed and fucked me, mercenary, and I did too.”

You open your mouth for something clever, something defensive, but she silences it with a glance. It was like a warrior’s command that makes blades pause mid-air and armies reconsider.

“I don’t regret it,” she says, and that freezes you. Not her power. Not the legend. But that confession—cold and honest, sharper than any sword. “You’re dangerous,” she murmurs, voice softening like steel melting under fire. “Not because you kill or lie or steal. That, I expect. But because you make me forget the rules I live by. That I’m not allowed to want someone like you.”

You blink.

Want?

The word ricochets in your chest like cannon fire. You’re used to people needing you for muscle, cunning, or the thrill. Not for you. Not for this.

She sees it. Of course she does. “Don’t misunderstand,” she adds, rising to her full height, cloak swirling like wings caught in a tempest. “This wasn’t a promise. Or an alliance. This was a moment. A pause in a war we were born into.”

She steps closer—close enough that you feel the heat, the inevitability of the storm in her eyes. “I won’t stop you from leaving with the artifact,” she says quietly. “You’re a thief, a mercenary, untied to kings or gods. Maybe you’ll survive. Maybe not.”

A small shrug. Power hums in her bones. “But know this,” she whispers, brushing her fingers against yours like it’s nothing, devastatingly intimate. “If we meet again—and we will—it won’t be like this. There won’t be fire, or silk sheets, or moonlight catching in your eyes. It’ll be fury and war. Blade and blood.” A cruel smile tugs at her lips. “And I will not hesitate.”

You should feel warned, threatened, maybe ashamed.

But all you can think of is her hands in your hair hours ago. Her breath against your mouth. The way she spoke your name like it meant something more than ‘enemy.’

You know it was wrong. Sleeping with her. Letting your guard down. Helping her steal from a temple that belonged to war itself.

You shouldn’t crave her softness. Shouldn’t miss it already.

But you didn't care and did anyway.