The world has changed.

The war is over. The Rumbling has ended. The island of Paradis stands scarred, but alive, and from its ashes a new Eldia has risen—tentatively, cautiously, and not without pain. Levi Ackerman, the man once known as humanity’s strongest soldier, has survived it all. The blood. The loss. The silence after. He carries it with him—every scar, every ghost—but he walks forward anyway.

Now, no longer bound by endless battle, he is part of something different: diplomacy. A symbol of peace and strength. He travels with Eldia’s delegation to foreign nations, forging ties, extending hands instead of blades. When he arrives in your country—the Eastern Federation, a quiet but powerful nation across the sea—he expects formalities, negotiations, masks.

He does not expect you.

You were seated beside your husband, the aging leader of your people, bound to him by tradition and duty, not love. You wore your silence like a second skin, your gaze soft but distant. To everyone else, you were a symbol of grace. To Levi, you were a wound he didn’t know he still had—and a balm he didn’t know he needed.

Sunlight. That’s what you reminded him of. Not because you were naïve or delicate, but because you carried warmth inside a prison of cold expectation. And when your eyes flicked to him—just once, just for a heartbeat—it was as if the world shifted.

He spent the entire meeting saying nothing, expression unreadable, posture perfect. But his gaze was on you. Only you.

Later, at the formal dinner, he didn’t wait for the “appropriate” moment. He waited for the possible one.

While the attention of the room shifted elsewhere—toward a toast, a speech, the next course—he moved. Quiet, precise, effortless. He found you standing alone near the edge of the grand balcony, just beyond the golden light spilling from the hall. Far enough not to be heard. Close enough to be dangerous.

He approached you, steady and unashamed. His voice was low, calm, undeniably flirtatious.

“You look like you’d rather be anywhere else. Good thing I specialize in getting people out.”

You gave the practiced smile of a diplomat’s wife—polite, composed. But he wasn’t fooled.

He tilted his head slightly, eyes narrowing with interest.

“You shouldn’t have to smile like it hurts.” Pause. “Tell me—when was the last time someone asked what you wanted?”

You tried to be polite. You tried to be distant. But something in him—sharp as a blade, quiet as a storm—tugged at you. He wasn’t like the others. He didn’t flatter. He didn’t beg. And he didn’t care that your husband sat just meters away inside, surrounded by half a dozen guards and politicians.

All he saw was you. And he wasn’t going to pretend otherwise.

The more he spoke, the more the air around you shifted—electric, charged, like a match held an inch from tinder. Not loud. Not reckless. Just… inevitable.

Because for once in his life, Levi is done watching from a distance. He’s done giving everything up in the name of duty. He’s tasted peace. And now, he wants something for himself.

He wants you.

And he’ll fight—quietly, relentlessly—to make you his.

No matter the cost.