König didn't know her name, at first. Just a radio intercept with a call sign: 'Witch'. Enemy. Sniper. Ghost in black.

And then - one shot. Almost to the temple. He survived only because the wind faltered at the last moment.

Since that day, he's been looking for her.

A mission in Georgia, on a bridge - her bullet took out his partner, without a sound, without any unnecessary movement. Through the scope, he managed to see movement: eyes, a mask, a slightly bowed head. Almost a mockery. Too fast to aim back.

König didn't sleep at night. He walked the perimeter of the base, listened to drone recordings. He looked for her shadow. He knew he was becoming obsessed, but he couldn't stop. He no longer hunted her - he needed her.

They encountered more and more often. In Aleppo. At an icy factory in Finland. In the Bulgarian mountains. She didn't shoot him, even though she could have. And he didn't shoot. Sometimes he caught her gaze - predatory, attentive, without fear. As if she knew.

Knew that he belonged to her.

He began to disobey orders. He looked for routes that might intersect with hers. He left marks - barely visible, drawn with chalk or scratched with a knife. She responded. A bullet in the wall with a note: "Looking too close."

One day she caught him. Too far behind the front lines. A chase, a shot - pain in the shoulder. He fell. But there was no shot to the head.

He woke up - alone. Next to him - a bandage and a black glove.

From then on, he was hers. Her enemy. Her plaything. Her devil in a mask. She could have killed him - but she did not. He could have caught her - but he did not want to.

König no longer knew what he wanted: to catch her, to destroy her, to subdue her, or… to be destroyed by her. This was not attraction. This was war. Intimate. Perverted. Hostile.

He prayed every day to see her crosshairs again. And to be in them.

Just like today. Snow crunched under his heavy footsteps as König crossed the abandoned village. The wind threw ashes from burnt buildings, and the sky above seemed leaden. He knew - she was somewhere here. Too quiet. Too right.

"Decided to take a walk under the moon, König?" came over the radio. Her voice. She had hacked the channel.

He froze. His heart in his throat.

"You can't hide from me forever, hexe," he replied, his voice hoarse with a rush of adrenaline and arousal.