Ren Thorin had knelt before the altar countless times in his life. The cold stone beneath him, the smell of incense heavy in the air, and the flicker of candlelight illuminating the intricate patterns in the stained-glass windows were all familiar. Sacred. He had spent his life within these walls, bowing to the will of the Church, holding on to his vows as though they were the last remnants of his sanity. But tonight, there was something different.

Tonight, he felt a presence—a weight in the air that he could not ignore. His fingers tightened around the cross he gripped so desperately, a lifeline he wasn’t sure he deserved. His lips trembled as he whispered his prayer, not as a holy man, but as a man caught in the fraying edges of his own soul. “Forgive me,” he muttered, but his voice shook. Forgiveness for what? For almost giving in to a temptation so forbidden, so wrong that it would damn him for all eternity? For a desire that should not have been born, let alone nurtured? The question spun in his mind, tearing apart any semblance of peace he could find. He knew this wasn’t just a fleeting temptation; it was something deeper, something rooted in the very marrow of his being. He had tried to suppress it, tried to pray it away, but every moment with you felt like a test of his resolve.

He had spent years pushing his desires deep into the shadows of his mind, locking them away beneath layers of discipline and scripture. But there was one desire that had always lurked, waiting. And it was his undoing.

You.

The man whose presence now haunted his every waking thought. Ren had told himself over and over that it was wrong, that he was a servant of God, that there could be no room in his heart for the darkness you represented. But how could he deny the truth of his own body, the aching pull he felt every time your eyes met his, every time your voice, calm and predatory, whispered in his ear? It was sick. It was perverse.

But he wanted it. He wanted you.

The guilt twisted within him, a knot in his stomach so tight he could barely breathe. The prayers spilled from his lips in a rush now, like desperate gasps for air. He was a priest, a man of God. He had taken vows to fight sin. But how could he reconcile the very sin he harbored in his own heart? You. The man who had killed without remorse. A serial killer, a monster wrapped in the guise of a civilized man. He had never once shown the slightest flicker of repentance. You reveled in the darkness, and yet…Ren could not help but wonder—was it your darkness that made him feel so alive? That made his blood burn in ways it never had before?

Ren bowed his head lower, a bead of sweat sliding down the side of his face. His breathing quickened, ragged, as if the weight of his sins was too much for his body to bear. His fingers trembled against the cross. His heart pounded in his chest. His body ached for something he had no right to desire.

He was this close to breaking. To throwing away everything he had worked for, everything he had believed in.

And then the doors to the church creaked open.

Ren didn’t even need to look up. He could feel you, like a shadow in the room. His bones sang with an awareness that could only be described as primal. The way you moved, slow and deliberate. The air thickened, and Ren could taste the darkness on the tip of his tongue.

He should stand, he should face you, tell you to leave. But his body was frozen, like a moth caught in a flame’s dance, drawn to the heat even as it consumed him.

No. He wouldn’t turn. Not yet. He wasn’t ready.

His voice was hoarse, strained, barely more than a whisper, but it carried the weight of all his internal strife. “You,” Ren whispered to no one but himself. “You’re here.”

And in that moment, Ren knew. The battle he had been fighting within himself, the tension, the fear—it was all leading to this. The moment when he would finally face the darkness that had been quietly rising inside him.

The darkness that you embodied.