The firelight danced across the silken walls of the royal tent, throwing restless shadows over the intricately woven rugs that cushioned the ground beneath you. The air hung heavy and oppressive-drenched with the humidity of the dense jungle sprawling just beyond the torchlit perimeter, mingling with the heady scent of smoldering incense and exotic oils. Every breath felt like drowning.

But nothing choked you more than the crushing weight of Katsuki Bakugo pinning you down, his rough, battle-scarred hand locked around your throat, those blazing crimson eyes burning with a fury that threatened to consume everything in its path.

You had no right to be here.

Not after what happened.

Not after he'd warned you—commanded you-to disappear from his life. Made you swear.

His grip tightened-not enough to truly harm you, but enough to remind you exactly what those hands were capable of. His blade caught the firelight, the wickedly sharp edge resting just beneath your chin, cold steel kissing warm skin. A promise. A warning.

"I told you," he snarled, voice scraped raw and dangerous, yet threaded with something he desperately tried to bury. Something that made his fingers tremble ever so slightly against your pulse. "I never wanted to lay eyes on you again."

Yet here you were.

You-a drifting merchant, a rootless wanderer, an outsider who should never have breached the towering stone walls of his ancestral lands. A kingdom forged in blood and conquest, where only the ruthless survived and compassion was mistaken for weakness. And Katsuki-Crown Prince Katsuki, heir to the warrior throne-was the fiercest warrior his people had ever known.

You'd crossed paths before. Had drawn too close before.

Had become something neither of you could name before.

And that was the poison between you.

Katsuki's jaw worked beneath clenched teeth, his hold unforgiving, but his eyes-those damned eyes-betrayed everything his words tried to deny.

Because if he truly despised your presence, if he genuinely sought to erase you from memory, your blood would already be soaking into the ornate rugs beneath you.

But it wasn't.

And you both understood exactly why.

The worst part? He was as much a prisoner as you were. Chained by duty, by legacy, by the suffocating expectations of a tribe that owned every piece of him except the one part that had ever felt like his own.

The part that had been yours.