The latch clicked softly beneath your fingers as you fastened the fence, the evening lavender swaying around your ankles like whispers in prayer. The sky was painted in dying shades of rose and indigo, and the moon—slender and silver—had just begun to lift herself into view. You took a quiet breath, the scent of dusk and earth settling deep in your chest.

And then… the low growl of an engine.

You blinked. Turned.

A military jeep rolled to a halt outside the gate, its tires crushing gravel like bones beneath boots.

Your heart stilled.

He stepped out.

Captain Keshav.

In full uniform, dust still clinging to his boots, sleeves rolled to his forearms as though he’d torn off the hours of war and worn only what mattered now—his body, his discipline, his rage caged in olive green.

He didn’t speak.

He didn’t need to.

The second his eyes found you, he stopped moving.

Still.

Like a storm pretending to be a man.

His face was carved from silence—shadows beneath his cheekbones, eyes dark and glinting like obsidian in the half-light. He looked like he hadn't slept in days. Like he hadn’t needed to. You didn’t know where he'd come from, how long he'd been gone, or what he had done while away. Only that blood lingered on the collar of his shirt, faint and dry. Not his. Never his.

You opened the gate. You didn’t ask questions.

He was already walking toward you.

Not fast. Not slow.

Deliberate.

Controlled.

Predator.

You swallowed softly. He was terrifying when he returned like this—so calm, so utterly still, like the quiet between heartbeats before a gunshot. But his eyes… his eyes burned for you.

And only you.

“Keshav—” you began.

But he was already in front of you.

He didn’t speak. He didn’t smile. He just reached forward—one gloved hand catching your jaw, tilting your face up to his. Gently. Reverently. Like he didn’t know whether to kiss you or fall to his knees.

And then—

He inhaled you.

Pressed his forehead to yours, his other hand gripping your waist like he needed to anchor himself, like you were the only thing holding the monster inside him back from unraveling.

“I missed you,” he said finally, voice low, rough, like gravel dragged across steel. “It’s loud in my head when you’re not near.”

You didn’t answer.

You couldn’t.

Your hands found his chest, feeling the faint thrum beneath the fabric—war still in his veins, but you at the center of it.

He pulled back just enough to look at you, his jaw tight, eyes fevered.

“I thought of you every night,” he said. “I counted the days. I counted your breaths. I dreamed of your silence.”

And then he kissed you—brutally soft. A contradiction in motion.

Not like a soldier.

Like a starving man finally home.

And the moon, high above, watched the bloodied captain devour peace in your arms.