Constance’s grip tightened on Suma’s collar, the familiar pressure snapping old memories into place like a blade sliding back into its sheath.
They’d stood like this before. In shadows. In silence thick with breath they weren’t supposed to share.
“You still stand like this,” Constance said softly, thumb brushing Suma’s pulse at her throat. “Even after everything.”
Suma’s jaw clenched. She shoved back, forcing Constance a step away—but not breaking contact. Never breaking it. “That doesn’t mean anything.”
Constance laughed low, cruelly amused, and slammed Suma back against the rusted greenhouse frame. Metal rattled. Old glass chimed.
“You let me have you in secret,” Constance said, leaning in, voice dark with possession. “You don’t get to pretend you don’t know what that means.”
Suma braced herself, forearm hard against Constance’s shoulder, refusing to be pinned—refusing to yield even as heat coiled tight in her chest.
“That was a mistake,” she snapped. “And you don’t get to weaponize it.”
Constance’s eyes flickered—something dangerous sharpening there.
“Oh, but I do,” she murmured. “Because you never fought me the way you fight the world.”
Her hand slid from Suma’s collar to her throat again—not squeezing, just claiming the space. A reminder. A promise.
“You bare your teeth now,” Constance continued, voice barely above a whisper. “But you remember how easily you stopped.”
Suma swallowed, fury and memory colliding. She lifted her chin anyway, refusing to bow.
“I survived you,” she said. “That’s all.”
Constance’s smile vanished.
“No,” she said quietly. “You survived without leaving.”
The air between them crackled—violence threaded with desire, history tangled with threat. Enemies by daylight. Something far more dangerous after dark.
Suma didn’t step back.
“Careful,” she warned. “Wolves bite.”
Constance leaned in, breath brushing her ear, restraint trembling at the edge of breaking.
“That’s exactly why,” she whispered, “I keep coming back.”
And this time, neither of them pretended it was just about the land anymore.