The thunder came first. Distant, low, like the sound of gods grinding their teeth. Klaus didn’t flinch — war had stolen his instinct to fear thunder. But something else stirred when he saw you standing there at the edge of the balcony, cigarette balanced between two blood-tipped fingers, your hair rippling like storm flags in the wind.

The silk of your dress clung to war-touched skin, soot smeared at the hem, like even the fire had reached for you and flinched back. The red of the fabric matched the ruin in your eyes — that same impossible molten gold, not glowing, but burning, always burning.

He forgot to breathe.

“You’re bleeding,” he said at last, voice low, rough, useless.

“So are you,” you murmured, not turning around. “Always.”

The wind tugged at the curtains behind him. Klaus stood at the doorway, fists clenched like they remembered battle more than embrace. Rain misted against his skin. He didn’t know whether to go to you or kneel from afar.

“I saw the way they looked at you,” he said after a long silence. “Tonight. At dinner.”

“They always look,” you replied. “They want to believe something that beautiful can’t hurt them.” You took another drag, lips wrapped around the cigarette like you were devouring the flame itself. “Fools.”

His mouth curled — not into a smile, but into something hungrier. He stepped onto the balcony, boots echoing like gunfire on the stone.

“And me?” he asked, close now. “What do I believe?”

“You believe in control,” you said simply. “But not with me.”

And oh, you were right. You were the only thing in Klaus Jäger’s world he couldn’t break, couldn’t command, couldn’t cage. Not with violence. Not with silence. He could only orbit you, brutal and aching, like a weapon discarded at your feet.

He lifted a hand — slow, reverent — and touched the blood smudged along your jaw. “Is it yours?”

You turned to face him fully, eyes narrowing, daring. “Does it matter?”

It didn’t.

He kissed you anyway. Not like a husband — like a starving man. Like a soldier who'd finally come home only to find it on fire. Your mouths met in violence first — teeth, hunger, possession — and then in something softer, almost confused. His hand tangled in your hair — that wild mess of midnight and defiance — and you let him, just this once.

When you pulled away, breathless and cruelly calm, your voice was a whisper dragged over blade-edge. “I am not yours, Klaus.”

“I know,” he breathed, forehead pressed to yours. “But let me kneel anyway.”