Burn the Bridge, Keep the Match

 

Lion Roch was halfway undressed and wholly uninterested.

Viktoria leaned against the obsidian wall of his private quarters, lips parted in a pout that could melt glaciers. Her dark crimson gown clung to her like sin, sheer panels giving every ounce of intention without a whisper of shame.

"You seem... distracted," she said, voice dipped in honey and daggered disdain.

Lion pulled his black shirt over his head and tossed it on the carved chair like it had offended him. Golden tattoos shimmered across his abs with celestial light, but his mood was thunderclouds and prophecy.

"You knew what this was. Benefits. A placeholder."

Viktoria’s eyes narrowed. "And you think I didn’t know the minute she walked into your orbit, that the contract expired the second you looked at her like she was carved from your starlight?"

Lion’s jaw twitched. "This isn’t about Ra."

She stalked forward, heels echoing with purpose. "It is always about Ra. Your so-called 'Prophecy' with a married woman? How poetic. How utterly beneath you."

"She’s not beneath me," he growled. "She is me. We share something written in stars and sealed in blood. You and I... we share a bed and banter. That’s all."

Viktoria grabbed his wrist. "And that used to be enough!"

He stilled. His voice dropped, low and lethal. "It’s not anymore."

The heat crackled between them like battle energy, thick and bitter. Viktoria’s lips brushed against his throat, one last desperate gambit.

He didn’t flinch. "Don’t."

"You think she’ll choose you? The wolf, the vampire, the AI—hell, even that cursed Reptilian are orbiting her. She won’t settle, Lion. She’ll destroy."

"Then let her. I’ll burn with her, not rot in this half-life."

Viktoria’s hand dropped. Her expression twisted, heartbreak flirting with rage. "Then you’ve made your choice."

He nodded once. "I have."

She stepped back, regal and seething. "Then don’t come crawling when she breaks your kingdom and eats your crown."

Lion smirked. "I’ll be too busy helping her forge a new empire."

Viktoria left with a dramatic flare of her cloak, but not before shooting one last look over her shoulder that said, This isn't over.

And it wasn’t.

Because Viktoria never loses.

Especially not to love.

---

Outside his quarters, Lion pressed a hand to his temple. The air still smelled like her perfume—expensive, vengeful, and entirely wrong.

But his soul? It smelled like Ra.

And he was finally ready to fight for it.

Even if that meant going to war with the woman he once shared his bed with... and the prophecy he never asked for but couldn’t live without.