Chapter 62: Summer Dust and Silk Threads II
Mall Incident – Aftermath & Temptation
Everything had stopped.
Not time. Not death. But something else—internal. Unseen. A silence beneath the skin.
Aria stood over the man she had killed, the crowbar trembling in her grip, blood slick and drying against her knuckles. The warmth of the strike still echoed through her arms like phantom lightning, but her body—her body was cold. Not from fear. From something stranger. Something deeper. Like ice had brushed the inside of her thighs and her breath had turned too shallow to hold steady.
Selene stood a few feet away, her shadow stretching long across the fractured boutique tiles. The orange hush of dying sunlight filtered through the glassless ceiling, painting the room in soft violence. Her boots made no sound as she approached. The stillness swallowed everything.
Aria didn't move. Couldn't.
Her heart was hammering too hard in her throat.
"I didn't think," she said. "I just… I saw him. You weren't—" She looked down, wide-eyed, dizzy with adrenaline and something else, something tight and liquid in her stomach. "I hit him. I didn't stop."
Selene stopped in front of her. Her voice, when it came, was impossibly soft. "You saved me."
That was when the shaking began.
Aria's fingers let go of the crowbar and it clattered on the floor, bouncing once, twice. Her breathing was shallow now—like her body had caught up to what her mind had done and didn't know how to stay inside her skin anymore.
Then Selene touched her.
A single thumb across Aria's cheekbone, wiping away a smear of blood. Her hand was cold. Icy. Not with cruelty—but the way moonlight is cold. The way frost lingers at the edge of flame.
Aria flinched, not from the chill—but from how her body reacted to it. A tiny inhale. A flush crawling high up her neck to the tips of her ears. Selene's touch should've comforted her. It should've brought peace.
Instead, it brought heat.
A strange, trembling heat that pooled low and deep, aching in a place she'd never learned how to name. She shifted, uncomfortable. But the discomfort wasn't pain.
It was need.
"You're still soft," Selene said, her gaze sweeping over her like a verdict, "But soft can be deadly."
Aria couldn't speak. She swallowed hard, blinking too fast, staring at Selene's lips when she should have looked away.
"I don't want to be like this," she whispered. "I don't want to stop feeling."
Selene leaned in. Close enough that her breath grazed Aria's jaw. Cold again. Sharp. And Aria shivered—not from the chill, but because of what it did to her.
"You're not stopping," Selene murmured. "You're transforming."
The moment stretched, bloomed, twisted. Selene's hand moved down to Aria's neck—thumb pressing lightly under her jaw as if holding her steady. And Aria… Aria leaned in. Just a fraction. Just enough.
Selene's voice dipped, velvet and dagger. "You don't even know what your body is doing right now, do you?"
Aria blinked. "What?"
"You don't know why your thighs keep pressing together," Selene whispered, "why your breath skips when I touch you. You think it's fear."
Aria flushed deeper. "I'm not afraid of you."
"No," Selene agreed. "You're not."
Her other hand rose slowly, fingers skimming the side of Aria's waist over her dusty shirt, almost lazy, but precise. Aria's breath hitched—soft, quiet, but Selene heard it. Felt it.
She pulled back just enough to meet Aria's wide eyes. "It's not fear that's making you tremble."
Aria bit her lip. She didn't speak. She didn't know what to say.
Her chest was rising and falling too fast, her skin hypersensitive. Every little movement from Selene sparked something uncomfortable inside her. That place—that tight, pulsing place she tried not to notice—throbbed now. The ache was unfamiliar. Unrelenting. Her legs shifted again without thinking, brushing together.
Selene noticed. Of course she did.
"Poor little thing," she said, voice like satin slipping from sharp glass. "Your body wants something you've already tasted, doesn't it?"
Aria's eyes filled, not from tears, but from confusion. From frustration. From the unbearable, unspoken ache between her thighs that she couldn't name.
"I—" Her voice caught. "I don't… I've never—"
"I know," Selene said. She stepped even closer. "You've never done anything before. But you've imagined and I already made you crave. Haven't you?"
Aria looked away, trembling.
"You've imagined and I already tasted them."
The words hit like lightning.
Aria's knees almost buckled. She didn't even realize she had taken a step back until her spine hit the edge of the broken dressing room mirror. Selene followed, slow and certain, a predator pretending not to be hungry. Her fingers trailed along the side of Aria's arm. Just enough to leave her burning.
"You don't know how to ask for it," Selene whispered, "but your body already is."
Aria whimpered. Quiet. Ashamed.
Not because she wanted Selene.
But because she wanted her more now.
Selene's lips curved, deadly and soft. She leaned in, brushing her nose lightly along Aria's flushed cheek. Her breath ghosted past her ear, and Aria shuddered—gripping the wall, trying to stay upright.
"I could show you," Selene whispered, ice in her breath, heat in her words. "But I won't. Not yet."
Aria's fingers curled into fists.
"Why not?"
Selene pulled back slowly. Her smile was all moonlight and ruin.
"Because I want you desperate like before".
Her hand traced down Aria's side. Stopped just at her hip. Not touching—hovering. Her fingers cold as snow, never quite brushing the places Aria wanted them to. The places that ached.
"Selene…" Aria's voice cracked.
"That ache," Selene murmured. "You'll live with it. You'll sleep with it. It'll grow inside you like hunger, like fire."
She turned away.
Just like that.
Cold. Unhurried.
Selene walked toward the exit, light spilling around her silhouette, catching in the ice-white strands of her braid. Aria stared after her, knees still weak, core pulsing with an ache she didn't understand.
Before she stepped into the hallway, Selene turned.
"You'll beg for me eventually."
Aria's breath caught.
Not because of the words.
But because she knew they were true.
And worse—she already wanted to.