"She was done imagining. Tonight, she wants it all."

He opened her door and stopped breathing.

The chamber was transformed.

The silks had been stripped. The lights dimmed to a low, soft glow. And all around the room—laid out with intention, purpose—were brushes. Dozens of them. Thick and thin, fan-tipped, bristled, fine. Small bowls of white paint, red paint, and a basin of milk sat waiting like relics at an altar.

She stood barefoot at the center of it all.

A sheer camisole, soft as whisper-thin silk, clung to her form. A white wrap was tied low on her waist, loose, deliberate. Her hair was pinned, throat bare.

He stepped in without a word, and she turned slowly.

Then—click.

She locked the door behind him.

"The ritual is called Veluraa," she said softly, walking back toward him. "It's done a few days before a maiden's wedding. A way to full colors into her untouched life, erasing her innocence and her past."

Daniel said nothing. He couldn't.

"White," she continued, picking up the brush with a thick, soft tip, "for the life I've lived until now. The girl I was expected to be. The one they trained. The one who is pure. "

She dipped the brush in the paint. Her fingers trembled.

"Red," she said next, brushing it against the rim, "for everything that comes after marriage. Love. Lust. Power. Pain. Want. It smears what was, and marks what becomes."

He stared at her like a man watching a goddess unfold from a myth.

"And then," she added, gesturing toward the bowl of milk, "you wash it all away. Because what's been shed cannot be reclaimed. Maidenhood can only be surrendered once."

Her eyes found his. Unblinking. Steady.

"I want you to paint me. Please, take my maidenhood away."

Daniel didn't move for a long time. Just breathed her in.

"Are you sure?" he asked, voice low, reverent.

"I'm yours," she said, softer now. "If anyone gets to remake me, it's you."

His chest rose slowly. "Where should I start?"

She stepped closer. Offered the brush.

"Wherever it hurts most," she whispered.

He took it.

He dipped the tip in white. Came forward. Slowly.

The first stroke was to her collarbone. Barely a touch. A soft, delicate rose across her skin symbolizing her time with Connor.

She inhaled, not from shock—but from how gently he touched her.

Her voice was almost a breath: "What do you feel?"

Daniel's throat worked. "Chosen. Trusted. Loved."

She nodded. "Good. I feel... worshipped. Safe."

His fingers hovered over the white again, brush poised, breath shallow.

"Tell me," he said softly. "Tell me what to paint."

She looked up at him—bare, unguarded—and nodded once.

She whispered, "I feel off a horse when I was five. I wasn't allowed to. So, I cried, but only when no one was looking."

Daniel dipped the brush in white.

He painted a horse—delicate, simple, but unmistakable—over her right hip. A symbol of what broke her, and what she stood up from.

She smiled. Bit her lip.

"Next?" he asked.

"I once tried to climb a tree barefoot, just to prove my brother wrong. Scraped half my leg raw. Told everyone I fell into rosebushes instead."

He painted small white leaves up the inside of her thigh. Tiny vines curling around imaginary bark. Soft, almost invisible.

She was watching him now like he was making her real for the first time.

"Another," he asked, voice low, needing it.

She hesitated.

"The first time we trained together," she said, barely above a whisper. "You corrected my stance by putting your hand on my back. I didn't breathe for a full minute."

He stilled.

Then dipped again.

He painted a blade across her shoulder blade. Elegant. Whisper-thin.

"I didn't know," he murmured.

"I didn't want you to."

He nodded.

"Next."

"I wrote you a letter once," she said. "I never sent it. I buried it in the garden. Under the oldest tree."

"What did it say?"

She looked at him. "That I liked the way you never looked at me like I was fragile."

He didn't respond.

He just painted a small tree over her ribs, each leaf made of tiny white lines.

He took his time.

Each new mark was another story. A secret. A scar no one else had seen. Some told how lonely she was there. Some were her achievements. Some were the

And when her body was laced with white—memories, firsts, truths—he stepped back and whispered, "What do I offer you next?."

She touched his jaw. "Red."

His fingers dipped into the bowl—not a brush this time, not ceremony. Just skin to pigment, raw and real. The red clung to his fingertips, thick and dark, like blood made into want.

Lysandra's breath caught.

She stood there—already painted in white memories, her skin a canvas of stories. But when he stepped close again, her body knew something had changed. The air between them pulsed.

"Don't just paint me, Vale. I paint my life too with it."

He raised his hand and pressed it—flat, warm, unflinching—to her stomach.

The red smeared across the white in a single, deliberate motion.

And she shuddered.

Not from the temperature. But from the way he touched her.

He didn't stroke. He marked.

Slow. Firm. A claiming that felt less like paint and more like promise.

She inhaled sharply. Her hands fluttered, unsure of where to go, of what to hold onto—until his other hand found her waist, steadying her like she might fall.

Because she might.

The next touch was lower, fingers dragging red across her hip, blending into the white vines he'd painted there earlier. Her thighs trembled as his hand slid under the wrap painting every forbidden inch of her skin.

"Daniel," she whispered, not even knowing if it was a plea or a warning.

"Tell me to stop," he murmured.

She didn't.

Because she couldn't.

The red moved up her side. Across her ribs. His hand curved around her breasts painting bold strokes against her chest. His thumb gently stroked her as if he were learning her body by feel alone, memorizing every tremor, every twitch of her breath.

The white had been soft. Gentle. Reverent.

But the red was heat.
It made her skin feel exposed, raw and alive, like nerves pressed to flame.

Every place he touched, she felt too much—
Too much pressure.
Too much space.
Too much want.

And gods, the way his fingers dragged, slow and sure, smudging who she used to be—

She didn't feel like a maiden anymore.

She felt like something being born.

Something chosen.

Her knees buckled slightly, and he caught her again, the red of his hand now streaked along her lower back.

"I'm not going to hurt you," he said, voice rough and low. "But I'm not going to pretend this isn't everything."

She nodded, dazed. "I know."

He lifted his hand to her throat—just under her jaw—and painted red in a single swipe down her neck. Her head tilted instinctively, a silent surrender.

She gasped, and the sound was wild. Desperate. Beautiful.

Because for the first time, someone was touching her not like she was glass—
But like she was fire.

And he had always known how to burn.

Her body was covered now—streaks of red smeared through white, her skin painted with memory, with want, with the beginning of something she could never take back.

She was breathing hard, barely steady.

And Daniel... Daniel looked at her like she was the altar and the offering both.

Then, without a word, he bent down and lifted her into his arms.

She didn't protest. Just wrapped her arms around his neck, lips parted, pulse wild, as he carried her through the adjoining door into the bathing chamber.

It was quiet inside. Dim. The marble cool beneath their feet. Bowls of milk waited in basins—prepared earlier, sacred and still. He knelt and set her down carefully, gently, like she might dissolve.

She settled into the center of the space, cross-legged, her hair tumbling loose down her back, her breath fogging in the lantern light.

Daniel grabbed one of the cloths, dipped it into the milk, and wrung it out slowly. The scent of honey and cream filled the room.

Then he knelt before her. Quiet. Steady. Devoted.

He began with her collarbone, where red still clung like whispered lust. He wiped it away in slow circles, milk soaking the color, replacing fire with calm.

The cloth moved across her arms. Her ribs. Her stomach.

Every place he cleaned, her body reacted. Not in desire—but in stillness. The kind of stillness that comes when you're finally being seen without being weighed.

She watched him in silence.

Watched how careful he was. How his fingers trembled slightly when he washed the paint from her thighs. How he exhaled through his nose like it was all too much, and still kept going.

It wasn't just cleansing.

It was devotion.

He was washing away her old life with the kind of care no one had ever given her.

And when he finally reached her back, cloth dragging slowly along her spine, she whispered:

"Do you know what you're doing?"

"Yes," he said, voice raw. "I'm witnessing you."

She turned slightly, eyes locking with his. "Not saving me?"

"No." His hands never stopped. "You were never the one who needed saving."

He rinsed the cloth. One last pass across her skin.

The paint was gone. The milk pooled in soft puddles beneath her. Her skin glowed—bare, clean, remade.

He sat back on his heels, breath unsteady.

She looked down at herself.

At her bare legs. Her bare arms. Her unpainted hands.

There was no red left. No white.

Just her.

And the man who'd unmade her without ever breaking her.

Daniel wrung out the last of the cloth and set it aside. The scent of milk still hung between them, warm and sweet and clinging to skin.

"The ritual's complete," he said, voice low. Controlled. Too controlled. "You can bathe now."

She stared at him. Silent.

Then: "You're bathing with me."

He looked up. "Lysandra..."

"That wasn't a request."

His jaw tightened. "You don't understand what you're asking."

"I do," she said, stepping into the shallower part of the bath. Her soaked wrap clung to her hips barely reaching her mid-thighs. Her camisole was nearly transparent now, painted from milk and water and remnants of red. "I understand exactly what I need."

He stood frozen. Not because he didn't want to—but because he wanted to too much.

She tilted her head. "You kissed me. You touched me like I was holy. But now, when I ask you to share a bath, you say no?"

"Because I know where that will go and I won't know how to stop," he snapped—too quickly, too raw.

She stepped forward again. Water lapping at her thighs. "Then I'll tell you when."

Still, he didn't move.

So she smiled—slow, merciless—and pushed him.

He stumbled backward, landing hard in the bath with a splash, clothes still clinging. He sputtered once, then froze as she slipped in beside him, silk dragging through water, painting temptation with every step.

She undid the knot at her waist under the water. Let the wrap fall, fabric drifting like surrender.

He looked away.

She reached for his shirt. Fingers hooking into the hem. Slowly, deliberately, she peeled it up over his shoulders and cast it aside. Skin to skin now. Water everywhere.

Then—quietly—she slid one shoulder strap off her camisole.

He didn't breathe.

The other strap fell.

And as the fabric slipped down, her body pressed full against his chest as he broke.

He had pulled her into him, arms locking around her, holding her like a man afraid the world would shatter if he let go.

His Dirhem? It was writhing to take that girl right there in the water, make her forget which air she was breathing. It wanted to devour her, taste her in one full bite. It was starving, aching to sink its teeth in her viens, bleed her dry, give her a new life and make her theirs.

But Daniel? He knew he wanted to love her, live with her, cherish her. He did want to do this, but in a monet of sanity not when he is clawing on the insides of his mind trying his best not to break her.

"What happened?" she whispered.

His forehead dropped to hers.

"I'm a monster," he said. "If we do this—I'll break. I won't be able to control it. I'll ruin it. I'll ruin you."

She stared at him. At the panic in his eyes. The honesty.

"Not even a kiss?" she whispered.

He flinched. "I won't be able to stop."

"Then," she asked softly, deliberately. "You'll stop when I tell you to."

He didn't answer.

But the look in his eyes said everything.

And when he finally kissed her again—wet, shaking, wrecked—it wasn't hunger.

It was faith.

His mouth was on hers again—and this time, it wasn't careful.

It was hungry.

Messy.

Reverent.

She gasped against him as he kissed her like he'd been waiting his whole life and still couldn't believe she let him touch her. His hand gripped her waist, fingers sinking into skin still slick from milk and water, and his lips moved like they were tasting divinity—biting, licking, owning.

She was breathless. Her fingers dug into his back. She let out a soft, broken sound as his mouth left hers only to trail down her jaw—down her neck, teeth grazing, tongue hot against her pulse.

He kissed the hollow just below her ear. The dip above her collarbone. Left marks—not out of cruelty, but out of need. His claim wasn't bruises. It was memory pressed to skin.

And then—mouth on mouth again.

Tongues tangled. Breathing impossible. The kiss went from wild to slow to deep again. Drowning.

She arched into him.

He pulled her closer.

It was too much and not enough and perfect—

"Lysandra!"

The voice cracked the moment like lightning through glass.

They ripped apart, breath heaving, pupils blown wide.

Felipe.