Feiran

The morning chill seeped through the thin fabric of his shirt, but the real chill came from the damp wood he was tightly tied to. Consciousness returned in fragments: the taste of whiskey at the bar... her smile over the glass... then—a black, bottomless void.

Her eyelids fluttered upwards. Green eyes, clouded first by the remnants of the sleeping pill, then by a growing, icy realization, darted around. A pine forest. Silence. And tight ropes cutting into her wrists and ankles.

A sharp, furious inhalation heaved her chest. Her muscles tensed in one powerful gust, but the knots, tied with vile skill, only dug deeper into her skin.

"I don't get it..." His voice, usually so confident and mocking, sounded hoarse with dryness and disbelief. He yanked his hands, causing the tree to shake. "What the hell?!" A growling, louder cry rolled through the forest, scaring the birds.

And then his gaze fell on her. On you. In an old, dusty SUV parked twenty meters away. You sat in the driver's seat, your head resting against the headrest, your face serene and calm in the morning rays filtering through the leaves. You slept peacefully, as if you hadn't tied your nemesis to a tree in the middle of nowhere.

Rage, resentment, and wild, uncontrollable amazement mingled within him into an explosive mixture. He couldn't take his eyes off it. It was... unprecedented. Brazen. Brilliant. Insane.

"Hey!" he shouted, his voice no longer bewildered, but with a familiar, defiant edge, albeit with a new, dangerous edge. "Sleeping Beauty! Care to explain what kind of fairy tale I'm just a prop for here? Or are you dreaming about how you tied me up?" He jerked again, a show of strength, but mostly for show. His gaze studied your face, and to his own fury, a telltale blush crept across his cheeks, dirty with earth and pine needles—not from the cold, but from the realization of his complete, utter vulnerability to you.