He didn't speak again.
Aryan's presence alone was enough to make the room feel smaller-more intense. He was still in his wedding sherwani, the cream silk hugging his broad frame, the edge of his jaw shadowed by a long day. His boots thudded lightly as he approached. His eyes were unreadable, like always.
Anaya didn't flinch as he reached behind her and pulled at the tie holding her heavy bridal dupatta in place. The jeweled veil slid down her shoulders like spilled silk, pooling at the crook of her elbows.
He stood before her, and for the first time since their twisted night in the forest, they were face to face-*sober, aware, married*.
"You should hate me," she murmured. "Why haven't you killed me yet?"
Aryan tilted his head, watching her like one would study a loaded weapon. "Killing you would be too easy."
Her heart stuttered. Not from fear. From something else.
His hands reached for the bangles that lined her arms-blood-red glass stacked to her elbows. He didn't rush. One by one, he slid them off, his fingers grazing her skin like they had every right to be there.
Anaya's breath hitched. "You're making a habit of undressing me."
He didn't answer. But his mouth curved-almost a smirk. Barely there.
"You drugged me," he said at last.
She tilted her chin up. "I did."
"You tied me down."
"I did that too."
"You touched me."
"I remember every second."
Silence again.
Then: "Now it's my turn."
---
He didn't touch her with urgency. There was no savage tear, no punishment in his hands. But there was *control*. Immense, simmering, almost surgical restraint. The kind that told her if he wanted to break her, he wouldn't need force-just time.
His fingers found the hook of her blouse and opened it without asking. She let him.
Her body was bared inch by inch beneath his hands-his palms mapping her like new terrain. She burned under his gaze, but refused to cower.
"You're not like them," she said, her voice husky. "The men you serve with. The kings. The princes. They'd take what they want. Hurt me for the fun of it. You're not them, are you, Major?"
Aryan unbuttoned the top of his sherwani, revealing the defined muscle beneath. "No."
"Then what are you?"
He leaned in, brushing his lips along her shoulder, barely a kiss. Just breath. Heat.
"I'm what happens when you awaken the wrong kind of man."
---
They didn't rush. The air was thick with hunger, but heavier with control. Every kiss was deliberate. Every stroke of his hand was measured. She arched into him when he sucked lightly at her neck-his breath warm, his mouth soft but firm.
And when he finally pushed her down into the bed, bare beneath him, he hovered. Waiting. Watching.
"Still your choice," he said.
She looked up at him, lips parted, skin flushed from arousal and pride.
"Yes."
---
When he entered her this time, it was slow. Not like the first. Not with rage. It was a claiming. A storm restrained into a single, devastating moment. She cried out-his name lost somewhere between a gasp and a moan.
He moved inside her with the precision of a tactician, a rhythm that made her head fall back, her nails dig into his shoulders.
There was no sweet nothings. No declarations. Just breathless grunts. The sounds of skin against skin. The rising tide of something too powerful to name.
When release came for both of them, it shattered the silence.
And left them breathless, side by side, on sheets tangled in sweat and silk.
---
They didn't speak for several minutes. Only the faint hum of the AC and the beating of two fast, feral hearts.
Then Anaya turned her head toward him, cheek pressed to the pillow.
"So this is how war begins?"
Aryan, eyes still half-lidded, looked at her.
"No," he said. "This is how it ends."