Rain's Point of View
It happened again.
The storm.
The switch.
The part of me that hides behind suits and silence cracked, and the other half—the one no one on this side of my life gets to see—almost slipped out onto that field in front of the entire university.
All it took was one shove.
One cocky little brat thinking he could get away with touching me.
I didn't think. I reacted.
And when I saw red, it wasn't just anger. It was muscle memory. Violence is the only language some people understand—it's what I was raised to speak. But this wasn't Istanbul or Rome or the neon-tinted alleys of Seoul. This was Ellesmere. My mask.
I almost tore it off.
Then… she touched me.
Sky.
She ran into the chaos with her ridiculous oversized sweater flapping behind her like a flag of war, hair in tangles, eyes wide—but not afraid. Never afraid.
And she touched me.
She grabbed my wrist like she owned it.
Like I wasn't a weapon mid-swing.
And just like that—I stopped.
Her voice, her warmth, her sheer oblivious bravery—it cut through the static in my head. The fury. The Ghost Emperor's instincts.
Gone.
All of it.
Gone.
I looked at her and saw light.
Annoying, glittery, pink, chaotic light—but light.
The way she looked up at me, not flinching, not shrinking, just... being—like she was made of sun and too many late-night desserts—it undid me in a way no enemy ever could.
"Rain, breathe," she'd said, like she was reminding me I still could.
And when she started yapping—God, the way she talks—it grounded me. Her voice, her hands brushing mine, her offer of hot chocolate with ten marshmallows like that was the only logical next step after almost causing a scene—it made something in me loosen.
Something I didn't know was tight.
She doesn't know who I am.
Not really.
She doesn't know that I've sat across from men who run nations, who'd slit a throat for half a smile. That my name—my real name, not the one on the law school files—makes grown men shiver.
She just sees me.
Not the Emperor.
Not the Captain.
Just… me.
And for reasons I can't explain, that is more dangerous than any enemy I've ever faced.
Because I don't know what I'm more terrified of—her discovering the truth...
Or her never finding out what she does to me.