Private The Edge of the Blade, the Edge of Us

[Shade]

The training room was silent in the way only after-hours facilities could be—lights dimmed to a cool wash across the composite flooring, air systems humming a soft and steady backdrop, the world muted beyond the sealed doors. Shade crossed the mat with slow, deliberate steps, each movement controlled enough to make no more sound than the subtle whisper of fabric shifting around her. In her hands, two training knives gleamed in the muted light—dull-edged, yes, but weighted properly, balanced precisely the way real blades demanded. She stopped in front of him and extended one handle-first, her wrist steady, posture straight, the gesture as much a command as an offering.

"Take it."

When he curled his fingers around the grip, she circled him—not with predatory intent, but with the calm, analytical precision of someone who had lived her entire life reading bodies for weakness and threat. His stance was good in the ways a soldier should be: grounded, capable, and prepared for firearms or unarmed combat. But a knife changed the entire geometry of a fight. Shade stepped in close enough that her shadow overlapped his and nudged his elbow down with a flick of two fingers—brief contact, clinical, but exact. She moved behind him in the same breath, tapping once at the center of his back, correcting the distribution of his weight without needing to say more.

"Lower your center of gravity. Knives punish imbalance the way gravity punishes arrogance."

As she stepped around him again, the overhead lighting shifted across the room—and across him. It cast a faint green shimmer into his eyes whenever he lifted them toward her, a color deepened by the dark strands of hair that fell just slightly out of regulation neatness. She did not pause, did not let her expression change. Still, she noticed it the way she saw everything: quietly, precisely, storing the detail without letting it hinder the lesson or the control she maintained over the space between them.

Without warning, she moved—not a strike, not an attack, just a sudden glide into his peripheral blind spot, letting the flat of her blade slip toward the space near his fingers. His adjustment came fast, reflexive, and Shade marked it with the faintest incline of her head. Improvement already. She stepped back two paces, feet settling lightly, blade held low and quiet in her hand, her posture composed as if she were merely resting rather than preparing to dismantle him piece by piece.
"Knife fighting is not strength. It is angles, timing, and intent."

Her free hand lifted, curling in a quiet beckoning motion.

"Come."

He shifted forward, shoulders rolling with disciplined readiness, the dim light catching again on the green of his eyes—and Shade, composed as ever, adjusted her stance to receive him. Emotion neatly folded away. Focus absolute. And yet, she noted him all the same.

Cassian Abrantes

 

[Cassian Abrantes]

Shade ​

Cassian turned the training knife in his hand, testing its balance with the quiet precision of someone who understood the difference between weapons built for control and those built for killing. The dull sheen caught faint reflections of the room's low light as he adjusted his grip, the weight settling into his palm like an extension of his own will. He drew in a slow breath, centering himself, letting the silence of the training room press in around him until it became focus, steady, deliberate, exact.

He shifted his stance as she instructed, as he had every intention of taking this as series as possible. He was very well trained, but he had much more to learn.

His stance shifted instinctively, feet grounding into the mat. Years of fieldwork had carved reflex into muscle, but this, this was something else. Knife combat demanded proximity, demanded the acceptance of risk so close it breathed against you. Cassian understood that intimately. He had seen what happened when hesitation took root in those final seconds. The blade didn't forgive doubt.

He raised his arm slightly, eyes narrowing as he traced invisible lines of movement through the air, angles, strikes, deflections. His motions were clean, measured, economical. Every breath matched the rhythm of a soldier accustomed to discipline, every adjustment subtle but deliberate. When the knife rolled once along his palm before returning to guard position, there was nothing showy in it, just efficiency honed into instinct.

He could feel the faint pull in his shoulders, the controlled tension of preparation, the pulse that always steadied before a fight. His mind cataloged possibilities automatically: distance, reaction time, the angle of retreat, the counterstrike. The process was clinical, methodical, the practiced awareness of someone who had long ago learned that survival depended not on aggression, but on precision.

Cassian shifted his weight lower, testing the stability of his stance, the familiar burn through his thighs as balance locked in. The knife felt solid now, as if it belonged there. His focus narrowed, breath slow and even, every sense attuned to the rhythm of discipline that had defined most of his life.

In that moment, he wasn't the administrator, the strategist, the man buried beneath layers of protocol and command. He was simply a fighter preparing for the next move, calm, alert, and utterly in control.

She beckoned him to come forward, and so he did.

He watched the space ahead, reading angles, gauging distance, his mind already several moves ahead. Calculation came as easily as instinct now, refined by years of training where a single misstep meant the difference between precision and chaos. The air around him felt still, tense, waiting. He adjusted his shoulders, grounding his center, drawing a slow breath through his nose before the strike.

When he moved, it was smooth, fluid acceleration born from discipline, not desperation. His momentum carried intent, a silent efficiency that stripped combat of ceremony. Each step forward closed the distance by calculated increments, his wrist rotating with controlled strength, the knife tracing a faint arc that existed only for the purpose of testing defenses, not breaking them.

 

[Shade]

Shade watched him come forward with the quiet, unreadable focus of someone who had spent years distinguishing between confidence and intention. His approach was disciplined, not reckless; measured, not hesitant. Every shift of his weight, every adjustment of his stance, every flicker of calculation through his posture was absorbed and assessed in the space of a single steady breath. Her gaze followed him with a practiced precision, not predatory, but analytical—reading angles, noting where his guard was strongest and where instinct, not training, guided his movements.

The lighting of the training room caught the edge of his dark hair as he moved, the faint overhead glow threading through it in ripples of shadowed bronze and deep black. For the briefest moment, before she folded the observation away, Shade noticed how it softened the sharp lines of his face—how the low wash of illumination made the green of his eyes cut clearer, brighter against the dimness. But the awareness slipped away as soon as it formed, stored quietly behind composure and discipline. She never allowed distraction to compromise form.

Her own stance shifted with a subtle lowering of her center of gravity, feet braced with the kind of effortless balance honed from a lifetime of calculated violence. The training knife in her hand angled downward, blade held along her forearm in a defensive grip meant to redirect his strike rather than stop it outright. She met his forward motion with a controlled pivot, her step smooth as water sliding around stone. The air stirred as she moved, not with the dramatic flourish of a duelist, but with the precise, economical glide of someone who fought to end engagements, not prolong them.

As Cassian's blade carved its testing arc through the space between them, Shade slipped just outside the line of contact, letting the dull training edge whisper past her ribs by a comfortable but deliberate margin. She caught his wrist lightly with her free hand—not a trap, not a restraint, just a brief correction—redirecting his momentum the tiniest fraction to show him where an opening would have cost him, had her blade been real. Her touch was fleeting, clinical, and steady enough to communicate without words.

"Good angle. But don't chase the arm."
Her voice was calm, low, carrying the quiet authority of lived experience rather than rank.
"Chase the center. End the fight where it starts."

She flowed backward a step, reclaiming distance with the same smoothness she'd used to close it earlier. Her shoulders remained relaxed, breath even, movements precise enough to seem effortless. Yet beneath the calm, beneath the discipline, there was a subtle shift in her expression—a flicker of something almost like approval, restrained and rare.

Shade lifted her blade again, not in challenge, but in invitation. Her eyes—those steady, crimson-lit irises—held his without wavering.

"Again. Sharper this time."

Her stance opened just enough to give him room, but not an advantage. Controlled. Intentional. Already preparing to teach him the next lesson the moment he committed to the strike.

Cassian Abrantes

 

[Cassian Abrantes]

Shade ​

Cassian steadied his breath, rolling his shoulders once before resetting his grip on the knife. His body had already begun to adjust, to learn the rhythm and geometry of close combat. Her words echoed in his head: Chase the center. It was a principle he understood instinctively, strategy reduced to anatomy. Efficiency. Finality.

He adjusted his footing, lowering his center of gravity, distributing his balance across the mat. The silence of the training room stretched thin between each movement, punctuated only by the faint shift of fabric and the slow cadence of controlled breathing. Cassian tracked his own form through the reflection in the polished floor, posture aligned, guard close, motion deliberate. Every second he spent preparing wasn't hesitation; it was calibration.

When he moved again, it was with purpose. His lead foot slid forward, body angled, blade drawn in a measured arc designed not to reach but to probe. He felt the pull of muscle memory from years of ranged combat trying to assert itself, distance, containment, but he forced it down, pushing his awareness inward. This was not about space; it was about intent. The center. Always the center.

The knife rotated smoothly in his hand, edge aligned along his forearm as he deflected the imagined counterstrike, then drove forward in a compact, efficient motion toward an invisible target at chest height. No flourish. No wasted energy. Just clean mechanics, built on focus and discipline.

He exhaled through his nose, letting the sound fade into the hum of the room. Each repetition drew sharper lines through the air, his body finding the rhythm between balance and motion. The longer he trained, the quieter his mind became, everything else fell away until there was only the breath, the movement, and the controlled precision of his strikes.

Cassian reset again, sweat beginning to bead at the edge of his collar, breath steady but deeper now. The knife felt like part of his pulse. The discipline he lived by, observation, adjustment, control, had found a new outlet.

He centered himself once more. No excess. No hesitation. Just intent, and the quiet certainty that he was learning.

 

[Shade]

Shade watched him move without interrupting. Her stance didn't shift, her breathing didn't change, but her attention sharpened in increments—tracking the alignment of his shoulders, the angle of his hips, the rotation of the knife in his hand. For all his precision and discipline, this wasn't his battlefield by instinct…and that made every adjustment he made more impressive. A soldier learning a hunter's geometry.

She stepped slowly to the side, circling him again, but there was something different in the way she assessed him now. Not criticism. Not analysis alone. There was an unmistakable flicker of awareness—quiet, controlled, but present—as the low training lights brushed across his features. The dim glow caught the edge of his dark hair, turning it almost gold for a moment, and every time he reset his stance, the green of his eyes sharpened with that same focus he always carried into missions. It was impossible not to notice. She did. She just didn't let it show anywhere except the slightest stillness in her gaze as she watched him.

When he slid forward again, Shade moved—not a counterattack, but an adjustment. She stepped into his range with fluid certainty, her blade turning just enough to intercept his forearm with the flat, redirecting the strike by degrees instead of force. Her other hand settled lightly at the back of his wrist, a single point of contact, guiding the angle downward without resistance or struggle.

"Better," she said quietly, her voice carrying in the stillness like a fine-edged whisper. "Your control is improving. But your shoulders still want distance. Knife work removes that luxury."

She stepped back, resetting her own stance with the same calm precision she demanded from him. Her movements were crisp, efficient, not a gram of wasted energy. Her blade sat low, angled across her thigh—relaxed, yet perfectly positioned to strike.

"Your intent is correct. Your discipline is obvious."
Her eyes flicked briefly over his posture again, the faintest narrowing at his stance—not disapproval, but refinement.
"Now you learn to apply both without hesitation."

She shifted forward by a single, precise pace—close enough for him to feel the space tighten, not enough to touch.

"Again."

Her tone wasn't sharp, but it left no room for negotiation. And as she raised her blade back into guard, something else lingered beneath the command—a quiet recognition of the focus in his eyes, of the way the light caught on them, of the way he listened, learned, and adapted.

It didn't soften her expression.
But it changed the way she looked at him.

Just slightly.

Cassian Abrantes

 

[Cassian Abrantes]

Shade ​

Cassian inhaled once, slow and measured, steadying the rhythm of his pulse. He'd been in firefights that demanded less focus than this, than the quiet, deliberate tension of moving within arm's reach of another blade. But this wasn't about fear or reaction; this was about precision, and the controlled dismantling of habit.

Her voice lingered in his mind like the cadence of a command he respected. Remove the distance.

He shifted his weight, closing the space that instinct told him to preserve. Every fiber of his training urged him to create room, to draw, to disengage, to reposition, but this kind of combat didn't allow that comfort. Knife fighting demanded proximity, trust in the smallest movements, the kind of calm that turned breath into timing.

Cassian rolled his shoulders once, lowering them into a more natural posture. He adjusted the angle of his wrist, keeping the knife aligned with his forearm, his grip tightening only when necessary. He moved forward again, not with the linear speed of a soldier advancing, but with the measured precision of a tactician testing every possibility.

His eyes stayed fixed on the invisible center point she had forced him to recognize, the line where all attacks began and ended. He pivoted lightly on his lead foot, drawing the knife across a tight arc, controlling the motion from his core instead of his arm. No excess force. No wasted movement. Just clean, quiet intent.

He could feel the change happening beneath his own skin, the shift from methodical to instinctive, from training to intuition. It wasn't about muscle memory anymore; it was about focus. The blade became an extension of that focus, translating thought into action without delay. Cassian exhaled through his nose, his pulse steady, every movement exact. His steps were smaller now, more efficient. He wasn't chasing; he was controlling the rhythm, narrowing the reaction window until there was only execution.

When he reset his stance again, the air around him felt different, still charged, still tense, but balanced. The knife rested steady in his hand, his grip loose yet unyielding. He could feel the fatigue starting to edge into his muscles, but he didn't let it show.

"You're pretty good at this." He said with a smirk as he locked them together for a brief moment, hands on wrist, gentle but firmly. He chuckled and showed a small teasing smile. "So tell me, that evening. Could you have killed me if you wanted to?"

 

[Shade]

Shade didn't break the lock of their wrists at first. She let the pressure linger, let the steady pulse beneath his skin speak more honestly than the grin he tried to hide behind. Her stance remained anchored, balanced, her breath even despite the gradual burn settling into her shoulders. He had improved—noticeably—and she had felt the shift in him the moment he stopped relying on distance and started relying on intent. That alone earned a faint, almost imperceptible lift of her chin.

When he asked the question, her eyes met his, steady and direct. There was no discomfort in the answer, no dramatics, no coyness. Just the clean edge of truth delivered without hesitation.

Shade eased her wrist out of his grasp with a small turn of her hand, the motion smooth, economical, and leaving no doubt she was allowing the break, not forcing it. She took only half a step back, enough to breathe, enough to see him clearly in the low training-room light—the faint reflections tracing through his dark hair, the green in his eyes sharpened by focus and proximity. She noticed all of it, noted how the exertion had warmed his skin, how the disciplined tension still lived in the set of his jaw—and yet she stayed composed, controlled, every observation kept behind her eyes rather than written in her posture.

"Could I have killed you?" she echoed quietly, her blade lowering but not relaxing. "It would not have been easy. You are not someone I have ever underestimated."

Her gaze didn't waver. If anything, it softened—not in sentiment, but in clarity.

"But yes. Probably."

She let that hang between them for a heartbeat, neither proud nor apologetic, simply honest. Then the slightest hint of something—dry amusement, maybe—touched the corner of her mouth.

"What surprised me wasn't your skill. It was your resistance."

She spun the training knife once along her knuckles, a small controlled flick that betrayed how naturally the motion came to her.

"I dosed you with a paralysis compound I've used for years. It should have dropped you in seconds."

A tilt of her head, crimson eyes steady on him.

"It didn't."

Another step—not closing distance, not retreating, just shifting her balance as if acknowledging him in a way that wasn't verbal.

"After that, I had to strengthen the formula. Because of you."

The words weren't teasing, but there was a quiet undercurrent of approval in them—subtle, deliberate, something she didn't give freely. Her blade angled again, ready to continue, though her voice dropped into something calm and cuttingly precise.

"So no. Killing you wouldn't have been simple. And it hasn't been since the moment we met."

She raised her second knife, her stance resetting with ghostlike smoothness, composure restored.

"Now…"
Her foot slid into position.
Her eyes sharpened.

"…again."

Cassian Abrantes

 

[Cassian Abrantes]

Shade
​

"I am stubborn when it comes to dying, I've been told. Otherwise I would've died on the beach that day. Perhaps my time of death comes much later."

His breath came slow and deliberate, the kind drawn to steady pulse and thought at once. The words she'd left hanging between them, 'probably' didn't sting. They intrigued him. The admission landed in the same way a fragment of intelligence would: useful, telling, something to analyze and learn from rather than to fear.

He rolled his shoulders once, feeling the faint ache of exertion fade into awareness, his body already calibrating to the next movement. The knife turned in his palm again, balanced and centered, every ounce of weight accounted for. His stance lowered fractionally, his back foot sliding across the mat until it found its anchor.

He thought about what she'd said, about the toxin, about his resistance. It didn't surprise him that she'd tried. What lingered was how easily she'd said it, and how effortlessly she'd pivoted from that memory into the present, expecting him to do the same. And he did. There was no hesitation in him now, no residual tension from the revelation. If anything, it sharpened his focus.

He adjusted his breathing, timing each inhale to the steady rhythm of his heart. Then he moved.

Cassian's approach this time was quieter, less a lunge and more a measured advance that carried precision instead of momentum. He cut the distance in controlled increments, the blade tracing compact, efficient arcs through the air. Each strike followed intent, no wasted reach, no unnecessary force. Where instinct wanted distance, discipline denied it. Where caution wanted pause, purpose overrode it.

He let the rhythm of it guide him: pressure, retreat, redirection, flow. Each motion tied into the next, forming a sequence that was both methodical and instinctive. His eyes stayed forward, the world narrowing to the exacting geometry of form and timing. Every adjustment refined him further, turning observation into execution.

The knife felt lighter now, an extension of his will instead of an unfamiliar tool. His pulse remained steady, his movements deliberate, his focus absolute.

When the final motion ended, Cassian stopped cleanly, not out of fatigue, but by choice. His stance remained balanced, his breathing quiet, the faint shimmer of sweat at his temple catching the low light. He didn't look away, didn't seek acknowledgment.

He simply reset his grip, turned the blade once in his palm. He took a deep breath and disengaged. He moved off to the side and took a small drink of water from the container before looking over to Shade and offering her some.

 

[Shade]

Shade watched him with the same quiet focus she reserved for live operations, not lessons. The way he centered his breathing, the way the blade settled instead of trembled, the way his stance shifted from learned posture into instinct—it all drew a faint, almost imperceptible change at the corner of her mouth. Not amusement. Not approval. Something quieter. Recognition. He was adapting in real time, absorbing not just form but intent, and that mattered a great deal more in a knife fight than any textbook technique ever could.

When he moved aside for water, she let the moment breathe. She didn't need the pause—her own pulse hadn't lifted—but she used it. A reset. A recalibration. A chance to gauge him, the subtle lines of tension across his shoulders, the heat lingering along his skin, the disciplined stillness settling into his stance. Her eyes tracked him without hurry, the low light catching faint glints along her crimson irises, reflecting back the green of his with a quiet intensity she did not bother to disguise.

She crossed the mat with silent steps, posture composed, movement controlled yet undeniably deliberate. Not an approach born of aggression, but of choice. When she stopped in front of him, the distance between them was just shy of intimate, close enough that she could feel the warmth of his breath brushing the faint coolness of hers.

"You and me both." Her voice was low, steady, carrying a certainty that required no sharpening. "Neither one of us is easy to kill." Not a boast. A fact. One, she knew he understood.

Then she moved.

Her hand slid along his wrist in a motion so smooth it barely disturbed the air. Her thumb found the pressure point beneath the bone, gentle but unyielding, guiding rather than forcing. Her other hand traced along the flat of his knife, redirecting rather than disarming by strength. His balance became her leverage. His grip became her advantage. The blade left his hand before instinct could follow.

It all happened in one breath.

Shade stepped back—just enough to reestablish space, not enough to truly retreat. The knife spun once between her fingers, effortless, controlled, before she reversed her grip and offered it back to him, hilt-first.

But she didn't release it immediately.

When his fingers closed around the handle, hers lingered—not long enough to break her discipline, just long enough to be unmistakable. A subtle press of contact, glove to skin, warmth to warmth. Controlled. Collected. But deliberate in a way that carried far more than instruction.

Only then did she release the knife.

Her posture straightened, but her eyes didn't leave his. The faint light caught along the silver strands woven into her braid as she drew in a quiet breath.

"Lesson two," she murmured, voice calm but threaded with the quiet pulse of awareness between them.
"A knife fight lasts seconds. If you control the weapon, you control the outcome."

Her gaze held his for a heartbeat longer than needed—steady, sharp, and quietly drawn to him in a way she did not bother to hide anymore.

"Ready for the next?"

Cassian Abrantes

 

[Cassian Abrantes]

Shade ​

Cassian's eyes followed the movement of the blade, not out of surprise, but analysis. His instincts tracked every shift, every subtle reconfiguration of her stance, the precise manipulation of leverage that turned his weapon against him before he even had time to adjust. The loss of the knife wasn't failure; it was instruction, delivered through contact and timing instead of words. He felt it, the efficiency of her control, the exact placement of pressure that had unbalanced him without force.

When she stepped back, he drew in a slow, steady breath. His pulse was even, but there was a quiet intensity behind his focus now, an acknowledgment of the precision she'd just demonstrated. His hand flexed once as the knife returned to his grasp, her fingers lingering just a moment longer than necessary. The warmth of that contact remained long after the handle had settled back into his palm.

He looked down at the blade, testing its weight again, recalibrating how it felt after the exchange. Every lesson carried its own gravity. This one came with a truth he already understood but rarely practiced: control didn't come from force. It came from intent.

Cassian lifted his gaze to her, his expression composed but sharpened at the edges. "Control the weapon," he repeated quietly, turning the knife over once in his hand before setting his stance again. "Then control the outcome. I'm not unfamiliar with that concept at all. I've heard it all too many times."

The repetition wasn't rote, it was reflection. He meant it.

He took a breath, grounding his weight evenly through his feet, every muscle aligning with practiced readiness. His eyes held hers across the short distance, not in challenge, but in understanding. Whatever current lingered between them, discipline,it was part of the lesson now, indistinguishable from the rhythm of combat itself.

"Let's keep going." Cassian said simply, his voice low and steady.

The knife came up again, blade angled with purpose, his focus absolute. Whatever came next, he intended to meet it with the same precision she demanded, calm, deliberate, and entirely his own.

 

[Shade]

Shade watched him reset his stance, the training blade settling back into his hand as if it finally belonged there. The way he absorbed instruction wasn't just competent—it was deliberate, almost hungry, a quiet kind of intensity that few people wielded well. It tugged at her focus in ways she wasn't accustomed to, in ways she normally ignored. But now…she didn't look away. She tracked the shift of muscle in his forearm, the steadying of his breath, the way his eyes sharpened as he committed fully to the next lesson.

She felt something she did not allow often: The faint, restrained pull of wanting to study him longer than the moment required.

But she kept her posture calm, composed, unreadable beyond the slight narrowing of her eyes and the subtle angle of her stance toward him—closer without appearing so. It was control layered atop instinct, the way she always lived.

When he murmured, "Let's keep going," something flickered across her face. Not a smile. Something quieter. Warmer. Gone almost as quickly as it surfaced.

Shade stepped closer, circling only half a pace to his left, her movements smooth enough that her shadow brushed his across the mat before breaking away. The faint luminescence of her crimson eyes caught the green of his for a single beat—an unspoken acknowledgement of the tension settling between them, sharpening their focus in a way that wasn't purely martial.

Then her voice slipped in, low and steady.

"Lesson three."

She didn't raise her blade yet. Instead, she reached out and adjusted the angle of his wrist—not like before, not a correction, but a refinement. Her fingers brushed against his skin for only a heartbeat, but the contact was deliberate, controlled, something she held onto just long enough to feel the warmth under her touch before withdrawing.

Her proximity lingered, though—heat against heat, breath measured but close enough to sense. "Flow with your opponent…not around them."

Shade finally lifted her own knife, but held it low, the posture deceptively relaxed. The silver-black strands of her braid shifted as she tilted her head just slightly, studying him the way one studies a puzzle worth solving.

"Intent is everything." Her tone softened, but the intensity in her eyes didn't. "You decide the pace. You decide the outcome."

She stepped back a single pace, enough to give him movement room, but not enough to create real distance. Her gaze stayed locked on his, drawn to the determination there—and, unwillingly, to the pull beneath it.

"Show me how you take control of a fight, Cassian." It wasn't just instruction. It was an invitation.

Cassian Abrantes

 

[Cassian Abrantes]

Shade ​

Cassian centered his breathing, the quiet rhythm of it aligning with the controlled weight of his stance. The knife rested easy in his grip now, no hesitation, no adjustment needed. He had learned her cadence, the tempo of her movements, the distance she allowed before engagement. Every lesson she'd given him had folded into instinct, and now that instinct sharpened into purpose.

He focused first on control, not contact. His pulse slowed, every motion calculated before it began. The first step forward wasn't an attack, it was placement. His lead foot slid into position, cutting the angle of her defense in his mind before the blade even moved. The second step carried intent, momentum compressed into precision.

Cassian's approach was methodical, the measured advance of someone who understood that victory began long before a strike landed. His movements weren't loud, weren't fast, but each was final in its own way, designed to take balance, to take space, to take options. That was control. That was the beginning of the end.

He shifted through the flow she had taught him, turning her own lesson into action. Disable before destroy. Limit before eliminate. His motions were sharp and economical, every pivot of his wrist or shift of his shoulders building pressure without overreaching. The knife moved as a silent extension of him, carving invisible lines through the air, each one precise enough to end a fight in seconds.

He thought not of domination, but of inevitability, the art of leaving no room for a counter. The way to win was to remove the other person's ability to act, to breathe, to decide.

Cassian moved as if tracing that philosophy in motion. Each step forward narrowed the world, every breath aligned with intent. The blade stopped at the threshold between command and consequence, never sloppy, never rushed, always deliberate.

Disabling first. Then the finish.

The flow of his body carried the silent message of it: once control was achieved, the outcome was no longer a question. Only timing. Only choice.

And Cassian Abrantes never left those to chance.

 

[Shade]

Shade felt the change in him before she registered the knife itself—the shift in rhythm, the tightening of intent, the way his breath steadied into something controlled and deliberate. Cassian wasn't simply reacting anymore; he was choosing every motion with purpose. He moved in close, closer than most dared, cutting off her angles with sharp, efficient pivots that traced the geometry she'd been drilling into him. His momentum didn't overwhelm; it narrowed, compressing the space between them until the only movement left was the one he intended to make.

When the knife met her ribs, the contact was clean and decisive. Shade didn't flinch. She didn't block. She didn't counter. She let it land.

The soft tap of metal against the fabric of her shirt was a precise hit—center mass, just below the line of protective cartilage. Not fatal, but debilitating. A perfect strike for domination, not destruction. For control.

Her breath caught quietly in her throat—not in pain, but in acknowledgment. He had understood the lesson. He had used it. And he had done it with a level of restraint that spoke to discipline rather than dominance.

She lifted her hand, slow and deliberate, until her fingers brushed the inside of his wrist. She didn't move the blade upward, didn't alter the target; she pressed lightly, holding his hand in place just long enough for him to feel the exactness of where he'd struck. Her touch was purposeful, but it lingered with a softness that surprised even her.

The closeness settled around them like a held breath.

Cassian's warmth washed over her—heat radiating off his chest, the subtle rasp of his exhale brushing her cheek. They were close enough that she could feel the faint rise and fall of him, the way the strain of training still hummed quietly beneath his skin. The dim overhead lights caught the edge of his jaw and the green of his eyes, turning them into something almost luminous in the half-shadow.

Shade didn't move back. She couldn't have pretended the attraction wasn't there—not when every breath between them mingled, when her heart tightened with a quiet, unwelcome pulse of awareness. His proximity pulled at something deep in her chest, something she wasn't accustomed to letting through: wanting.

Her gaze lifted to his, deliberate, steady, and unguarded for the briefest of moments.

"That strike," she murmured, voice low and smooth, her fingers still curled lightly around his wrist, "would have taken me out of the fight."

No embellishment. No pride. Just truth.

The heat of him, the way his breath grazed her skin, the faint tremor beneath the steadiness of his pulse—it was enough to press a spark through her, sharp and hot beneath her ribs.

She let her hand slide away from his wrist only after she meant to, withdrawing with a slow precision that left the air between them charged, electric.

Then she stepped back just one breath's width—enough to reset, not enough to sever the pull between them. Her posture straightened, her crimson eyes never leaving his.

And with a controlled inhale, she spoke, her voice a soft, steady current laced with something unmistakably dangerous.

"Again."

Not a challenge. Not a test. An invitation.

Cassian Abrantes

 

[Cassian Abrantes]

Shade ​

Cassian moved without hesitation. The weight of the knife felt lighter now, an extension of his breathing, his pulse, his will. His focus narrowed, not into aggression, but into absolute control. The lesson had shifted; this was no longer training, not in the strictest sense. It was rhythm and motion layered over intent, precision threaded through instinct.

He stepped forward, each stride measured, deliberate, his balance unwavering. The mat beneath his boots whispered with the faint sound of friction as he advanced, his center aligned and his body fluid in its purpose. There was nothing rushed in his approach, no wild energy. Just inevitability.

Every motion was calculated to close distance, to reclaim space, to dictate the tempo. His blade traced controlled arcs through the air, not striking to wound but to press, to direct, to guide. His free hand adjusted subtly with each step, maintaining equilibrium as he moved her backward, not forcefully, but with the quiet persistence of someone who refused to yield.

The air thickened with heat and breath, his proximity drawing closer with each shift of his weight. His movements became tighter, more compact, each pivot bringing him within arm's reach, close enough to feel the faint echo of tension radiating from his own body. He matched breath to motion, letting the cadence of it steady the pulse in his throat.

Cassian's focus remained razor-sharp, yet beneath that discipline ran a current he couldn't quite suppress, the awareness of proximity, of warmth, of something threading through the precision of combat that was no longer entirely tactical. The rhythm between them had become a conversation without words, one where each step forward carried both intent and restraint.

He didn't stop. His momentum built through control, not dominance, every movement guided by the same principle that defined his command in the field: when you seize control, you do not lose it.

Cassian pushed forward again, the dance tightening, breath measured, pulse steady. The knife followed the motion, the point of focus that mirrored the steady intensity in his eyes, calm, certain, unrelenting. The boundary between training and something more blurred, and still he moved, precise and unwavering, the rhythm of the fight turning into something far more intimate than instruction.

 

[Shade]

Shade felt his shift before she saw it—the tightening of discipline, the sharpening of resolve, the way Cassian's entire presence focused into a single, controlled advance. He'd stopped practicing the lesson.

He was using it.

Each step he took compressed the space around her, narrowing her options and tightening the angles. He guided the rhythm with the quiet certainty of someone who rarely relinquished control once he claimed it. She had taught him how to move like this—but she hadn't expected how quickly he would learn, or how naturally the command fit him.

Shade gave ground incrementally, not because he overpowered her. She allowed the motion, reading every shift of muscle, every adjustment of his shoulders, every flick of the knife as it traced measured lines in the air. He was pressing her—smartly, quietly, precisely.

And he was close.

Too close.

Close enough that she could feel the warmth radiating off him, the faint roughness of his breath catching the skin just beneath her throat each time he stepped into her space. The air thickened between them, charged with something that was not fear, not hesitation—something far more dangerous.

She pivoted lightly, redirecting his forward momentum with a subtle shift of her hips. Still, he compensated instantly, matching the angle, closing in again with a fluidity she hadn't expected from him so soon. His blade carved another deliberate arc downward, forcing her to parry rather than slip away. Metal grazed metal, a soft whisper of contact that hummed through her bones.

Her pulse spiked.

Not from the strike.

From the nearness.

Cassian's breath skimmed her cheek when he pressed forward again, controlled but unyielding. Her crimson eyes flicked to his—green catching red in a quiet collision of focus and heat. She felt the steady thrum of his intent, the restraint bracing every movement he made. He could have lunged. He didn't. He fought inches from her body, not to overwhelm, but to see how she moved beneath pressure.

It was effective.

And it was affecting her.

Shade's breath left her in a slow, measured exhale, barely audible, but her composure tightened—not in retreat, but in recalibration. The blade in her hand tilted, angled low, tracing the inside of his advancing arm. She let the flat kiss the fabric of his sleeve in a silent warning—not the stop of a teacher, but the response of an equal.

Still, she didn't break the closeness.

She didn't want to.

The proximity pressed against something she kept buried beneath missions and discipline—wanting, rare and unwanted, flickering beneath her ribs like a match struck in the dark. His heat against her front. His breath mingling with hers. His certainty… meeting hers.

Shade's voice, when it came, was low enough to vibrate between them, her lips a breath's width from his.

"If you push any closer,"
her words steady, controlled, dangerous,
"you had better intend to finish the move."

A challenge.
A warning.
An invitation.

The knife remained at his arm.
Her body remained pressed into the gravity of his.

And for the first time tonight—
Shade didn't step back.

Cassian Abrantes

 

[Cassian Abrantes]

Shade ​

Cassian felt the air shift, thick, charged, and alive in the small distance that still separated them. His pulse stayed measured, but the rhythm had changed. The control he'd built through discipline now lived in instinct, his body answering hers with precision tuned past thought. Every inch of movement was deliberate, every breath calculated, every ounce of restraint balanced on a blade's edge.

He didn't retreat. He didn't falter. He leaned into the rhythm she had drawn him into, and made it his own. The knife remained steady in his hand, low but ready, the edge tracing the faint geometry of space between them. His wrist turned slightly, redirecting the contact at his arm rather than breaking it, his movement slow and sure, dominant only in its calmness.

Cassian knew the distance they stood in was too close for safety, too close for neutrality. The nearness of her breath, the heat of her presence, the subtle pressure of proximity, none of it unsettled him, but it did something else. It focused him. It anchored him in a way no command, no operation, ever could.

He adjusted his stance, feet grounding into the mat, weight aligned with deliberate control. His grip tightened just enough to reaffirm intent, not aggression. The knife rose fractionally, an acknowledgement of the tension between them and the truth of her words. Finish the move.

Cassian's mind processed a dozen tactical outcomes in an instant, but none of them mattered as much as the one that existed right there, between her breath and his, between challenge and something else entirely. However, none of them had to do with the blade and the lesson. It was her and him, the closeness they had. He thought of his lips against hers, that smile that she showed him on the house by the Lake during their time there.

He pressed forward, not with speed, but inevitability. His free hand came up, precise and measured, the movement designed to seize control of centerline, to claim balance and finish the fight the way he'd been trained. His body moved in one fluid motion, dominance born not from power, but from restraint refined into precision. He stopped just short of the strike's end, the knife hovering at its intended mark, decisive, close, final. The silence around them seemed to deepen, the hum of the air system and their controlled breathing the only sound.

Cassian held the position a heartbeat longer than necessary, the tension suspended like a wire drawn tight. His composure didn't waver; his focus didn't break. Yet beneath it, something coiled, a truth neither of them had named but both had stepped into fully.

The fight was finished. But he wasn't the one pulling away.

"I fear, we may be both losing this fight...." He didn't think. He acted.

The knife slipped from his hand, hitting the mat in a muted thud that barely reached his ears. His fingers caught her jaw with care but certainty, the roughness of his touch tempered by the control still coursing through him. He leaned in, closing the last fraction of space, and kissed her.

It wasn't hesitation. It wasn't question. It was finality, an answer given in the language of breath and contact instead of words. The same precision that defined his every motion carried into that moment, restrained and deliberate, but undeniably real.

Real as the lakehouse, just as real as they were.

 

[Shade]

Shade felt the shift in him before she truly registered the movement—the subtle tightening of intent, the focus that sharpened rather than softened, the gravity in the air changing with a pull she could feel at the base of her spine. His precision held for an instant… then surrendered to something deeper. And when the knife hit the mat in a muted thud, the sound struck through her like a pulse detonator.

Her heartbeat broke rhythm.

Not outwardly. Not visibly. But beneath her chest, it jolted—sharp, uncontained, shattering the controlled cadence she lived by in every operation, every kill, every moment of discipline she'd built her life upon. She could steady her breath through injuries, interrogations, firefights…But not through him.

When his hand lifted to her jaw, the warmth of his fingers stole that missing beat entirely. The proximity, the heat of him, the quiet intensity in his eyes—it all pressed into her with a force she had no defense against, no training crafted to counter. She should have stepped back. She didn't.

When he kissed her, Shade didn't resist the inevitability.
She leaned into it.

Her hand slid to the back of his neck, fingers threading into his hair, drawing him closer in a movement instinctive and beyond calculated control. The kiss wasn't tentative or cautious; it was deliberate, certain, answering something she had buried under missions and silence for far too long. His mouth was warm and grounding, and with every breath shared between them, something inside her unraveled—quietly, devastatingly, without apology.

Her pulse hammered now, traitorous and alive, and she knew he could feel it with how close their bodies were. Shade didn't care. She didn't hide it. She didn't want to.

When she finally pulled back, it was only the width of a breath. Her forehead rested lightly against his, their lips brushing the same space, their breath mixing in the warm, charged air between them. Her voice—usually controlled, cool, perfectly even—came lower now, softer, threaded with something real and unguarded.

"You're right." A slow exhale ghosted across his mouth. "This is the fight we're losing."

Her thumb brushed along his cheek, a touch she would give no one else, grounding and intimate in a way she had never allowed herself to show.

"Because every time you get this close…" Her breath hitched—barely—but undeniably. "…I stop wanting to resist you."

Another heartbeat. Another truth. One she had no intention of hiding.

"And right now…" Her lips skimmed his, breath warm and steady. "…I don't want to win."

Cassian Abrantes

 

[Cassian Abrantes]

Shade ​

Cassian didn't move for a long moment. The world around them, training mats, dim lights, the soft hum of the facility, fell away until there was only her. The rhythm of combat had vanished, replaced by something heavier, quieter, and far more dangerous. His pulse still beat hard in his chest, not from the fight, but from the way she looked at him, steady, unflinching, every bit as composed as ever, yet holding something that made it impossible to breathe evenly.

He could still feel the echo of her lips against his, the faint warmth at the back of his neck where her hand had been, the electricity that lingered between them even as the moment shifted. Every instinct he had, discipline, training, caution, told him to step back. But he didn't.

Because this wasn't a fight he wanted to win. This was the one he wanted to lose.

The board had been set weeks ago, long before this night, before the blades and the lessons. It had started the day they'd arrived at the Lakehouse, when the silence between missions had stretched into something deeper, when the late hours spent planning had blurred into something personal. The first time she'd looked at him not as a superior, not as an operative, but as a man. That was when the pieces began to fall into place.

And now, here they were, exactly where that unseen game had been leading them. He was with her, and she was with him.

Cassian exhaled, slow and deliberate, as if speaking too quickly would break the gravity of the moment. His hand lifted, fingers brushing along the line of her jaw before settling lightly at her neck, his thumb tracing the warmth of her pulse. His voice came low, roughened, not from strain, but from restraint. He leaned in, kissing her lips gently and gracefully.

"I think this one was already decided," he murmured, his words quiet but sure. "The moment we arrived at the lakehome, this was always how it would be."

He drew in a breath, steady but uneven at the edges. "Every move since then… I've known where it was leading. And I didn't stop it. I didn't want to stop it."

His eyes met hers, green catching crimson in the low light. For once, there was no shield of command between them, no distance left to preserve.

"This is a fight I don't want to win, Shade," he said, the honesty in his tone stripped bare. "Because losing to you… means I get to keep you."

He leaned closer, their foreheads almost touching, his next words a quiet promise that belonged to no one else.

"And I don't ever want to lose you."

The words hung in the air, steady and unflinching, less confession, more vow. Cassian didn't need to say anything else. The truth had already chosen its side.

 

[Shade]

Shade didn't breathe for a moment.

Not because she couldn't—but because everything in her stilled at once. His words struck deeper than any blade she had ever taken, sliding past armor, discipline, instinct, and settling sharp and devastating into the part of her she had spent years refusing to acknowledge even existed. If she were human, his vow might have taken her knees out from under her. She wasn't—but something inside her still faltered, cracked, and fell with a force she could not control.

The pulse beneath her ribs stumbled—one hard, uneven beat—and the sudden quiet inside her chest was worse than any battlefield silence she'd ever walked through. She didn't look away, didn't retreat; she held his gaze even as every barrier she'd built collapsed in on itself like brittle glass.

Cassian's hand at her neck, warm and steady, anchored her. The way his thumb traced her pulse—her heartbeat reacting to him and not to threat—unraveled something she had kept buried for years. His gentle tone, his vow, the simple clarity of I don't ever want to lose you…It hit her with the one force she had never trained to resist.

Not violence.

Not fear.

Devotion.

Something she had not expected. Something she had not allowed herself to want. Not until the night of the festival, when she chose him with no hesitation. Not until the lakehouse, when she let herself stay. When she allowed herself to breathe in a way she hadn't since before everything was torn from her.

Shade's fingers curled against the fabric at his shoulder, slow and deliberate, not gripping but holding—not restraining him, but keeping herself steady. Her breath brushed his lips in a soft exhale she couldn't suppress, the warmth of it betraying the shift inside her even as her expression stayed composed.

Her voice, when it came, was quieter than she intended—lower, stripped of every piece of armor she usually wore. "If I were human…" A breath. Too soft, too real. "…what you just said would have taken my legs out from under me."

Her forehead touched his, the contact light but unbroken as she drew in another slow breath to steady herself. It didn't work. Nothing had steadied her since the moment he spoke.

"I didn't expect this." A pause—fragile, honest. "I didn't want to expect it."

She let her eyes close for a heartbeat, only one, because the truth pressed too sharply against her chest to hold back any longer. "But the night of the festival… I chose you." Her fingers tightened faintly—not fear, not hesitation, just certainty. "And that weekend at the lake—I committed to you in ways I haven't committed to anyone in years."

Her breath trembled once as she opened her eyes again, crimson meeting green with nothing hidden.

"So when you say you don't want to lose me, Cassian…" Her voice dipped, low and raw. "…you need to understand something." Another breath, warm against his lips. "You're not going to." Her hand slid to the back of his neck again, slow, deliberate, drawing him the smallest fraction closer. "Not after this."

Her lips brushed his—not quite a kiss, but the unmistakable promise of one. She had collapsed every wall for him. And she wasn't building them back up again.

Cassian Abrantes

 

[Cassian Abrantes]

Shade ​

Cassian's breath caught when her words reached him. Not because of surprise, but because of what they did to him. Something deep and buried beneath years of training, years of command and careful distance, came undone in the quiet between them. The way she said it, not as comfort, not as surrender, but as certainty, landed harder than any declaration of loyalty or oath of allegiance ever had.

He felt her breath against his lips, the warmth of her skin beneath his hand, the subtle tremor that wasn't weakness but release. For a man who lived in control, in measured steps and calculated choices, this, her, was the one thing he hadn't anticipated, and the only thing he no longer wanted to.

Every part of him that once sought order, that built walls of protocol and command, recognized this for what it was: his breaking point, and the first truth worth breaking for. He didn't answer her immediately. He couldn't. He let the silence stretch long enough for meaning to settle, his thumb still tracing the line of her pulse, as if memorizing it. His chest rose and fell with the slow, uneven rhythm of a man caught between restraint and something far deeper.

When he finally spoke, his voice was quiet, low and grounded, but carrying that rare edge of vulnerability he'd shown no one else.
"I think I knew that," he murmured. "From the lakehouse. From the first night I saw you let yourself be somewhere instead of survive it."

His gaze stayed on her, unwavering, the faintest curve at the corner of his mouth betraying a softness that existed only for her.
"You didn't have to tell me," he said, the words almost a whisper. "I've felt it every day since."

He leaned in, closing the last breath of distance between them, forehead against hers, his hand still steady at the back of her neck. The contact wasn't commanding or claiming, it was grounding, a quiet tether.

"But I needed to hear it," Cassian said, his tone roughened by truth. "Because every time I look at you, every time you walk into a room, I'm reminded that I've already lost to you, and I've never wanted to lose more."

His lips brushed hers, not tentative but deliberate, the kiss soft and unhurried, as if anchoring himself in the space they had fought to carve out of duty and danger alike.

He lingered there, breath mingling with hers, before he spoke again, barely above a whisper.
"You're mine, Shade," he said quietly, a promise wrapped in certainty, not possession. "And I'm yours."

His hand stayed at her neck, steady and warm, as if to remind her, he wasn't letting go.