⚠️ This chapter contains dream imagery with erotic undertones and themes of forbidden desire. No explicit content.

Ravik drifted in a space with no walls, no deck… no edges at all. Just the void. The air pressed in, thick, suffocating.

Then came the voice.

“Captain Ravik.”

It echoed around him, deep and smooth, brushing against his senses like a physical touch. He froze.

“You’ve been chosen,” the voice continued, calm yet unrelenting. “Do you know why?”

Ravik opened his mouth to respond, but no sound came. His voice vanished into the stillness, swallowed whole.

The voice came again, closer now, intimate, as though it were just behind him. “You think you know yourself, don’t you? But you don’t. Not yet.”

Ravik turned instinctively, but there was no one there—just the void, stretching endlessly. And yet the sensation of presence was undeniable.

“I see you, Ravik,” the voice murmured, indulgent.

He shivered despite himself.

The scene shifted abruptly, and Ravik found himself standing in a long, endless corridor. The walls were sleek and metallic, lined with doors that stretched far into the distance. Each door bore a name—Kael, Veyra, Sarin—but the names warped and blurred as he walked past, the lettering dissolving into unreadable smears.

The corridor was silent, but the voice followed him, threading itself through the stillness like a current. “You chase them like it matters. But it doesn’t. It’s only ever been you.”

Ravik’s pace quickened, his breath shallow as the words wrapped around him. The doors grew larger, looming over him, the names shifting faster until one stopped him cold.

RAVIK

The door bore his name in sharp, jagged letters, glowing faintly in the dim light. His hand reached for it, trembling, but before he could touch it, the voice came again.

“Do you want to open it? Do you want to see yourself as I see you?”

The door swung open on its own, revealing a room shrouded in darkness. At its center was a single object: a mirror rimmed in jagged bronze, surface black as oil. Ravik stepped inside, drawn forward despite the mounting dread in his chest.

The mirror’s surface rippled as he approached, distorting his reflection. When it finally stilled, he didn’t see himself. He saw Korel Tal’Vayr, his rival from the Officer’s Academy. Korel, who was chosen to be Class Commander—an honor that should have been his. Korel, with those ruby eyes and infuriating tattoos defiling his dangerous body.

Korel stepped through and Ravik reached without thinking, fingertips grazing black lines etched in muscle. The contact sent a shiver through him. He traced one tattoo, then another, following the curves with deliberate slowness. Korel didn’t flinch as his gaze bore into Ravik’s, ruby and violet, steady and unrelenting.

Ravik’s hand drifted over the smooth, unmarked skin above Korel’s heart. But in the dream, it wasn’t empty. His name was there. "Ravik," bold and defiant, etched into Korel’s chest as if declaring something unspeakable. The sight twisted Ravik’s stomach, a tumultuous storm of pride and dread, thrill and denial.

“You’re mine,” Ravik muttered.

Korel’s response was not verbal. Instead, with sudden, overpowering force, he pinned Ravik against the wall. Ravik twisted, but Korel’s grip locked around him. The press of his body, the heat of his dominance, made Ravik’s breath catch in his throat. He tried to summon resistance, to will his body to fight back, but it betrayed him. His fists stayed limp at his sides, his chest heaved under Korel’s weight, and his lips parted, waiting.

Korel’s hand moved to Ravik’s jaw, tilting his chin. The gesture was firm, commanding, yet not cruel. Their eyes locked, and Ravik’s pride screamed for him to tear away, to break the hold Korel had over him, but he couldn’t. Instead, his breath hitched. Heat climbed under his skin... wrong, raw, welcome.

Ravik knew—whatever this was, he couldn’t escape.