"I know what you are."
The hero froze, eyes widening ever so slightly—there and gone in a fraction of a second, but just enough to give everything away, to hand the villain the victory on a silver platter.
“No,” the hero finally breathed, fumbling for the right words. How? How did you figure it out?
The villain grinned, teeth bared triumphantly. “That’s right. I know your dirty little secret. I know what would happen if you took that bracelet off.” They nodded towards the engraved metal band circling the hero’s wrist, which the hero quickly jerked behind their back.
“You—,” the hero bit out, “you had no fucking right—,”
“I can do whatever I want, actually" the villain interrupted lazily, unbothered. “But it seems like you can’t.”
The hero tensed as the villain’s dark gaze raked over them, somehow degrading and reverent all at the same time, as if they were a piece of artwork to be studied, a finely polished marble statue, a honed weapon waiting to be used—
Everything suddenly clicked into place. “No.” The hero stumbled back, knees buckling.
The enclosed environment of the back alley. The dead end behind them. The lack of usual physicality from the villain other than to disarm them. They were a predator playing with their prey, waiting to pounce, to keep the hero all to themselves.
The villain stepped forward. The hero flinched back. “Stay away,” they spat. “Don’t touch me.”
“Or what?” the villain teased, continuing their casual approach. “What will you do, hero?"
Nothing, I can't do anything. The hero hit the wall behind them. God, how could they have been so stupid? To believe the villain's letter, the threat that they were about to blow up a museum without even looking up the location of the meeting spot. The villain had anticipated that the hero's ego would get to them, that they wouldn't call for reinforcements or bring anything more than a gun, because even with the cuff on their skin—
"You thought you were safe," the villain said, as if they could read the hero's thoughts. They stopped a short arm's length away from them, just far enough to give the hero the false illusion that they had some semblance of control in this matter.
It was cruel. Wicked. The hero squeezed their eyes shut as undiluted power hurled through them, roaring in protest, stifled only by the carved mage runes around their wrist.
"Look at you," the villain murmured. The hero felt fingers curl around their throat, cold and possessive. Their hands clenched into fists at their sides.
They could fight back. They could shove the villain and run and get out of here—
"You're scared, aren't you?"
The hero's eyes snapped open as their breathing stuttered in answer, meeting the villain's assessing stare.
"So scared, of all that power." The villain's finger shifted under the hero's jaw, to their racing pulse. "Power that people would die for. Kill for. And you," the villain's hand tightened just slightly, "you suppress it and refuse to use it, because how could you? How could you be the very thing that you seek to destroy?"
The hero snarled, the sound not entirely human. "I said don't touch me!" They wrenched out of the villain's grasp, bolting down the alleyway in a desperate, mad dash for some kind of exit, anything—
The villain grabbed their wrist and pulled them back, pining their arm behind them and shoving them up against the wall.
The hero hissed between their teeth as their shoulder twisted at an uncomfortable angle. "I'm...I'm not yours," they gasped in between ragged pants. They strained against the villain. "I will never be yours. Will you just fuck off—,"
The villain yanked on their arm in warning and they shut up, grimacing.
"I don't want you, little hero." The villain words were a lethal caress in their ear. "I want what you have." Their hand trailed over the metal clamp on their wrist, and the hero felt howling magic shudder through them. "But most unfortunately for you, I can't just take it from you. So instead," the villain smiled again, stamping a seal on the hero's fate, "you're going to come with me."
The hero was only granted the courtesy of a shudder before the villain knocked them out cold.
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