Dude, She’s Into You

The bounty board was clear: "Hunter needed. Fenmoor Marsh. High risk. High pay. Bring your own courage."

I came alone.

I expected a beast. I expected blood. I did not expect him.

He was already in the marsh, fighting the monster I came to kill—shirt half-ripped, blade too big, smile too cocky.

"Bit late to the party," he shouted, ducking a swipe from the creature's tail.

"You're standing in my contract," I said, loosing an arrow into the thing's eye.

He grinned. "Teamwork?"

The beast fell. So did we.

Right into a cursed binding trap.

One flash of red light later, our wrists were chained—together.

The chain burned if we pulled too hard. Glowed when we argued. It hummed when we got too close.

He thought it was funny. I did not.

"I don't even know your name," I growled.

"Dude."

I stared. "That's not a name."

"Works for me."

We bathed in opposite ends of a river. Ate facing away from each other. Slept back-to-back.

The chain still hummed.

We tracked the curse to a witch in the mountains. She needed a rare ingredient to break it—blood from the beast we'd already killed.

So we went back.

The marsh was worse the second time. More aggressive. More personal. Like the curse knew we were coming.

He shielded me from a venom burst. I dragged him from quicksand. He cracked jokes while bleeding.

"I die, you're dragging my body until this curse wears off," he said.

"You die, I'm using your skull as a drinking bowl."

He liked that.

We got the blood. Barely.

Camped in the rain. Mud everywhere. Chain pulsing like it had a heartbeat.

I hated how close we sat.

I hated more how good it felt.

He kissed me first. No warning. Just heat and tension and something like relief.

I kissed him back. Hard. Angry. Honest.

We didn't stop.

The chain flared red as he pulled me down, mouths hungry, hands urgent. His fingers tangled in my hair, mine clawing at the back of his neck. We ripped at leather and buckles, teeth clashing, growling like beasts ourselves.

I straddled him, pinned by his grip on my hips, our bodies slick with rain and need. He thrust into me in one rough, perfect stroke.

I gasped. He swore. And then we moved—fast, desperate, loud. Every snap of my hips drew a groan from his throat. Every roll of his sent fire up my spine.

We rocked the tent. We bit. We cursed. He filled me like he was trying to brand himself inside me. And I let him.

No mercy. No softness. Just two people breaking the curse in the filthiest way possible.

When we came, the chain burned bright white and then went silent.

But we didn't let go.

The witch broke the curse. The chain fell away.

We stared at our wrists.

He stretched, yawned. "So… we done?"

I looked at him. Really looked.

"No," I said.

He grinned. "Good. Because I was thinking… Fenmoor wasn't the only contract on that board."

We took the next one.

Together. Unchained. Still bound.