Chapter 7: Chapter 7
The words hung, a vow and a verdict. Sage’s breath hitched. She shifted forward, her knees pressing into the low table, scattering the careful squares of cloth. The world was his eyes, the smell of soap and oil, the crushing quiet.
He moved first.
In one fluid, ruthless motion, he closed the distance, his free hand snapping to the back of her neck. His kiss wasn’t gentle. It was a collision, a claiming. His lips were hard and demanding, his tongue sweeping into her mouth with a guttural sound that was pure need. It tasted like black tea and restraint shattered. Sage met him with equal hunger, her oil-slick hand fisting in the front of his shirt, pulling him closer. The harness clattered to the floor, forgotten.
He broke the kiss, his breathing ragged. “This is a fucking terrible idea,” he growled against her lips, even as his hands were already pulling at the buttons of her uniform blouse.
“I know,” she gasped, arching into him. “Shut up.”
The blouse gave way. His palms were rough against the skin of her stomach, sliding up to cup her breasts through the thin fabric of her undershirt. He pinched a nipple through the cotton, hard, and the sharp bloom of pain-pleasure made her cry out. He swallowed the sound with another searing kiss, his fingers pushing the undershirt up, baring her. The cool air of the room pebbled her skin.
He looked down, his grey eyes dark, almost black. “You’re still bruised.” His thumb traced the yellowing bloom on her ribcage, the ghost of the forest, of his knife.
“Don’t stop,” she commanded, pulling at his belt. The buckle was cold, intricate. Her fingers fumbled.
He batted her hands away and undid it himself, a series of precise, efficient clicks. “You say ‘wait’,” he ordered, his voice low and deadly serious. “You say it, I stop. That’s the only rule left. Understand?”
She nodded, frantic. “Yes.”
He stripped her pants and smalls down her thighs in one pull, the fabric scraping her skin. He paused for a second, looking at her sprawled on his immaculate floor. A flush spread from her chest to her face. Then he hooked his hands under her knees and dragged her fully onto the floor, onto the woven rug beside the table. He loomed over her, still half-dressed, his erection straining against his trousers.
He didn’t undress. He just unfastened the fly, freeing himself. He was thick, veined, ruddy in the lamplight. He spat roughly into his palm, slicked himself, the act crude and brutally practical. His eyes never left hers.
“Tell me you want this,” he demanded, the head of his cock pressing against her. He was trembling, a fine, almost imperceptible shake in his thighs. It was the only sign of his own unraveling.
“I want it,” she hissed, spreading her legs wider. “I want you. Now, Levi. Fucking now.”
He drove into her with one deep, brutal thrust. She was wet, but he was big, and the sudden, stretching fullness stole her breath. A sharp, sweet burn. He buried himself to the hilt and went still, his head dropping to her shoulder, his body a taut line of tension above her.
“God,” he choked out, the word muffled against her skin.
Then he began to move. There was no gentle rhythm, no practiced cadence. It was pure, desperate friction. He fucked her with a focused, relentless intensity, each snap of his hips punishing and perfect. The sound was obscene—skin slapping skin, her ragged moans, his low, gritted-out curses.
“So goddamn tight,” he rasped, one hand gripping her hip hard enough to bruise, the other braced by her head. “Take it. All of it.”
She wrapped her legs around his waist, her heels digging into the small of his back, meeting every thrust. The pleasure was a coil winding tighter, a white-hot wire anchored deep in her core. It was mixed with the ache in her side, the pressure of his weight, the raw, sweaty reality of him. This wasn’t romance. This was consummation.
He shifted his angle, his pubic bone grinding against her clit with each deep plunge. The sensation ripped a scream from her throat. He covered her mouth with his, swallowing the sound, his tongue mimicking the ruthless pace of his cock.
“You feel that?” he grunted, his breath hot and ragged in her ear. “That’s me. Remember it.”
She was fragmenting. The coil snapped. Her orgasm tore through her, violent and convulsing, her inner muscles clamping around him in rhythmic pulses. She bit down on his shoulder to stifle her cry, tasting wool and salt.
The feel of her clamping around him broke his control. His thrusts lost their precision, becoming frantic, stuttering. A raw, broken noise ripped from his chest. “Sage—” he warned, his voice strangled.
“Inside,” she gasped, clinging to him. “Do it.”
He slammed into her one last time, deep, and stilled. She felt the hot, liquid pulse of his release flooding her, wave after wave. He shuddered through it, his entire body bowing, a low, continuous groan vibrating against her neck.
He collapsed onto her, his weight a solid, crushing comfort. They lay there, tangled on the floor, the only sound their ragged, slowing breaths. The oil lamp flickered.
Slowly, carefully, he withdrew. The loss of him felt profound. He rolled onto his back beside her, an arm thrown over his eyes. The room was a wreck—overturned table, scattered cleaning supplies, their clothes in disarray. His pristine space, violated.
“Well,” he said finally, his voice hoarse and utterly flat. “That was undisciplined.”
A laugh bubbled out of her, shaky and surprised. She turned her head to look at him. The line of his jaw was tight, his chest still rising and fall too fast. “You started it.”
“You grabbed my hand.” He lowered his arm, turning his head to look at her. His expression was unreadable, a mask back in place, but his eyes were still dark, sated. “The stain’s gone from the harness. Mission accomplished.”
She propped herself up on an elbow, wincing at the new, pleasant soreness between her legs. “Is that all this was? A thorough cleaning?”
He sat up in one fluid motion, his back to her as he fastened his trousers. The muscles in his shoulders were tense. “No.” He stood, offering her a hand. His grip was firm, pulling her up. “It complicates everything. It makes you a liability in a new way.”
She stood naked before him, not shying away. “And you?”
He reached out, his thumb wiping a smear of oil from her cheekbone. The gesture was disturbingly tender. “I’ve always been a liability.” He bent, picking up her undershirt and handing it to her. “Get dressed. The barracks lock down soon.”
They dressed in silence, the air thick with what was unsaid. He righted the table, collected the cleaning supplies, restoring order with his usual silent efficiency. The room looked untouched, except for the scent of sex now layered over the lemon oil.
She fastened the last button on her blouse, her harness in her hands. The stained strap was clean, supple. She looked at him. He was staring out the dark window, his profile sharp.
“What happens now?” she asked.
He didn’t turn. “Tomorrow. Gear inspection. Training. The same as always.”
“And this?”
“This stays in this room.” He finally looked at her, and his gaze was the one from the forest, the one that calculated survival odds. “Outside that door, nothing has changed. It can’t. Do you understand?”
She understood. It was another rule. A brutal, necessary one. She nodded, the weight of it settling in her chest, heavier than any harness.
“Good.” He walked to the door and opened it. The hallway light was harsh, impersonal. “Dismissed, soldier.”
She walked past him, not touching him. She stepped into the bright, empty corridor. The door clicked shut behind her with definitive softness, sealing away the warmth, the smell, the shattered discipline.
She walked toward the barracks, her body humming, her mind already partitioning the night away into a separate, secret compartment. Nothing has changed. It was a lie, of course. Everything had. But he was right. Outside that door, they had to pretend. The walls were still standing, and the world demanded its due. She held the cleaned harness tighter, her fingers tracing the now-faint memory of the stain.
She held the cleaned harness tighter, her fingers tracing the now-faint memory of the stain. The hallway back to the women’s barracks felt ten miles long, every echo of her own footsteps a glaring announcement. Her body was a map of new sensations—the pleasant, deep ache, the ghost of his hands, the stickiness between her thighs. A secret, glowing core beneath the standard-issue wool.
The common room was still half-full, the low buzz of evening conversations washing over her. A couple of soldiers from her squad looked up from a card game.
“Renn! Where’ve you been? Quartermaster chew you to bits?” called Jax, a lanky man with a perpetual grin.
Sage managed a shrug, hoisting the harness. “Just a bit. All sorted now.”
She moved through the room, hyper-aware. Nothing had changed. Everything had. It was a dizzying, solitary truth.
At dawn, the routine was a hammer. Fall in. Roll call. Inspection. Levi moved down the line of his squad, his gaze missing nothing. A dusty boot, a loose strap, a poorly folded collar. His critiques were surgical, impersonal. His grey eyes swept over her as he passed, pausing on the clean harness strap across her chest. No warmth. No recognition. Just assessment.
His pointer finger tapped twice, lightly, against the leather of her vertical maneuvering gear as he walked by. He didn’t look at her. He was already moving to the next soldier, commenting on blade alignment. Her breath hitched. She stared straight ahead at the back of Jax’s head.
The touch lasted less than a second. A spark in the fog.
The days stacked, identical and grueling. Mornings were ODM drills on the fixed course in the training yard. Her side protested, a sharp reminder with every jerk of the wires. Levi stood on the observation platform, arms crossed, a silhouette against the grey sky. She pushed through the burn, finding a ragged rhythm.
During a water break, she leaned against a post, wiping grit from her neck. He descended the platform steps and crossed the yard, heading towards the equipment shed. As he passed behind her, his finger tapped, twice, on the back of her shoulder blade, right through her cloak. He was speaking to the drill instructor, never breaking his conversational flow.
Her heart executed a clumsy, hopeful maneuver inside her rib cage.
A week later, the mess hall was a cacophony of clattering trays and shouted jokes. Sage balanced her tray, threading through the packed benches. Levi sat at the officers’ table, listening to Commander Erwin with detached focus. She bent to slide into a seat, and her braid slipped over her shoulder. From across the room, she felt his attention like a physical touch.
She looked up. His eyes met hers for one suspended second across the chaos. Then he dropped his gaze to his tea, his finger tapping the ceramic cup twice, silently, as he lifted it. A private signal in a public sea. A silent ‘I see you.’
She took a bite of dry bread to hide the smile that threatened her composure. The secret thrummed between them, a live wire under the floorboards of their daily grind.
It was during a logistics meeting in a cramped office that the rule felt most strained. They were both standing against a wall, surrounded by other squad leaders reviewing supply manifests. The air was stuffy with the smell of paper and body heat. Someone droned on about hay bales for the horses.
Levi shifted his weight, his arm brushing hers. Everyone was focused on the parchments. His pointer finger tapped, twice, against the side of his own thigh. Her own skin prickled in response.
The stolen glances became a language. He would look at her from across the training field just as she stuck a difficult landing. She’d catch his eye in the strategy room when someone proposed a particularly stupid plan. A shared, infinitesimal roll of the eyes, a micro-expression that vanished before it was fully formed.
One afternoon, caught in a sudden, cold downpour while returning from the stables, they passed under the same narrow archway from opposite directions. They were alone for three paces. He didn’t speak. His hand came up, and for a wild moment she thought he’d break cover. He just reached out and adjusted the angle of a blade housing on her hip, a captain’s legitimate correction. His knuckle brushed the leather of her belt.
Two distinct taps.
Then he was gone, his cloak dark with rain, heading towards his next duty. She stood there, the water dripping from her braid, feeling the imprint of that coded touch like a brand. It was nothing, and it was everything. A promise held in the breath between one moment and the next, a testament to what lived, fiercely and quietly, in the room they’d sealed shut. It was enough, for now, to propel her forward into the next task, the next hour, the next gray day within the walls.
It was enough, for now, to propel her forward into the next task, the next hour, the next gray day within the walls. The secret became a kind of fuel, a steady burn in her gut that made the grueling drills and mindless chores feel like a cover for something vital. She moved through the world with a doubled awareness, one part on duty, the other perpetually tracing his presence in a room.
A month bled by, a slurry of rain, mud, and the grinding machinery of military readiness. The coded taps continued, a sustaining rhythm against the monotony. She was running a patrol along the top of Wall Rose, the wind whipping her braid like a pennant, when the first abnormal shudder traveled up through the stone and into the soles of her boots.
It wasn’t a tremor. It was a cessation. The very air seemed to inhale and hold.
Then, a concussion of sound so vast it felt like the sky splitting. A flash of heat, immense and dry, rolled over the wall from the direction of the outer gate. Sage spun, her hand going to her blade hilts. Where the gate of Trost should have been, there was only a colossal, skeletal face wreathed in steam, its eyes like dying suns. The Colossal Titan. It was already fading, withdrawing, but the hole it left was a screaming mouth.
“All personnel, engage!” The shout from a squad leader was raw with disbelief. “They’re inside! Titans are inside Wall Rose!”
Chaosis a soft word for what followed. It was a fractal explosion of panic, orders, and the raw physics of terror. ODM gear whined, propelling green cloaks like enraged wasps towards the breach. From the city below, the first screams began to layer, a rising chorus of doom. Sage launched herself off the parapet, the gas jets hissing, her blood singing a war song she thought she knew.
The streets of Trost were a tableau of hell. A cart was overturned, melons smashed like crimson guts on cobblestones. A woman stood frozen, clutching a child, both of their mouths perfect circles of silence. Then a fifteen-meter class Titan rounded a corner, its gait a leisurely, tectonic stroll, and its hand swept them away without a pause.
Sage hooked onto a chimney, swung, and sliced. The nape parted under her blades with the familiar, gristly resistance. She landed, rolled, and came up running. Her world narrowed to the next anchor point, the next kill, the next gush of steam. She fought in a frantic bubble, aware of other green cloaks in her periphery, but alone in the focus required not to die.
She didn’t see Levi, but she felt him. A certain ruthless efficiency clearing a path ahead of her, a trail of falling Titans that felt like a signature. She followed it, a lodestone in the smoke.
Rounding a manufactory, the square opened up. And there, standing amid the rubble, was the Armored Titan. It was not like the others. Its skin was a lattice of hardened plates, gleaming dully. It moved with a predatory, intelligent slowness, ignoring the blades glancing off its armor. It was hunting for something.
Its head turned. The hollow eyes seemed to lock not on her, but on a squad trying to flank it from a bakery roof. Sage saw the calculation in its stance. She acted.
She fired her anchors into its shoulder plate, the cables shrieking as they failed to pierce deep. She used the momentum anyway, a desperate, swinging distraction. “Hey! Over here!” she roared, spinning past its vision.
The armored head swiveled. It was fast. Unbelievably fast.
A hand, not fleshy and clumsy, but articulated and swift, shot out. It didn’t swat. It grabbed. The world upended. Pressure, immense and crushing, wrapped around her torso, squeezing the air from her lungs in a sickening wheeze. The cobblestones and sky traded places in a dizzying blur.
She was airborne. The wind roared in her ears. The grip tightened, then released.
She was flying, not with gear, but as a projectile. The roof of a clock tower rushed up to meet her. She crashed through slate tiles, through wooden beams, a human cannonball shattering the dim interior. The impact was a universe of white noise.
Something in her lower back met a supporting beam with a final, decisive thud.
She didn’t hear a crack. She felt a jolt, a profound and utter stop. Then nothing.
Silence, dusty and thick. She lay sprawled on a pile of splintered wood and broken clockwork, gears digging into her cheek. She tried to push herself up. Her arms obeyed, shaking violently. Her legs did not.
She couldn’t feel them. There was no pain, no signal, just a void where her body should have been. A cold, flat absence from the waist down. She looked, her breath coming in short, panicked gulps. They were still there, twisted at an odd angle. She told them to move. Nothing.
“No,” she whispered to the dust. “No, no, no.” She dragged herself forward an inch with her elbows, a grotesque, crawling thing. Her hips and legs trailed behind, dead weight. A sob clawed its way up her throat. She choked it back.
Did he see?
The thought was sudden, desperate, and shameful. Amid the terror of her own broken spine, she needed to know if Levi had witnessed it. If he knew she was here, shattered in the dark.
He saw.
From his perch on a gargoyle across the square, Levi had just cleanly severed the nape of an aberrant. He landed, steam washing over him, and his eyes automatically tracked the next threat. They found Sage. He saw her daring, stupid, beautiful swing. He saw the armored hand close around her.
Time didn’t slow. It crystallized.
He saw the Titan’s arm coil and hurl her, a discard. He watched her small, green-cloaked form arc through the air and vanish through the roof of the clock tower. The sound of the impact was a muffled, wooden crunch from this distance.
His body moved before his mind could engage. He fired his anchors, not with precision, but with a raw, screaming velocity he never used. He sliced the nape from a ten-meter blocking his path without looking at it, a blur of motion. His gas jets flared, burning through fuel at a suicidal rate.
“Captain! Your flank!” someone screamed.
He ignored it. A hand swiped at him. He dove under it, his blades taking its fingers, not even bothering with the kill. The clock tower. Get to the clock tower. The words were a hammer strike in his skull, overriding all tactical data, all survival instinct.
He landed on the shattered hole in the roof, his boots scattering slate. Below, in the gloom, he saw her. She was dragging herself, just her upper body, through the wreckage. The way her legs lay, utterly still, like discarded laundry.
A sound escaped him, a short, sharp exhalation that wasn’t a word.
He dropped down, landing lightly beside her. “Sage.” His voice was flat, controlled, the thinnest possible veneer over a howling void.
She flinched, her head whipping around. Her face was pale, streaked with dust and blood from a cut on her brow. Her green eyes were wide, pupils dilated with shock. “Levi? I can’t— I can’t feel my legs.”
“I know.” He was already assessing, his hands moving to her hips, her spine. No obvious deformity, but that meant nothing. The cold, clinical part of his mind noted spinal trauma, probable paralysis, immediate evacuation required. The other part, the part that had memorized the feel of her skin, was screaming.
“Did you see it?” she asked, her voice trembling.
“Yes.” His fingers, usually so steady, fumbled for a moment on the clasp of his cloak. He yanked it off, folding it roughly. “Don’t try to move. Not at all.” He slid the bundled fabric under her head.
“It threw me,” she said, as if realizing it for the first time. “I couldn’t… the armor…”
“Shut up.” The order was harsh, but his hands were gentle as he checked her neck, her pulse. It was rabbit-fast under his fingertips. “Just breathe. In and out. Like before.”
He looked up, scanning the hole in the roof. They were exposed. The Titans would be drawn to the noise, to the scent. He needed a plan, a solution, and his mind was a static of white noise. The only clear thought was the unbearable image of her, broken and helpless on the ground.
“You have to go,” she said, her voice gaining a terrible clarity. “You can’t stay here. I’m just… I’m an anchor now.”
“I said shut up.” Panic was a live wire in his chest, short-circuiting his reason. He’d seen worse injuries. He’d left soldiers behind before. This was different. This was Sage in the wreckage, her harness strap clean and supple across her chest, her legs not moving.
The building shuddered. A shadow blotted out the light from the hole. A Titan’s face, curious and mindless, peered in.