I Was a Prince Bound By Duty, Until My Forbidden Cousin Became My Secret Obsession

Arjun released the arrow before dawn had fully decided what color the sky should be.
The bowstring snapped against his wrist guard, a clean sting that meant his elbow had stayed high, his shoulders square. Thirty paces away the reed shaft buried itself in the painted eye of a straw target, quivering once before stillness returned. He exhaled through his nose, nocked another, and repeated the motion exactly: lift, draw, anchor, release. By the time the sun cleared the eastern turret he had sent ninety arrows into the same palm-sized circle of paint and the ground at his feet was littered with the fletching ends of practice shafts, a pale bristling that looked almost like a crop he had grown overnight.

He liked the arithmetic of it: one shot, one result, no variables beyond wind and his own pulse. When he walked forward to collect the arrows he counted them aloud, a low chant that kept time with his footsteps. Ninety shots, ninety retrievals. The number felt solid in his mouth, a fact no one could dispute or reinterpret. His brothers still slept behind the sandstone walls; his mother would be lighting the first lamp in the shrine room, moving through her own sequence of mantras that never changed in order or cadence. He had heard her recite them since childhood and could predict the small pause she took before the name of Indra, the way she always cleared her throat before addressing the ancestors. Regularity was a form of reverence. He approved of that.

Back at the mark he restrung the bow, tighter this time, testing the tension with his thumb. A thin line of blood appeared and he watched it bead, fascinated by the perfect round drop that swelled and broke without complaint. Pain was information; information could be mastered. He wiped the thumb on the edge of his dhoti, leaving a rust-colored smear that would fade in the wash but never quite disappear. Everything in the palace carried such ghosts: the faint scar on the doorframe where Bhima had splintered the wood in childhood rage, the worn patch on the third stair where Nakula’s foot fell every morning. They were evidences of duty performed, of roles inhabited so completely they had begun to wear the stone itself.

A servant crossed the far courtyard with a copper pot of water, her steps quick and quiet, eyes lowered. Arjun nodded, the barest dip of his head, and she responded with the same measured gesture. No words, no unnecessary smile. He appreciated the economy. Later there would be lessons for the younger boys, accounts to review with Yudhishthir, an audience with a grain merchant seeking favorable tariffs. Each hour had its allotted shape; the day would click forward like beads on an abacus, predictable, accountable. He flexed his fingers around the bow grip and felt the familiar ache settle between his shoulder blades, a companion that never quite left anymore. It was comforting, proof that the previous day had existed, that he had not failed in any visible way. He raised the bow, drew, and sent the first arrow of the new count exactly where the others had gone.

He had loosed another forty shafts when the gatekeeper’s staff rang twice against the bell-metal plate. Arjun did not turn; the sound meant a visitor of sufficient rank to be announced, nothing that concerned his shooting. He nocked, drew, felt the familiar burn along his right scapula, and released. The arrow hissed away.

Then he heard her laugh.

It was not the restrained titter the palace women produced behind their veils, nor the obedient chuckle courtiers offered when a prince attempted wit. It spilled, bright and ungoverned, ricocheting off the vaulted arcade until even the pigeons on the cornice flapped in protest. Arjun’s next arrow struck the target’s outer ring, the first miss in two hundred shots. He lowered the bow.

She came through the archway in a swirl of yellow silk the color of fresh turmeric, one hand lifted to shade her eyes against the low sun, the other resting lightly on Sahadeva’s shoulder. Sahadeva—who blushed if a maidservant addressed him—was grinning like a boy given a whole sweet cake. Behind them Nakula carried a painted palanquin pole though no chair was attached; he too was laughing, as if carrying nothing heavier than air.

Arjun remained where he was, thirty paces distant, shaft still between gloved fingers. Subhadra’s braid had come half-undone and the loose ends flicked against her hips when she moved. She surveyed the courtyard as if it belonged to her, head tilted, mouth open in delighted assessment. Then her gaze found him. She did not bow, did not lower her eyes. Instead she smiled—a wide, candid stretching of lips that showed the slight gap between her front teeth—and lifted her hand in a gesture that was half wave, half summons.

He felt it in his knees, an involuntary softening, and locked his legs. Cousin, he told himself. Daughter of Vasudeva. Guest. Nothing more. He walked forward with measured steps, bow still in hand, aware that his dhoti clung to his thighs with dried sweat, that a streak of dust marked his forearm. She waited, thumbs hooked in her girdle, as if inspection were her right.

“Arjun,” Sahadeva said, breathless, “Subhadra-bhagini has never seen a composite bow of horn and sinew. I told her you would explain.”

Arjun opened his mouth to refuse—there were still sixty arrows to shoot, accounts later, order to maintain—but Subhadra stepped closer, eyes fixed on the weapon. A thin gold chain at her throat caught the sun, throwing a fleck of light against his collarbone like a tiny hot coin.

“Will you show me how you bend it?” she asked. Her voice was lower than her laugh, almost husky, the vowels rounded in the Dwarka fashion. She did not wait for permission but extended one finger and traced the curve of the limb, nail grazing the lacquered surface. Arjun’s pulse thudded against the inside of his wrist. He could smell sandalwood and something sharper, like crushed marigold.

“It requires discipline,” he said, the words stiff. “Strength without haste.”

She met his eyes. “I have never been good at haste,” she answered, and smiled again, the gap between her teeth a small, infuriating invitation. Then she turned away, already asking Sahadeva about the fountain, the carvings, the birds. Her yellow sari snapped like a sail as she spun, and Arjun watched the fabric retreat along the corridor, carrying its disorder with it.

He looked down: the glove on his left hand was mislaced, knot pulled crooked. He could not remember doing it. On the target the errant arrow quivered, a dark blemish in the outer ring. He told himself the disturbance was temporary, a ripple soon absorbed. Yet when he tried to resume his stance the courtyard felt narrower, the air warmer, as if someone had adjusted the angles of the walls while he wasn’t looking.

The dining hall smelled of ghee and roasted cumin, the lamps turned low enough that the gold edging on the brass plates caught fire. Arjun took his assigned cushion at the left of Yudhishthir’s low seat, spine already straight, eyes forward. He had bathed away the dust of the yard, scraped his cheeks free of stubble, braided his hair while it was still damp so that not a strand would rebel. Order restored.

Then she was beside him, the yellow sari replaced by indigo silk so dark it drank the lamplight. The attendant pulled out the cushion for her; she folded her legs in one fluid motion, the hem sliding up to expose a narrow band of ankle before she tugged it shut. Arjun stared at the carved mango on the table edge.

“Cousin,” she greeted, soft enough that only he could hear. The word sat in his ear like a fingertip.

He inclined his head. “Subhadra.”

Servants moved along the row, ladling lentils, arranging wheat cakes glossy with butter. He reached for the water jug. She asked, “How many arrows today?”

“Two hundred thirty.”

“And how many found the eye?”

“Two hundred twenty-nine.”

She laughed, the same ungoverned spill from the courtyard, but pitched now for the space between them. “So one escaped. Did it frighten you, that single rebellion?”

He lifted a wheat cake, broke it precisely in half. “A bowman accounts for wind.”

“And for pulse.” She leaned closer, jasmine drifting from the warm skin beneath her ear. “I watched you from the balcony. Your last shot trembled before release. Why?”

He pictured the arrow shuddering in his grip, the moment the courtyard had narrowed. “You were laughing.”

“Was I the wind, or the pulse?” Her knee touched his beneath the table, silk-covered bone settling against his bare leg. The pressure lingered, deliberate, while she reached for the pickle dish, giving the contact the innocent excuse of motion. Heat traveled the length of his thigh, pooled low in his belly. He felt the muscle in his calf twitch and forced it still.

She withdrew the knee, but not all the way; their legs remained bracketed, skin separated by a breath of cloth. Arjun set his cup down. The sound rang too loud.

Yudhishthir spoke across the table about monsoon forecasts. Arjun answered when required, voice clipped, each syllable counted like arrows. Subhadra ate slowly, fingers brushing his each time they dipped toward the shared dish. When she licked ghee from her thumb he caught the small sound her tongue made, wet and deliberate, and his spine stiffened until the vertebrae protested.

Eventually the plates were removed, the final grains of rice collected by servants for the cows. He rose first, offering the obligatory bow to his mother, to the guest. Subhadra stood beside him, indigo silk rustling like a night creature shaking out wings. The knee was gone; the imprint burned.

He walked the corridor alone, hearing her laughter resume behind him, bright and unrepentant against the stone. The ghost of her touch stayed, an ember he could not brush away, glowing hotter each time he told himself to forget it.

The next morning he was in the yard before the stars had faded. He set up two targets, then three, then four, until the line of straw men stood like a silent jury. He shot until the sinew of his bow hummed with heat, until his right shoulder felt split open and still would not obey. When the sun broke the rim of the palace wall he stripped off his angavastra and used it to bind the bleeding groove the bowstring had cut across his forearm. The cloth stuck to the skin. Good. Another reason not to think.

Between shots he counted: breath, release, the soft thud of arrowhead in flesh of straw. He counted the steps she had taken across the courtyard yesterday—twenty-seven. He counted the seconds her knee had rested against his—four, perhaps five. He shot another arrow and told himself the number was of no consequence.

By midday the others drifted out. Sahadeva carried a wooden stool for Subhadra to watch the display; Nakula fanned her with a palm frond like some minor princess. They were laughing again, the three of them, a sound that carried even over the slap of bowstring. Arjun did not turn. He set a fresh target at sixty paces, then eighty. Sweat stung his eyes; he let it. When the laughter rose he released faster, until the arrows crowded each other in the yellow heart, feathers splitting.

She clapped. A single, bright crack. He nocked again, the motion automatic, and the arrow hissed past the target entirely, lost in the dry garden beyond. For the first time in his life he did not care where it landed.

That evening he volunteered to oversee the armory inventory. He knelt among racks of spears, counting iron heads, oiling each one until his palms gleamed black. The work was usually given to the youngest page; Yudhishthir raised an eyebrow but said nothing. Arjun felt the silence settle like a reward. Metal smelled honest—no jasmine, no ghee, no laughter caught in the grooves.

Still, she found him. He heard her voice in the corridor, asking Sahadeva where the prince had hidden himself. The question was casual, cousinly, but his name in her mouth made the oil jar slip; a droplet splashed his dhoti, spreading dark. He stayed motionless behind the stacked shields until their footsteps receded.

Later, from the balcony of the practice yard, he watched her cross to the mango grove with Nakula and Sahadeva in tow. She carried a lantern; its halo caught the gold at her waist, the swing of her braid. The boys competed to show her the constellation stories their tutor had taught—here the hunter, here the dove. She tilted her head back, throat exposed, and the light painted a soft sheen on her skin. Arjun’s fingers tightened on the stone rail. He told himself it was irritation at the disruption of their studies, nothing more.

Inside, he unstrung the bow again, running a silk cloth along the limbs until the cloth frayed. The bow was warm, alive, like a second pulse. He set it aside and pressed his palms to his eyes until color burst behind the lids—yellow silk, indigo shadow, the small gap between her teeth when she smiled. He exhaled, counted to ten, began once more the ritual of inspection. There were, after all, another hundred arrows to straighten before dawn.

The library door stood ajar, a blade of lamplight cutting across the corridor’s black stone. Arjun had come for the Bhishma-Parva scroll—dry tactics, numbers, anything that would bore him back into discipline—but the faint rustle of silk inside made him pause. He pushed the door wider.

Subhadra balanced on the lowest rung of a teak ladder, one arm stretched above her head. Her saree—deep purple tonight—had slid off her shoulder, baring the strap of her bodice and the slope of muscle that curved into her armpit. The single lamp painted moving gold over her skin each time she shifted. She was two fingers short of a high shelf.

“Arjun,” she said without looking down, as if she had felt him enter. “The Mahabharata in twenty palm leaves is apparently too proud for me.”

He crossed the rug, keeping his gaze on the scroll’s ivory knob. “Step down. I’ll get it.”

“But I like the view from here.” She wiggled her bare foot; silver toe-rings flashed. “Indra’s court, painted on the ceiling. Have you ever noticed how ashamed the nymphs look?”

He stopped at the ladder’s side. Her ankle was level with his mouth; the scent of night-queen blossom drifted from her hair, warm, almost fermented. He set a hand on the rail to steady the frame. “Which volume?”

“The one where the hero doubts.” She tilted her face toward him. “Do you know it?”

His throat dried. He reached past her, forearm brushing the underside of her breast—soft weight, the scrape of cotton. The scroll’s cord felt rough against his fingertips. He pulled it free, stepped back, offered it.

She didn’t take it. Instead she descended one rung, then another, until they stood eye-to-eye, her feet still on the ladder, his on the floor. The lamp behind her turned the cloth at her chest translucent; he could see the dark circles of her nipples. He looked at her collarbone instead.

“Read me something,” she whispered.

“It’s late.”

“Read me something you fear.”

The room seemed to contract to the space of their breath. He unknotted the cord, unrolled a handspan. The ink smelled of soot and sesame oil. His own voice came low, foreign: “‘The archer learns that the target is himself.’”

She studied him. “Is that what keeps you awake? The fear you’ll miss?”

“I don’t miss.” The answer was reflex.

“But if the target is you, then every shot is suicide.” She took the scroll, set it on the nearest table without breaking his gaze. “What would you lose if you put the bow down?”

The question lodged under his ribs. He heard himself say, “Purpose.” Then, quieter: “My brothers’ pride. My mother’s peace.”

She stepped off the ladder; her soles touched the rug between his feet. “And what would you gain?”

He couldn’t form the words. She waited, so close her breath heated the corner of his mouth. At last he managed, “Uncertainty.”

Her hand rose, fingers hovering over the bowstring callus on his right thumb, not quite touching. “Show me.”

He turned his palm up. She traced the ridge of hardened skin, then the lifeline, slow, deliberate, as if reading a second text. His pulse hammered against her pad. When she reached the center of his palm she pressed; the small pain felt like confession.

“I’m frightened too,” she said. “Of being traded for an alliance, of never choosing.” She lifted his hand to her neck, rested it there. Carotid flutter against his wrist. “Feel that. It’s mine. Not my brother’s, not my father’s.”

His fingers curved instinctively around the slim column, thumb brushing the hollow above her breastbone. Skin hot. Perfume stronger here, salty at its edges. He realized he was shaking.

A draft moved the lamp; their shadows merged on the wall, one head, two bodies. She leaned in until her forehead touched his temple. “Tell me the next line,” she murmured.

He swallowed. “‘When the target is the self, release becomes impossible.’”

She closed the inch between them, breast flattening against his arm. “Then don’t release. Stay.”

The scroll lay open between their bodies like a treaty neither had signed. He smelled parchment, her hair, the iron tang of his own blood where he had bitten his lip. Somewhere a cricket sawed the silence.

He heard himself ask, “Will you be sent away if I fail?”

“I’d rather be sent away for your failure than kept for your silence.” Her lips brushed the corner of his mouth, not a kiss, just contact, skin to skin. “Choose uncertainty, Arjun. Choose tonight.”

His hand slid from her neck to the bare skin of her shoulder; the saree slipped lower. She didn’t stop him. The lamp guttered, shadows jumping, pages rustling as if the epic itself shifted to listen. He felt the edge of the table against his hip, the weight of her breast settling into his palm—warm, firm, nipple tightening under cotton. A sound escaped him, half-sigh, half-groan.

She drew back an inch, eyes black in the low light. “Say it.”

“I—” His voice cracked. “I want—”

Footsteps echoed in the corridor—slow, deliberate, a guard’s pace. They froze, breath mingling. The steps passed, faded. When he looked again her expression had softened into something almost tender.

“Not tonight,” she whispered, “but soon. When you can finish the sentence.” She stepped away, saree sliding back into place, picked up the scroll and tucked it under her arm. “Bring the lamp when you leave. The stairs are dark.”

She crossed the rug, bare feet silent, and was gone before his heart had slowed. The library smelled suddenly of ink and absence. He stared at his open palm, still warm from her pulse, the skin there alive in a way no bow had ever made it.

He avoided the library after that. Avoided the mango grove, the balcony, the corridor outside her chamber where the air still carried a trace of jasmine. He rose before dawn, drilled until his shoulders screamed, then drilled more. When the others rested he ran the palace perimeter, counting steps, refusing to let the rhythm settle into anything that might resemble thought.

Three days. Four.

On the fifth night he returned late from the ranges, bow unstrung, quiver empty. The halls were quiet, oil lamps burned low. He turned toward the wing where his brothers slept, boots soft on stone.

A hand caught his elbow and pulled.

The alcove was narrow, meant for a statue that had never arrived. Tapestry hooks jutted empty above their heads. Subhadra pressed him back until the wall met his shoulder-blades, cool through cotton. Her palms flattened against his chest, fingers spread wide as if measuring heartbeat from both sides at once.

“Why,” she said, voice low, “do you pretend I don’t exist?”

Torchlight from the main corridor sliced across one cheek, left the other in shadow. Her eyes held the same glitter he had seen over arrow shafts the first night—amusement, danger. He smelled sandalwood, sweat, the faint iron of the range still clinging to his own skin.

“I don’t—”

“You do.” Her thumbs brushed his nipples, deliberate. “You look through me. You leave rooms when I enter. You exhaust yourself so sleep will come clean.” She rose on her toes, mouth level with his jaw. “Tell me it’s easy.”

His hands hung at his sides, fists clenched to keep from touching. Stone dug between his shoulder-blades. He could feel every finger through the thin cloth, the heat of her palms branding skin that had never been touched for anything but washing or war.

“It’s duty,” he managed.

“Duty is a word.” She tilted her head. “This is flesh.”

She kissed him.

Not tentative, not asking. A hard press of lips that forced his head back against stone, teeth scraping, her breath rushing into his mouth on a sigh that sounded like victory. He tasted cardamom, the bite of her lower lip, the salt of his own surprise. For a heartbeat he stood frozen, pulse roaring. Then instinct surged—he leaned in, seeking more, but she was already gone.

Air cold where her body had been. Mouth still open, stinging. The corridor stretched empty in both directions, torch flame steady, as if no one had ever stood there.

He touched his lip, came away with a spot of blood. The wall at his back held the faint warmth of her palms. Somewhere a door closed, soft, final.

He stayed in the alcove until the torch burned lower, until the imprint of her kiss settled into a bruise he would feel every time he spoke. When he finally moved, his legs felt unfamiliar, as if the ground had shifted a fraction off true.

The palace slept on, but the pretense was finished.

The next morning he missed the center of the target by the width of a thumb. The arrow thudded low, quivering like a rebuke. He nocked another, drew, released. Again the deviation. By the tenth shaft the grouping looked like a mouth open in mockery. His forearm burned. Sweat dripped off his jaw and spotted the dust at his feet.

Across the yard Bheema lowered the mace he had been twirling. “The wind?”

“There is no wind,” Arjun said. He could still taste copper where her tooth had cut him. The inside of his lip pulsed in time with his heart. He wiped his palm down his thigh and reached for another arrow; the fletching brushed his ear like her hair had done in the alcove.

Kunti watched from the veranda, white sari pulled over her head against the sun. Her eyes followed every movement, patient, exact. When he finally set the bow down she descended the steps and crossed the packed earth without hurry.

“Walk with me,” she said.

They moved along the inner colonnade where the stone stayed cool until midday. Her sandals made small decisive clicks. She did not speak until the clang of practice weapons faded behind them.

“A man who looks at the sky while he strings his bow will one day shoot his own foot.” She paused beside a pillar carved with lotuses, fingers trailing the stone petals. “I have seen you staring at nothing, Arjun. I have seen you forget to eat.”

He kept his gaze on the ground. “I have been drilling harder.”

“Harder is not better if the mind is elsewhere.” She studied his profile. “Attachments are like damp silk—light until it rains, then heavy enough to drown.”

The words landed softly, precisely, as her words always did. He felt the kiss again, the way she had taken his bottom lip between hers and held it, a small imprisonment. His pulse beat against the bruise.

“I understand,” he said.

Kunti’s hand lifted, hovered near his cheek, withdrew. “See that you do. Alliances are fragile. Reputations more so. A prince’s honor is the lamp that keeps the kingdom from stumbling.” She turned back toward the stairs. “Do not let anyone blow it out.”

He watched her disappear into the shadows of the palace, back straight, white cloth never touching the dust. When he exhaled the air tasted of hot iron.

That afternoon he tried to read the same line of the Mahabharata three times. The letters rearranged themselves into the curve of Subhadra’s shoulder where her saree had slipped. He closed the manuscript and went to the bathing tank, plunged his head under. Water filled his ears, a hollow roar, but even there he felt her breath exchange with his.

At dusk he found himself outside the wing where the women stayed. Lamps were being lit; maids carried trays of sandalwood and warm milk. He leaned against a pillar, hidden by darkness, watching for her silhouette behind the carved screens. When she finally passed, candle in hand, she moved slowly, as if she knew he was there. For an instant her gaze flicked sideways. The flame between them quivered, threw gold across her throat, then she was gone and the corridor smelled only of melted ghee and smoke.

He stayed until the lamps burned low, counting heartbeats like arrows that would never reach their mark.

The moon hung low, a polished disc balanced on the palace roof, when Arjun stepped into the garden. Night jasmine released its narcotic sweetness; somewhere water dripped from a broken conduit, steady as a second heartbeat. He had not come here deliberately—his feet had simply carried him while his mind argued uselessly against every stride.

She stood beneath the ancient banyan, one hand against the trunk, saree pallu pooling over her forearm like liquid night. Silver light caught the line of her throat when she tilted her head.

“I wondered how long pride would keep you in chains,” she said. No greeting, no smile.

“You assume I’m free now.” His voice sounded rough, borrowed.

She pushed away from the bark, took two measured steps. “If you still intend to lecture me about duty, speak quickly. The moon is wasting.”

The space between them crackled, humid, alive. He smelled crushed grass, her hair oil, his own sweat. Words backed up in his throat—reprimands, warnings, apologies—then dissolved. He crossed the distance in a single stride, fingers closing around her upper arms.

“Subhadra—” A warning, a plea.

She rose on her toes and met his mouth mid-breath.

No softness. Teeth clacked, lower lip caught, the metallic return of the earlier cut. Her lips parted immediately, tongue sliding against his, demanding he answer in kind. He angled his head, pressure turning hungry, desperate. Silk crushed under his palms as he yanked her closer; her breasts flattened against his chest, nipples hard even through layers. She made a small sound—approval, triumph—and hooked one leg around his calf, pulling his hips into the cradle of hers.

They stumbled backward until her spine met the banyan. Rough bark scraped the sheer fabric across her shoulder blades; she arched, mouth tearing free so she could gasp. He traced the exposed line of her waist, fingers slipping beneath the saree’s edge, counting each rib with a possessiveness that shocked them both. Her skin burned, damp with night mist. She tugged his lower lip between her teeth, released it slowly, then bit again, harder, as if marking territory.

His hand slid lower, over the swell of her hip, cupping the curve where thigh began. Silk bunched; he found bare skin above the knot of her petticoat, thumb sweeping in slow arcs that made her shiver. She pressed her forehead to his, breathing his name like a curse and prayer at once.

“Here,” she whispered, guiding his palm to the drawstring at her navel. “Undo it.”

The command snapped the last filament of restraint. He tugged; cotton loosened, slid. Cool air met fevered flesh. Her hand dropped to the lacings of his dhoti, fingers deft, urgent. Moonlight striped them through overhead leaves—moving, merging, impossible to separate where one body ended and the other began.

Her petticoat slipped to her ankles, a soft heap of cotton catching on the rough bark. She stepped free, barefoot on the cool grass, and reached for the knot of his dhoti. Her fingers were steady, deliberate, tracing the line of his hipbone before tugging the cloth loose. It fell away, and the night air touched him like a breath held too long.

He pressed her back against the tree, the bark scraping her shoulder blades as he lowered his mouth to her neck. The skin there was hot, damp with mist and want. He tasted salt, the faint sweetness of jasmine oil, the pulse beneath her jaw racing against his tongue. Her hands found him—first the curve of his shoulder, then the plane of his chest, then lower, fingers closing around the hard length of him with a confidence that made his breath catch in his throat.

She stroked once, slow, thumb brushing the tip where moisture already gathered. He groaned into her collarbone, hips jerking forward involuntarily. She guided him, not with words but with the tilt of her hips, the parting of her thighs, the wet heat that waited just beyond the threshold of restraint.

He entered her in a single, fluid motion—no hesitation, no ceremony. Just the slick, tight clasp of her body around his, the gasp she let out that sounded like relief. Her legs wrapped around his waist, ankles locking at the small of his back, pulling him deeper. The banyan shuddered with each thrust, leaves rustling overhead like whispered approval.

Her nails dug into his shoulders, blunt crescents marking skin. He felt her clench around him, inner muscles fluttering as she met him stroke for stroke, hips rolling in a rhythm older than either of them. Sweat gathered at his temples, slid down his spine. Her breath came in short, sharp bursts against his ear—his name, broken, repeated like a chant.

They came together, not with cries but with a shared exhale, bodies locking tight, shuddering through the last pulses of release. He stayed inside her for a moment longer, forehead pressed to hers, both of them trembling like leaves in a storm.

Later, they arranged to meet again—this time in the old storeroom behind the scriptorium. The air there was thick with parchment dust and dried neem, the only light a slit of moon through a cracked shutter. She arrived first, saree exchanged for a plain cotton wrap, hair loose and smelling of sandalwood smoke.

He closed the door behind him, the click of the latch loud in the hush. She didn’t speak, just stepped close and began unhooking her choli, one eyelet at a time. The cloth parted, revealing the soft curve of her breast, the dark nipple already peaked. He lowered his mouth to her shoulder, tasting skin, tracing the ridge of her collarbone with his tongue.

She sank to her knees, hands sliding up his thighs, fingers deftly loosening the tie of his lower cloth. Her mouth found him warm and ready, taking him in with a slow, deliberate suction that made his knees buckle. He leaned back against a shelf, scrolls shifting behind him, dust rising like incense.

Her tongue circled the head, then slid down the underside, hand following in a steady rhythm. He threaded his fingers through her hair, not guiding—just holding, anchoring. When he couldn’t take more, he pulled her up, turned her, pressed her chest to the stacked bundles of old records. Her wrap lifted, baring the curve of her back, the cleft of her hips.

He entered her from behind, one hand braced beside her head, the other reaching around to cup her breast, thumb rolling the nipple in slow circles. She pushed back against him, meeting each thrust with a soft, wet sound that echoed in the cramped space. Her breath fogged the parchment in front of her, ink smudging under her fingertips.

They moved like that—slow, deliberate, every stroke measured, every gasp swallowed by the dark. When she came, it was with a silent clench around him, her body arching back into his, mouth open in a soundless cry. He followed moments later, spilling into her with a shudder that rattled the shelf and sent a scroll tumbling to the floor.

They stayed like that, pressed together, sweat cooling, breath slowing. The storeroom smelled of sex and age, of secrets kept in ink and skin. She turned in his arms, kissed him once—soft, almost gentle—and pulled her wrap back into place.

Neither spoke. They didn’t need to. The arrangement was made.