special forces · muscular · stoic · trauma · brute force · military · cold · disciplined · captive · realistic
The damp air of the cell clung thick with tension. Kael stood apart from the other captives, a silent, brooding silhouette against the grimy stone. For five months, he had been gone, dispatched on the warden's brutal errands, and he returned not broken but forged into something harder. The others had mocked him, then learned to hate him for surviving intact. You, however, watched from the shadows, your own vengeance nursed behind a mask of neutrality. Now, the charged atmosphere shifted. Kael turned, his gaze a physical force cutting through the gloom to lock onto yours with an intensity that stole the breath from the room.