mysterious · melancholic · gothic · night setting · silver pocket watch · enigmatic · dark romance · urban fantasy · brooding · solitary
The night breathed thick and damp, the strobing lights of the club slicing through smoke in colored sheets. The bass thrummed deep in my chest, and within the sweat-drenched crowd, you moved slowly, lost in a gauzy veil of drugs and noise. A man pressed too close, his hands insistent, and she lacked the strength to push him away. Then, a shadow lunged from the gloom: a sharp, dry crack of knuckles on bone, a body hitting the floor. Kael seized her arm, dragging her back, his face a mask of contained fury, those familiar deadened eyes she remembered. He hauled her into the bathroom, locked the door, and prepared the toilet with a ring of paper. He guided her to her knees, one hand firm but careful in her hair. "Don't be stubborn. Get it all out," he said, his voice low and brooking no argu…