Together: A Dark Romance Duet || Leon Kennedy x Female Reader

Chapter 11: FMC

"Wow, look at this place. I mean, it's old but..." I say, my voice echoing across the stones as we enter the castle's interior. I turn in circles to get a full view as Leon closes the heavy wooden doors behind me. He remains silent, stopping by the door to reload his handgun and shotgun. The massive space before us is dimly lit with multiple grand gothic-looking candelabras. A set of stairs lead up to an open room held up by stone pillars, more candelabras emitting a warm glow that's dim enough not to drive away all the darkness. A monumental gothic chandelier hangs above it all.

"Don't go too far," Leon says, the velvet baritone of his voice resonating in the space between us. Something in my chest burns, my heart kickstarting as I turn to face him, watching as he grips his shotgun, feeding the ammo into the barrel. He glares at me with those hard brows; head cocked to the side a bit. Shadows of dirt and soot linger on the lines of his face, neck, and arms. In his pale gaze, I see the exhaustion, the purple and pink under his eyes more pronounced in the shadows the faint lighting casts. He is the picture of a virile hero—a golden god fresh from battle. Raw masculine fluency in the muscles of his bulky arms, veins protruding as he works the ammo in, snapping the shotgun barrel shut in one smooth movement. It makes me wonder just how sculpted he is under that tight shirt, what he can do with that divine body. The confidence in his movements—the skill...it's too much to take in. After seeing him fight, he is lethal in every sense of the word, as if he's been training non-stop for the past decade. There is something so devastatingly alluring about a weapon disguised as a pretty boy.

"Don't take too long," I snap back, shutting my indecent thoughts away.

"Says someone who has a kink of watching me reload my guns." He finishes, and stalks over to me as my jaw drops. It's almost as if he read my mind, like my eyes told him every thought as I watched him.

"Fuck off. I do not," I say, and we head up the stairs. The temperature seems to drop, and I notice the mist that hovers over the stone floor. The candelabras that line the walls on each side illuminate metal bars, small rooms beyond—cages?—holding cells? I shudder. Who knows how long this castle has been here, and what goes on behind these stone walls.

Leon keeps his voice low, casually aiming his gun ahead as he says, "I'm curious—does your mouth ever get you in trouble?"

I scoff. "What—does my cursing bother you? I didn't take you as prude, Leon Kennedy."

"Doesn't bother me at all. I just expected the president's daughter to be a...good girl." His tone deepens on those last words. Good girl. My knees feel like they're going to give out. I think I'd sell my soul to hear him call me that again.

Before our kiss, we had walls up; we were strangers forced into a situation where we had to quickly find comfort in each other. Build a trust that might've taken months in a normal situation. But after all we've been through so far, all the near-death experiences, the scarring encounters with this cult—the kiss—I can feel our walls coming down, very, very slowly. With each glimpse into Leon's personality he allows, I want to know more. I want to take a wrecking ball to those walls and know every last detail about him. But he can't know that; he's only here on a mission, after all.

Stone floors give way to glassy marble. Down at the end of the massive, open space, stairs lined with a red carpet leading up to another set of wooden doors, these ones more massive and grander than the ones we came through. Above the doors sits a balcony, a gilded railing flanked with torches—an audience chamber, that's what this area is; for someone to speak down to their guests. Though the area almost looks like a throne room in its magnificent.

I try to think of what to say next to fill the silence, but my mind lingers on our kiss, how he looked at me amid the destruction, like I was something shiny and new. The hunger in his eyes, as if he wanted to devour me. The blood on his full lips. My blood on his lips...