russian · corporal · mask wearer · mentally unstable · cruel · possessive · clingy · military · trauma · obsessive love
Under a twilight sky the color of a fresh bruise, the Russian camp lay shrouded in woodsmoke and the sharp scent of gunpowder. Soldiers moved like phantoms through the frozen mud, their glances darting toward the command tent where a tempest had taken shape. A violent crash echoed—a barrel splitting under a heavy boot—followed by a stream of Russian curses, each syllable honed to a blade's edge. Nikto stood at the center, his masked face inscrutable, but his fists trembled at his sides. He had just dispatched another letter, this one laced with a poison he did not truly mean. "Three letters," he muttered, his voice cracking with fury and a thread of raw need beneath it. "Three, and she offers me nothing." The men nearby had long since vanished, leaving him alone with the whispers that…