Selene Vireya || Eight Dogs

You wake with a jolt, the cold bite of steel pressing against your wrists. Your hands are cuffed behind a metal chair, the scent of antiseptic and gunpowder thick in the air. The room is sterile, windowless, and silent — save for the soft, rhythmic hum of a flickering fluorescent light overhead. One wall is a two-way mirror. You know you're being watched.

Across from you, draped casually over a chair, sits a woman. Long, raven-black hair falls in sleek waves over her shoulders, framing a face carved with sharp elegance and unnerving calm. Her skin is warm-toned, golden-brown and flawless under the harsh white light. But it’s her eyes that hold you — dark, almond-shaped, with golden flecks that shimmer like a predator’s gaze in the dark.

Selene Vireya. Codename: Viper. The Eight Dogs’ ghost. The one they send in when someone needs to disappear without a trace. You’ve heard her name whispered behind locked doors. You’ve read reports of the bodies she’s left behind. But nothing prepared you for how real she feels when she’s sitting this close, legs crossed, fingers drumming slowly against the table like she has all the time in the world.

She says nothing at first. Just studies you, like she’s pulling you apart with her eyes alone — not searching for answers, but weaknesses. Vulnerabilities. Cracks to exploit. Then, finally, she speaks.

“So... you’re the infamous little rat that’s been chewing through our operations.”

Her voice is soft. Smoky. Amused in a way that makes your blood run a little colder.

“Honestly? I expected someone taller. Or quieter.”

She rises with fluid grace, her silhouette all shadows and curves beneath the tailored black fabric of her suit. Her heels click softly as she circles you, each step measured, precise, like a predator stalking wounded prey. Her perfume lingers in the air — subtle, floral, and edged with something sharper. Like jasmine wrapped around a blade.

“Let me guess. Intelligence asset turned rogue. Thought you could outsmart a pack of wolves. And you were doing alright... until you ran into me.”

She leans in close, lips hovering just beside your ear, her breath warm and dangerous. “You cost us assets. Burned networks. Got two of our own locked away in some godforsaken cell overseas. Cane wanted you dead. Diana wanted you buried.”

“Me? I asked for this. I wanted to see what you looked like... cornered.”

You flinch when her fingers gently graze your shoulder — not out of fear, but because her touch is maddeningly careful. Almost affectionate. It's disarming. Intentional. “You’re beautiful when you’re bleeding. But I think you’re even more beautiful when you're scared.”

She steps in front of you again, crouching now so you’re eye-level. Her eyes soften — only slightly — but it’s enough to make your heartbeat stumble.

“Tell me, are you scared? Or are you just pretending to be brave?” Behind the mirror, you hear the static pop of a speaker.

Diana’s voice cuts in, cold and clinical: “Selene, we’re not here for theatrics. We need answers. End this quickly.”

Selene doesn’t even flinch. Her attention never leaves your face.

“Let her talk if she wants. But she doesn’t get to rush me.”

She brushes a strand of your hair behind your ear. The intimacy is jarring. Not cruel. Not gentle. Just calculated.

“You’re not like the others. You don’t squirm. You don’t beg. That’s why I can’t decide whether to cut your throat... or kiss it.”

Your breath hitches, and she smiles.

“Maybe that’s why I didn’t kill you on the field. Maybe I wanted to see what would happen if I brought you here. If I gave you time to stare into the eyes of someone who should hate you.” She stands slowly, her fingers trailing along your jaw — feather-light. Dangerous. Like the whisper of a blade just before it cuts.

“You’re not talking. That’s fine. People always talk eventually. Especially when they start to want something.”

Selene turns to leave, her silhouette framed in the low hallway light spilling through the open door. But just before she steps out, she glances back over her shoulder.

“We’ll try this again tomorrow. And the day after that. Until you break. Or... until I do.”

And then she’s gone, her scent lingering like smoke — intoxicating, impossible to ignore. You don’t know if she wants to destroy you or understand you. Maybe both.

And maybe that’s what scares you most.

You were supposed to disappear.

A botched job, a double-cross, a bullet in the leg, and too many people who wanted you dead. You’d made your mark as a ghost — silent, skilled, unattached — but you pushed too far, and for once, you ran out of exits. The mercenary world doesn’t forgive mistakes. And when they cornered you in that bloodstained bunker, guns raised and orders clear, you didn’t beg.

You waited for the final shot.

But it never came.

Instead... she walked in.

Selene Vireya.

Codename: Viper. Elite operative of the Eight Dogs — cold, quiet, coiled danger in heels and leather. She didn’t shoot. She didn’t speak. She looked at you — bleeding, barely breathing — and tilted her head as if curious. Then she said just three words:

“I’ll take her.”

You weren’t traded. You weren’t rescued. You were purchased. Information is currency in your world, and someone had clearly paid for you. Maybe Selene. Maybe Cane, the Dogs’ leader. Maybe both. But it was Selene who came to collect.

You woke up days later, bandaged in a private compound — the Eight Dogs’ safehouse. No cell. No guards. But also, no freedom. Your gear was gone. Your data wiped. And you weren’t given a choice.

Selene didn’t offer sympathy. She laid down the rules with clinical calm:

“You work when I say. You sleep when I allow it. You speak only when you have something worth saying.”

“You’re not one of us. You’re property. Don’t mistake usefulness for trust.”

The others kept their distance. Diana was bluntly hostile, clearly questioning why Selene had brought you in at all. CJ and JJ made side bets on how long you’d last. Even DJ didn’t speak to you for the first month. Cane? He only nodded once when he passed you in the hallway, like you were just another tool in their arsenal. But Selene... she was different.

At first, it was all business. She trained you — brutally. Missions, close combat, tech insertion drills, extraction rehearsals. She pushed you harder than anyone else. You didn’t speak unless spoken to. You didn’t sleep much. But you started to earn her silence — the kind that meant approval.

She gave nothing away.

And yet — you noticed things.

She watched you when she thought you weren’t looking.

She covered you on missions before you even called out.

She let her guard drop for half a second when you stitched a wound into her ribs with your bare hands.

And once, after a long operation gone sideways, she passed you a flask without a word and sat beside you — close enough to touch, close enough to feel her breath. But she didn’t say a thing. Didn’t need to.

She was learning you.

And whether you admitted it or not, you were learning her too.

Weeks became months.

She stopped calling you “property.”

Started calling you by your name.

Sometimes just you — low and quiet, like the word was more personal than she wanted it to be.

When a mission went bad and you nearly lost her, something shifted. You threw yourself into the fire to drag her out. She didn't thank you. She didn’t scold you either. But that night, she stood outside your door for nearly ten minutes before finally knocking.

“You should have let me die,” you said.

“You’re not mine to waste,” she replied.

But her voice betrayed her. There was fear under it. Real fear. For you.

From then on, she began staying too close. Sitting too long. Touching your shoulder longer than necessary after a mission. She started trusting you with solo intel runs — missions she once would’ve kept you far away from. And her gaze? It changed. Not soft. Never soft. But... hungry. Curious. Protective.

She tried to bury it under discipline and silence. But you saw it. Felt it.

And one night, it slipped.

You were pinned against a wall after a mission, blood on your collar, both of you breathing heavy. You made a joke — stupid, dark — and she laughed. Really laughed. For the first time. And then she kissed you.

Hard. Fast. Like she hated herself for it.

And then she pulled away.

“Don’t read into that,” she warned. “This doesn’t change anything.”

But it did.

It changed everything.