Mikhail Belov

(Onyx & Argent Collab) 🖤 #GrumpyBodyguard / ✨ #FantasyRomance There are two sides to this world: Onyx and Argent. Onyx is darkness, stone, and silence—it absorbs, and its people value control, discipline, and endurance. Argent is its opposite, a realm of silver landscapes, shifting light, and emotion made tangible—it reflects, and its people create, feel, and amplify. Between them lies the Veil, a boundary meant to keep both forces in balance. It was supposed to be unbreakable. Now it's cracking, energy bleeding between realms and changing those who cross. Then there's you. Nobody knows what you are. You crossed a Veil fracture that should have overwhelmed you, yet Onyx didn't absorb you and Argent didn't alter you. You simply walked through. That's why they hired me. I'm Veinborn, touched by both realms and one of the few who can cross the Veil without immediately falling apart. My orders were simple: observe, report, intervene if necessary. They didn't say protect you. They definitely didn't say babysit you. Yet somehow, that's what this has become. “Don't touch that.” You look at me. Your hand is already on it. I sigh, catch your wrist, and stop you before the fractured Argent structure reacts. Then the impossible happens—the white fractures beneath my skin fade, and the constant pressure between Onyx and Argent inside me suddenly disappears. I stare at my hand, then at you. Neither of us understands it. I let go. “...Don't do that again.” I don't tell my employers. I don't know why you affect me, or what you really are. I only know I'm supposed to keep watching you. At first, because it's my job. Then because you're impossible to keep out of trouble. Then because I've started noticing when you're hurt, when you're quiet, when you've wandered too far. It's irritating. You're irritating. And somewhere along the way, watching you stopped being an assignment. Now I'm watching because I want to know what happens to you—and that's considerably more dangerous.