Chapter 19
DAVEN
Daven was exactly where he intended to be when the door opened, sprawled on the couch with his jacket folded over the armrest and his boots still on, one ankle resting over his knee as if the world moved on his timing and not the other way around.
He had been waiting for two fucking hours.
Finally, the lock disengaged with a soft click.
“…I said I’m fine,” Ryneth’s voice drifted in before he did. “You don’t have to worry about me.”
The door slid open.
“…Thank you.”
It closed behind him.
“Worry about you?” Daven’s voice cut through the room. “Who exactly thinks they get to worry about you?”
Ryneth froze mid-step, then slowly lifted his head and saw him. His shoulders locked first, then his jaw, while his fingers curled at his sides as if he were deciding whether to strike or run.
Good Light, his aethera looked wrecked.
His hair was wind-tossed, his collar twisted, and his mouth looked slightly swollen, as if he’d spent the whole day worrying at it with his teeth. There was color high on his cheekbones that had nothing to do with the sun.
He looked devastating.
Daven rose without hurry. “Where were you all this time? And who the fuck were you talking to?”
“Vandor brought me home. After class,” Ryneth said with a sharp sniff.
“Oh?” Daven tilted his head. “So you went on with your day after my public statement?”
“Public statement?” Ryneth’s eyes flashed. “You humiliated me.”
“I claimed you. There’s a big difference.”
Ryneth’s face tightened. “And you did it in front of everyone at the Academy.”
“I did.”
Ryneth rolled his eyes, then let out a furious huff. “Same thing.”
The last word broke on the way out.
His chin lifted like he meant to hold the line, but his eyes were too bright. His breath hitched, and when he swallowed, Daven saw it for what it was.
“Are you crying?”
“No.” Ryneth sniffed hard, furious. “Fuck you.”
Even half out of it, he was beautiful.
Daven crossed the space between them before he could retreat. He caught Ryneth by the waist, dragged him flush against his chest, and kissed the corner of his mouth. Then his temple.
“Not just the Academy,” he murmured. “Every public screen in Helion. The whole planet saw me claim you.”
Ryneth made a small, wrecked sound and shoved at his chest, but Daven only held him tighter. “You made me stand there while they stared at me.”
“I wanted no confusion about who’s mine.”
“But then why—” Ryneth cleared his throat, looking away. “Why not bring me with you?”
“Because I don’t put what’s mine on display before I can protect it.”
That wasn’t entirely true. He’d spent the entire morning pushing his uncle to let him make the claim. Safety, or the lack of it, had finally tipped the scale, but Ryneth didn’t need to know that.
He had secured the right to claim him in front of the planet, and he had won. Now the man he’d fought for stood in his living room, breathing hard and ready to fight him for every inch.
Ryneth crossed his arms, but when he spoke, the anger in him faltered around the edges. “I couldn’t breathe,” he confessed, still staring somewhere over Daven’s shoulder instead of at him. The words came out rough, dragged up from somewhere deeper than pride.
Daven felt it at once. Ryneth was trying to hold on to the anger, but it was already slipping. What had rattled him wasn’t just the claim. It was being seen. Wanted. Dragged into the open while his own body betrayed him.
“I couldn’t—”
The words broke apart before he could finish. His static erupted instead, bursting from his skin in a sharp crackle. Silver flashed along his forearms. The overhead lights flickered. The glass trembled.
Of course. Cornered enough, frightened enough, and his body reached for the one thing that had always protected him.
“Are you afraid, baby?” Daven took a step forward.
Ryneth pressed his lips into a tight, trembling line, but didn’t answer.
“Are you angry with me?” He took another step, slowly lifting his hands.
“Back off,” Ryneth snarled.
“Oh no. I’m afraid I can’t do that. You’re mine, you see? And after tonight, you won’t be only mine to satisfy, but also mine to protect.”
Daven took a final step. Let the current bite against his chest. Let it crawl along his throat. The Dariux in him stirred in answer, and it was waking the part of him that thrived on control and heat.
His wind rose. It curved outward in a slow, tightening spiral, wrapping around the flare of static and pressing it inward until the energy formed a humming sphere between their bodies.
The energy tightened between them until it became one hard, humming line.
Ryneth’s breath came faster. “You don’t get to decide my life.”
“When your life binds to mine, I do.”
“Who said it binds?”
Daven stepped closer until their heat merged. “Say you don’t feel this.”
Ryneth said nothing, but his pulse beat hard at his throat.
“Say you don’t feel me every time I walk into a room.”
His gaze dropped to Ryneth’s mouth. To the faint mark he’d left there the night before. The memory surged through him. The way Ryneth had trembled when he’d held him close. The way his body had yielded even while his pride fought.
“You still feel me,” he murmured, leaning in closer. “Even now. Can you still feel me inside you?”
Ryneth took a step back, but the static flared again, sharper. “You don’t get to use that against me.”
“I’m not using it.” Daven’s voice dropped. “I’m reminding you.”
The sphere of energy between them pulsed.
“What are you feeling right now?” Daven asked.
Ryneth swallowed. His throat worked once before the words pushed free. “You scare me.”
The words tasted sweeter than they should have.
Daven’s engineered instincts, created for dominance and display, leaned toward it at once. The part of him Helion had made. The part trained for Aureates, for spectacle, for the kind of cruelty this planet polished until it looked like tradition.
But beneath that, deeper, something else moved.
Something fierce. Something fucking certain.
“Do I scare you, or do you want me?”
Ryneth’s eyes flashed. “You corner me.”
“I stand where I choose.”
“You could have told me last night, but you didn’t even warn me. You used my little brother to put me where you wanted.” He ran a hand through his blond strands, yanking at the ends. “You should have told me.”
“And risk you refusing me in front of the entire planet?”
“You think I really could have? While being in your custody, trapped in this penthouse with all these guards swarming the building?”
Daven’s jaw tightened, ignoring the mention of guards. He preferred the word custody. “Whatever you want, I’ll bend the world for it.”
Ryneth flushed. “No. That’s not how this works. You don’t get to walk into my life and own me.”
Daven stepped forward and pressed him back against the wall.
Their bodies aligned, heat crowding the space between them as his hand slid to Ryneth’s hip.
“That’s where you’re wrong. Every inch of you belongs to me.
After tonight, it won’t be just your body.
It’ll be your pulse. Your power. Your soul.
” His thumb dug in slightly. “No? You don’t believe me? ”
Ryneth didn’t answer. He just stared at him, mouth tight, pulse hammering beneath Daven’s palm while the static around them began to dim.
Daven felt the exact moment it happened and smiled to himself. “Then let me show you what I got from Düren.”
Ryneth went still. “What?”
“From the hospital,” Daven said, already reaching for his multi-slate. “Want to see?”
Ryneth’s fingers fisted in his shirt. “If you’re lying…”
“I’m not.” He lifted the slate and activated the image.
A boy sat in a hospital bed, smiling at the camera, giving a thumbs up. Dark hair was brushed away from his eyes. An IV was connected to his veins.
Ryneth made a broken sound. “Light…Tavi. It’s him. You—he—” He looked up at Daven, eyes impossibly silver. His wet blond lashes clung together. “You talked to the doctors?”
“Yes. He’s stable.” Daven flicked to another image of Tavi sleeping. “He’s got new specialists. New equipment. Baby, his treatment is secured.”
“Did you talk to him?” Ryneth whispered.
“Yes.”
“What did he say?”
“He asked if you were safe.”
Ryneth’s breath caught. His mouth parted, but nothing came out. For one suspended second, he just stood there with Daven’s slate still glowing between them, his fingers tight in Daven’s shirt and his whole body gone still around the truth of it.
Daven watched his eyes turn bright. Watched the way his mouth trembled before he bit down on it, as if he could still force himself not to feel it.
Heat coiled low in Daven’s chest at the sight of it.
Ryneth was still trying to hold himself together, still fighting even as something in him gave way.
But this wasn’t the courtyard. There was no crowd now, no screen, no one watching.
Just the two of them, and the pull between them that had refused to loosen since the first night.
“You still think this was just for show?”
Ryneth’s mouth trembled. “You chose me.” The words came out like they hurt. His lashes lowered. “I’ll never understand why.”
Daven went still for one beat. Then he leaned in until their foreheads nearly touched.
“You don’t need to understand it yet.” Daven straightened and took his hand. “Come on.”
Ryneth blinked. “For what?”
“For tonight.” Daven tightened his grip before he could pull away. “The private ceremony at my uncle’s house.”
Ryneth stared at him, chest rising too fast. “What? Now?”
“Now.” Daven held his gaze. “I told you I’d finish what I started.”
Ryneth hesitated, then turned and walked toward the bedroom.
Daven watched him go, something low and fierce settling in his chest at the sight. Not because Ryneth understood it yet. Not because either of them could name what had taken hold of them. But because, for the first time since the claim, he was moving with him instead of fighting every step.
“That’s better.”