6. Lakynn
LAKYNN
I cut through the back of Farmer Miller’s field. I know Riven is going to catch me, and to be honest, I don’t know what I’d do if he didn’t. For right now, though? I need to run. I trip twice on old irrigation lines and slam my shoulder into a rusted fence post. That should have knocked me down, I should be in pain, but I’m not. I’m working off of pure adrenaline but I keep moving. I dip through a dry creek bed, mud caking my white sneakers, and scramble over a wire fence into the old Carrow property, the one with the collapsed barn and the gravel path no truck can manage without bottoming out. I go where I know Riven can’t follow me in a vehicle, even though I know deep down he’s going to find me anyway.
The wind whips at my face, tangling my hair, but I keep running.
And I can’t stop thinking about the last time he chased me. The night I realized Riven really likes to hunt.
It was six months ago. Just before he left.
We’d been arguing…eh, no, not even that. It started when one of the bull riders, I don’t even remember which one. Wyatt, maybe? He asked if I wanted to hang out, and I was smart enough to know that he was just trying to get a rise out of Riven. He already knew the answer before the question left his lips. I said no, clear as day, but Riven had already heard the question.
He walked over like a storm and got in Wyatt’s face, jaw clenched. Told him if he didn’t get the fuck away from me, he’d make sure he never rode another bull again. His voice was so calm it was terrifying.
Wyatt backed off, muttering something, and Riven turned to walk away without even looking me in the eye.
I’d had enough. I wanted him, and I wanted him to admit he wanted me too. Fuck the rules. Fuck our current status as adopted siblings. Literally fuck everything.
“You run everybody off,” I called after him. “But you don’t want me for yourself. Make that make sense.”
He stopped, shoulders tense. “Don’t start something you don’t want me to finish, Lakynn. You’re not prepared for any of this.”
“You don’t get to control my life like that,” I said. “If you don’t want me, the right thing to do is stop playing bodyguard.” I didn’t mean what I was saying. I would have been devastated if he did stop protecting me, but I needed more from him. So much more.
He turned back, glowering. I could see the fury behind his eyes, but it wasn’t about Wyatt. Not really. It was because he knew he couldn’t do what I was asking of him.
Riven is frustrating. Maddening. Cold one second, burning the next.
As he stalked toward me, I felt my pulse spike.
And I ran.
I took off across the back field with a nervous laugh, not thinking he’d follow.
But he did.
God, did he follow.
He caught me by the waist, and we tumbled to the ground together. I landed flat on my back in the tall grass, breath stolen from my lungs, and when I looked up…
There was something feral in his eyes.
Riven’s hand went to my throat. Not hard. Just enough pressure to hold me still. Just enough to make my heart pound in a way that terrified and thrilled me.
I expected him to finally kiss me. I was sure he would.
But instead, he closed his eyes. Shook his head like he was banishing some terrible impulse.
And then he climbed off of me.
Riven lifted me gently to my feet, like he hadn’t just looked at me like he wanted to ruin me.
He didn’t say anything. Just walked away, fists clenched at his sides.
We never spoke about it, but I know that he realized I saw something in him that night that he tries to hide from me. I think what surprised him was that I liked it, matched it, practically begged him with my eyes to give me everything he hides from the world. I haven’t stopped wondering what would’ve happened if he hadn’t stopped himself.
I burst out of the field, and onto the old dirt road that leads home. To the Kozlov farm. To the place I should be running away from. Somehow, I feel like this is exactly where I need to be. This is exactly where he’ll come to find me.
I think I’m right when I hear an engine hum behind me. I freeze because instinctively I know it’s not Riven following me.
Tires roll slow and deliberate. I turn to see the slick black luxury car roll to a stop beside me. The window glides down and I see his face.
“Need a ride, sweetheart?”
I step back instinctively. My stomach drops.
It’s Matthew.
“No, I’m good,” I say, already turning away. “Bad luck to see the bride…ever. Isn’t that the saying?”
He opens the door and climbs out and I know that after all the running I’ve just done, I don’t have a shot at getting away unscathed. I just need to hold him off until Riven gets here, because that’s my only shot. I shouldn’t have run from him, I know that’s what he’ll say. But he shouldn’t have disappeared and then popped back up to rip my dress off. I guess we’re even.
“Oh, come on now. No need to be skittish,” he says, sauntering around the front of his car. "I was actually headed to your father’s house for an impromptu meeting, but the universe has other plans, I suppose. I didn’t think I’d get you alone until the wedding night."
I sidestep to the right. He follows.
My heart kicks up.
He lunges left. I dart back and he comes so close to grabbing me that his fingers brush my forearm.
He laughs. "This how your weird brother taught you to play hard to get?"
"He’s not my brother and he’s not weird," I snap at him. I’m going to enjoy watching him die. Riven won’t be kind, and I’m thankful for that because this lunatic wouldn’t have given me an ounce of empathy had we made it to a marriage bed.
"There’s rumors going around that he’s back in town. Do you know anything about that? Your father and I are going to decide what to do with him. If you don’t fight me now, maybe I won’t make you watch him die."
I freeze for half a second. That’s all he needs to try and close the gap between us. Matthew reaches for my arm, but I’m too quick and spin just out of his grasp. I sprint around the back of his truck, but he’s not deterred.
“Goddamn, you run like you want me to catch you,” he pants.
I whip around the passenger side and yank the door open. I dive in, slam the button that locks everything down.
Click. It’s honestly the best sound I’ve heard in a long time.
He bangs on the window. “Open up. I swear to God, Lakynnn. You’re gonna regret this little game. When I fucking get my hands on you, I’m going to make you beg me. You’re going to scream.”
I cup my hand up at my ear and squint my eyes as if to say I can’t hear him. “Speak up.”
“I’m not playing this fucking game with you,” he snarls. “Let me in so I can fuck the fight out of you. You’re lucky I even agreed to take you. You’re such a fucking frigid bitch and everyone knows it.”
I lower the window half an inch, because he most definitely is going to play this game with me. I smile, cruel and quiet, and that seems to confuse him.
“Games are fun,” I say. “I’m just waiting.”
He blinks. “Waiting for what?”
I look in the rearview mirror.
Headlights. Fast. Furious.
“You’re the one who summoned the devil. Don’t look at me for help,” I say, laughing because his attitude is changing really quickly and that’s pretty fucking funny if you ask me.
Panic distorts his features and he doesn’t respond to anything I’ve said, but my parting words to him are, “I’m pretty sure you’re going to be the one who screams.”
He bolts.
The truck behind us skids to a stop in a storm of gravel.
The driver’s door swings open with nothing less than absolute fury.
Riven doesn’t speak.
He runs.
And I watch.
Matthew barely makes it to the tree line before Riven takes him down with a thud. A grunt. A crack. A scream that I feel like was meant for me to hear.
I stumble out of the car, moving toward the sound.
Riven doesn’t stop when he hears me approaching, but I know he does because of the way his back stiffens. His fists crash into Matthew’s face over and over, teeth cracking, blood spraying. Matthew wheezes, his arms flailing weakly, but Riven doesn’t seem to give any semblance of a fuck. He’s silent. Focused. Each punch lands with a dull, sickening thud.
I watch as Riven grabs Matthew by the collar, lifts him slightly off the ground, and slams him back down with enough force that I think he must have killed him. The sound Matthew makes doesn’t even resemble a scream anymore, it’s just a wet, broken gurgle.
My stomach flips, but not for the reasons it should. I want him gone. I want to forget the things he threatened me with. It’s as if Riven knows because I don’t think he’s just trying to hurt him. He’s trying to erase him.
Riven’s knuckles split. Blood splatters across the grass and Matthew goes limp. It’s still not enough because Riven’s knee drives into his gut. One more punch. Then another. Then a kick to the ribs that makes something snap.
Still, he doesn’t stop.
“You should never have touched what’s mine!” Riven finally speaks, and it’s a guttural yell, like he’s finally able to say the words out loud.
And I should be horrified, but I’m not. I’m absolutely electrified.
Every instinct screams that this is wrong, that I should tell him to stop. Run.
But I don’t, because this is for me.
He’s doing this for me.
No one’s ever protected me like this. No one’s ever been this brutal. This devoted. This mine.
When he’s too exhausted to inflict anymore damage, Riven doesn’t say anything. He just pushes up to stand next to me, soaked blood, chest heaving. His shoulders rise and fall, and for a second, he doesn’t even look human. He looks like something that crawled out of the dark to destroy anything that touches me.
He wipes his bloodied hand on his jeans, slow and deliberate. Then he lifts his gaze.
His eyes find mine. He’s so fucking beautiful, even when he’s covered in someone else’s blood.
Something inside me snaps tight because I know without a doubt that Riven has never looked at anyone else the way he’s looking at me right now. He walks toward me like I’m the only thing anchoring him to the earth, and I truly feel the same way. I don’t think I was meant to be in this world without him by my side. It would hurt too much, feel too empty.
His boots crunch slowly over the dirt, but his eyes never leave mine. There’s no hesitation. No second-guessing. Just a focus so intense it makes my lungs freeze.
He’s looking at me like I’m it . The beginning and the end. Like I’m the only thing he ever needs to see again in this lifetime.
And I can’t move. My feet are planted, breath caught in my throat. There’s no space left in the world except for him.
When he finally reaches me, he stops just inches away. His bloodied hands hover near my face. And then gently, reverently, he cups my cheeks, his thumb brushing along my skin like he can’t believe I’m real.
“Do you have any idea what you do to me?” he whispers, his voice hoarse. “I need you to know that I came back to Castlebrook because I couldn’t breathe without you.”
I have literally no words as his thumb traces the edge of my jaw, slow and careful.
“You’re mine, Lakynnn. You always have been.” He stares at me like I’m sacred. Like I’m already his, even if I haven’t said the words.
And part of me wants to fall into him, tell him that I feel the exact same way. But I’m still wrecked, still shaking from everything I went through when he wasn’t here.
I take a step back.
“No,” I say, hands shaking.
But he doesn’t stop, he doesn’t let me go.
“Don’t,” I whisper. “Don’t touch me right now.”
He cups my face with blood-streaked fingers.
“I can’t help it,” he rasps. “You ran. You shouldn’t have run. I’ve been trying to be a gentleman.”
I let out a shaky laugh because there’s something in his eyes that tells me he’s never going to let me out of his sight again. “This is you being a gentleman?” I gesture over to where Matthew lay, bludgeoned to death with Riven’s bare hands.
Riven’s voice dips, and he sounds absolutely dangerous.
“You have no idea the thrill I get from chasing you.”
My breath stutters.
“You’re lucky Matthew was here,” he growls, pressing his forehead to mine. “Because if I’d caught you alone? I’d be buried so deep inside you we’d never talk things out.”
I blink up at him, stunned.
He must read my confusion because he mutters, his voice like gravel, "Some things are just... embedded in our DNA. And chasing you, pinning you down and fucking you until you understand just how much you belong to me, that's coursing through my veins."
I swallow hard, and he pulls my hips to his, grinding against me. Thick, hard heat is all I feel pressed against me. I can feel the blush creeping up my neck at the heavy feel of him.
“I need it. I crave it. I have to have it. But it has to be the right time,” he says as his lips brush my ear. "I need you to want it just as much as I do, baby."
“Riven, I …” I start, but he shakes his head like he needs me to just listen.
“You’re mine,” he tells me. “No one else’s. No one touches you. No one even looks at you. I don’t know how to exist without you, Lakynn. I’ll make you see it. Feel it. You’ll never doubt it again. I won’t ever allow it.”
My hand moves before I think. I reach up, almost instinctively, brushing away the blood on his face with the edge of my thumb. My skin drags across his cheekbone, gentle, careful, and then I freeze.
What am I doing? It was this side of one day ago I was crying into my pillow over the very same boy standing in front of me right now. I try to pull away, but he catches my wrist in one swift movement.
“Don’t,” he breathes. His grip is firm, but not painful. He brings my hand back to his face, holding it there like it’s the only thing keeping him together.
“Please,” he whispers, eyes fluttering shut as he leans into my palm. “Touch me. Please.”
Something inside me splinters. I shouldn’t. I know I shouldn’t.
But I can’t help it.
I give in.
I press my hand more firmly to his cheek, and he exhales like he’s waited lifetimes for this.
His lips graze my palm. Then he turns my wrist and kisses the inside of it, slow and reverent. “I agonized dreaming of the way this would feel,” he says.
“Me touching your face?” I ask, barely audible.
His gray eyes flash up to mine. There are so many things swirling in their depths right now.
Dark. Seductive. Needy.
“I’ve thought about every inch of you a million times over. There is not one other thought inside my brain that isn’t related to you.”
And just like that, I forget how to breathe.