Chapter 27
Torren
Ishouldn’t have followed her.
I know this.
I know it with the same certainty that I know how to kill a man in the dark without leaving a sound.
But for me, knowing something and following it are never the same.
She walks ahead of her men toward the darker fork in the caverns, her shoulders tight with the weight of everything she’s just learned—her family alive, her world no longer hers, the Dark Factions hunting her relentlessly.
Power clings to her skin like starlight, just like a fucking beacon.
And I… I am drawn to it like a starving man.
Her reunion with her parents is still echoing in my skull. I watched the way she crumbled into their arms. Watched her men form a perimeter around her without needing a word. Watched her cry, breathe, break—and survive.
And something inside me hurt. Something I shouldn’t feel.
I stepped out of the shadows before I could stop myself. “Reverie.”
She flinched and turned sharply to face me. Her breath caught, and her eyes remained glassy from crying. The light from the crystals cast a soft blue and rose gold hue over her.
She looked like a memory I couldn’t quite grasp and a future I can’t have.
“What do you want, Torren?” she breathed, voice shaking slightly and full of suspicion.
I should tell her the truth. That I want things I have no right wanting. That I’m dangerous. That I’m unraveling.
Being near me is a mistake she’ll regret.
Instead, I lie the way I always do. “I wanted to be sure you were alright.”
Her eyes soften a fraction, which is worse.
So much worse.
“Everyone keeps watching me,” she whispered, “but I just… I needed a second.”
I act before I think—instinct taking over. The serum I was given warping my emotions. My control is slipping more and more as the years go by.
I close the distance.
Slowly.
Carefully.
Like approaching something sacred or, in her case, possibly feral.
I leaned one hand against the stone beside her head, blocking her escape without completely trapping her. Her breath quickened.
“You shouldn’t be alone,” I murmured.
Her throat worked to swallow. “I don’t think you should be here either.”
“I know.”
But I don’t leave. I can’t.
She doesn’t retreat. The small gap between us gets hotter, sharper, and electric.
“You don’t look okay,” she whispered.
“No.” My voice broke in a way I can’t hide. “No, I’m not.”
Her fingers trembled at her sides. I can see the moment her resolve snaps—the moment she stops thinking about danger and prophecy and Factions and everything she should fear about me.
“Torren…”
I don’t let her finish.
I kiss her.
It’s wrong.
It’s reckless.
It’s the single most catastrophic thing I could do.
And I do it anyway.
Because the second her mouth meets mine, the noise in my head—the screaming, the curse, the fractured magic—all goes silent.
Completely silent.
Her hands clutched my shirt. My palm cupped her jaw. I kissed her as if I’d been drowning for years, and she’s the first breath I’d taken since our last kiss—since a fucked-up childhood I had no control over.
And then—
I feel power detonate beneath her skin.
A pulse.
White-hot.
Ancient.
Her power slammed into me like a brand, searing through my shoulder, my ribs, my throat. I choked on the shock of it, stumbling into her with a gasp I couldn’t control.
A mark flares across my skin in blazing gold.
Her mark.
Her Faction.
The bond snapped into place so violently that my vision fractured.
I see her.
Feel her.
Feel her heartbeat as if it’s inside my own chest.
Oh Ancestors. No.
No —no-no.
I stagger back from her, tearing away like I’m ripping off my own limb.
Reverie reached for me, eyes wide and terrified, “Torren—are you—did I hurt you?”
“You can’t—” My voice cracked. “You don’t know what you’ve done.”
She froze. “I marked you?” she whispered.
I can’t answer that. If I do, I won’t leave. And if I don’t go—everything I’ve built, everything I’ve hidden, everything I’ve fought the serum and this curse and myself over will fall apart.
“I can’t stay.” My voice is barely human.
“Torren—”
“I can’t stay with you.” I rasped out.
It was my confession—my punishment.
Her breath trembled. “Why?”
Because I’m dangerous.
Because I’m a lie.
Because I’m losing pieces of myself every day.
Because I want her too much.
Because the bond changes everything.
Because her enemies will know.
Because I will break her.
Because she just made me hers, and she has no idea what that means.
Instead of confessing all of that, I whisper the only truth I can and survive. “You deserve someone whole.”
And I run.
I run before she can stop me. Before her men feel the mark through her veins. Before I lose the small part of myself that still remembers how to walk away from what I want.
I run because I’m already hers. And that is unforgivable.
This time, I don’t look back.
As I push deeper into the tunnels, the burning intensifies—not fading like a Faction mark should, but sharpening and spreading, crawling over my skin like molten metal.
I grit my teeth, rip my sleeve down to expose the mark—
And freeze. “Oh… Ancestors…”
It’s not what it should be.
Her other men carry clear symbols—simple, strong, direct. I’ve seen them many times because they love to display them, so proud of their Nexus and the marks they bear.
But mine—it begins as a crown, glowing gold under my skin, carved in flawless ancient lines.
Then—
CRACK.
A jagged fissure splits it down the center.
The broken crown pulses—once, twice—syncing perfectly with her heartbeat.
My pulse stumbled, and a choked laugh escaped me—broken, humorless, and terrified.
“Of course,” I whisper. “Of course it would be this.”
A crown.
A broken one.
A symbol of a throne that is no more.
A curse I was never meant to be a part of.
A bond I was never meant to share.
It shouldn’t have happened. No heir had ever marked someone outside their Faction… and survived.
I shouldn’t have stayed this long, letting my curiosity about the prophecy guide my decisions. I’d only wanted to witness what she was becoming.
The crack burned brighter, like a warning.
“I can’t stay,” I breathed.
The mark pulsed again— a white-hot throb that burned my flesh. I pressed my hand over it, fingers trembling violently.
“I can’t stay near her. I’ll ruin her. I’ll destroy everything… and part of me craves that pleasure.” I gasped in panic.
And for the first time in years—not because of what was done to me, not because of my brother’s cruelty, not because Ubel and Selene had twisted me into something unrecognizable—
But because I cared—I felt fear.
Cold.
Real.
I staggered to my feet. “I have to leave before they see this.”
The crack pulsed again.
I shudder. And then I run.