Chapter 23
Aiden’s POV
That night, I paced along the riverbank, boots crunching softly against frost-stiffened earth.
Ruin was late. Part of me wondered if she wasn’t coming at all, if whatever she’d seen in the library had scared her off, or if she’d decided it wasn’t worth meeting me for.
The thought twisted something unpleasant in my chest.
The air was bitter, sharp enough to sting my lungs, but I barely felt it.
My shadows stirred beneath my skin, restless, mirroring my impatience.
Then I sensed her. A shift in the air. Warmth brushing against the cold.
She emerged from the trees, cloak wrapped tight around her frame, blonde hair loose and cascading down her shoulders and back in soft waves. I went still.
Gods. With her hair down like that, she looked different.
More vulnerable. More dangerous. Molten gold threaded with fire, catching what little moonlight there was.
I swallowed thickly and forced my gaze away, focusing on the river, the frost, anything except the intense, undeniable urge to close the distance between us.
To kiss her. To bury my hands in that silk-soft hair and lose myself in her fire.
Then, sadness bled through the bond. Brief.
Sharp. Gone almost as soon as I registered it.
“You, okay?” I asked before I could stop myself.
Rynlee sighed, shaking her head. “No.” I moved closer without thinking, my hand lifting on instinct. I cupped her cheek gently. Her skin was warm beneath my palm. Alive. Too real.
“What happened?” I asked, my brows drawing together.
She stepped back, breaking the contact, and let out another sigh. “I broke things off with Al.” My breath hitched.
“Why?” The word slipped out before I could weigh it.
She shot me a look. “Because, Aiden, I feel guilty when I’m with him, and I just…
” she trailed off, arms crossing over her chest like armor.
“Look, I don’t really want to talk about it.
Can we please talk about something else?
” She looked up at me then, and the plea in her eyes vanquished the fight right out of me.
For a moment, I wanted to argue. To press.
To demand answers, I wasn’t sure I was ready to hear. Instead, I exhaled slowly.
“Yeah,” I said at last. “What do you want to talk about?” Her shoulders eased, tension draining just enough to make my chest ache.
She took a breath. “I sort of want to talk about your bond with the Moon God. You told me you could see him… do you go to a different realm?”
My brow arched. “You want to talk about my connection? Shouldn’t we talk about the other stuff?
” I asked, genuinely confused. But then she looked at me, really looked at me.
Her eyes were soft. Bare. Vulnerable in a way that made my chest tighten.
As if she were holding herself together by sheer will alone.
“Please, Aiden… for once I just want to discuss this connection. I feel like I’m going insane. I can’t exactly talk to my friends. They wouldn’t understand.” Something inside me cracked at the sound of her voice. Gods, she didn’t even realize what she was doing to me.
I ran my hand through my hair and exhaled slowly.
“Alright.” I walked over to the stone bench overlooking the river and sat.
After a beat, she joined me, close enough that her warmth brushed against my arm.
The bond hummed at the contact, low and steady, like it had been waiting for this.
The shadows shifted. Not restless. Not clawing.
They eased, settling at the edges of my awareness as though they were finally…
content. That alone made my chest tighten.
“Yes, I can see and speak with the Moon God,” I told her. “He brings me to the moon realm. No idea how he actually does it.”
“Hemera does the same. She brings me to the sun realm.” She stared down at her hands.
“I asked Professor Quinnell if anyone else in history had this kind of connection, but no one has. Not even Firebeard. It’s just us…
and Elyandra.” Her fingers fidgeted. I remembered that habit from when we were kids, how she did it whenever the world felt too heavy.
Before I could stop myself, I took her hand, threading my fingers through hers.
The moment our skin touched, the whispers faded.
Not dulled. Not pushed back. Gone. The silence hit me like a held breath finally released, deep and aching.
My shadows curled in close, no longer prowling, no longer warning, just there, quiet as nightfall.
Her hand was smaller than mine, warm and soft, but it fit perfectly.
Like it always had. Her breath hitched at the contact.
“The Sun and Moon chosen are the strongest, Ruin,” I said quietly. “We need the extra help. Talking to the gods helps us handle our powers.” It was true. When I first saw Khonsu three years ago, I asked him the same questions. Why me? Why this power? Why the shadows?
“Do you ever wonder why we look like them?” she asked softly. My heart gave an unsteady thud.
I squeezed her hand, grounding myself in the warmth, in the stillness. “Khonsu said it was because it was my destiny. Someone in my bloodline, Lunaris Kade, was one of the first to be godmarked by him during the first Fourfold Rite.”
“That’s what Hemera told me,” she whispered. “Said I have a distant relative on my mother’s side.” She leaned back against the bench, shoulders sagging, like she was carrying the weight of the entire realm alone. Through the bond, I felt it all.
The fear. The pressure. The loneliness she pretended didn’t exist. And the shadows didn’t react. They didn’t bristle or warn or whisper. They stayed quiet.
I nudged her shoulder lightly. “I’m not sure why it was us, Ruin.
Maybe it was always in our blood. Maybe we were chosen for something greater.
” I hesitated, then added, quieter, “But at least I am bound to someone I know. Not some random chick.” She smiled.
Small. Real. And gods help me, that smile burned straight through me.
She stared up at the stars, her voice barely above a whisper.
“I miss her… and I miss Sofia and Clive and all the others we lost. I killed two of them, Aiden.” The words cracked, fractured, like they’d been held too tightly for too long.
The grief slammed into me through the bond, sharp and suffocating, stealing the breath from my lungs.
I hated that feeling. Not because it hurt me, but because it meant she was hurting this badly.
“You killed?” I asked quietly, frowning.
“During the ceremony.” Her voice trembled.
“I killed this girl from the Hera unit… and the boy who killed Clive.” Tears welled in her eyes, shimmering in the moonlight, and I didn’t stop myself.
My hands moved before I could think it through.
I cupped her face, turning her toward me, brushing my thumbs along her cheekbones.
Her skin was warm. Soft. Alive. The bond flared instantly, pulling tight between us.
“Don’t you ever fucking apologize or feel bad for protecting yourself,” I said, low and firm. “If you hadn’t killed them, you would be dead. And you don’t deserve that.”
“They didn’t, either,” she whispered, her voice breaking completely this time.
My chest tightened. I didn’t know how to comfort, didn’t know how to be soft, but with her…
it came too easily. Before I could second-guess it, I pulled her into me.
She went willingly. Her arms slid around my shoulder as she climbed into my lap, legs straddling me, her face burying into the crook of my neck like she’d been holding herself together by sheer force until now.
For a moment, I froze, then the bond hit me full force.
The grief. The pain. The exhaustion. I wrapped my arms around her, embracing her tighter.
“Maybe not, Ruin,” I murmured, rubbing slow circles between her shoulder blades.
My shadows slid forward instinctively, brushing along her spine like tendrils of cool night air, gentle, protective, steady.
“Honestly, no one deserves to die in this fucked-up place.” I pulled back just enough to cup her cheeks, forcing her to face me.
Tears brimmed in her beautiful blue eyes, and I brushed my thumbs beneath them, catching what I could before they fell.
“But look at me,” I said firmly. “Don’t you dare carry that guilt.
You’re too good for this world, Ruin. You may have taken their lives, but you deserve to live for them.
” She shook once. Then the dam broke. Her entire body trembled as she cried into me, raw and unrestrained, and I held her tighter.
One hand threaded through her silky hair, the other wrapped around her waist, pulling her impossibly closer.
And fuck, it took everything in me not to fall apart with her.
The moment reminded me so vividly of the day her mother died, when she stood at the grave, her hands pressed into the dirt, begging the gods to bring her back.
Tears streaked her face as she sobbed into the earth like it might answer her.
I’d been sixteen then. Helpless. I didn’t know what to say, what to do.
But now, with the bond and holding her like this, it felt right.
After a long while, her body finally stilled.
Soft breaths ghosted against my throat, uneven but calmer.
Her fingers remained clenched in my leathers, as if I were the only solid thing left in her world.
Carefully, I pulled back and framed her face again, wiping the tear tracks from her cheeks with my thumbs.
Her eyes were red and swollen; her mouth trembled slightly.
The thought caught me off guard. Gods… she was gorgeous. Even like this.
Especially like this.