Riven
Lucien doesn’t panic. I’m not sure he even knows what that word means. He’s the kind of man who plans five moves ahead in case someone flinches. But right now, watching him from ten paces back, I see it. His body locked, breath too shallow, pupils blown wide with something even Dominion can’t hold down.
He looks like a fucking ghost.
Not in the poetic sense. He’s pale, yes—blood seeping from one nostril, but it’s his eyes that give it away. Wild, bright, not all here. He’s jerking like something inside him is pulling strings that don’t belong to him, his stare fixed on Luna with the kind of heat that shouldn’t come from a man being dragged by a dead woman’s leash.
And Luna, of course, is stepping closer. Her hand lifting.
Because she doesn’t see what I see.
I don’t let her get there.
I cut the space between us fast and quiet. One arm across her ribs—not rough, but final. She stops, sharp breath pulling in like she’s going to ask why, but I don’t look at her. My gaze is locked on Lucien. He’s twitching, locked in place like he’s fighting something with every breath. And she’s too fucking close to see the noose tightening.
“Silas. Elias. Get her out of here,”
I snap without looking back.
There’s a beat. I hear Elias scoff, Silas shifting beside him, always the troublemakers. But even they can feel it. The wrongness in the air. The bite of something too old and too hungry breathing through Lucien’s bond. And for once, they don’t argue.
Silas steps in first, light on his feet for once, murmuring something to Luna that I don’t hear. Elias follows, and whatever joke he starts to make dies halfway out of his mouth when he sees Lucien’s face.
Good.
They should see it too.
Because this isn’t just Branwen pulling at an old thread. This is a goddamn reckoning. And if Luna touches Lucien now, he won’t just break—he’ll shatter.
I wait until she’s far enough. Just enough distance that her scent doesn’t haunt the air between us. Just enough space for the edge of her bond to pull back from Lucien’s unraveling one.
Lucien exhales like he’s been holding his breath for hours. He hunches forward, hands braced on his knees, chest heaving, blood dripping down his face in thin, hot trails. Then he throws his head back and roars.
“Fucking bitch!”
His voice cracks across the courtyard like lightning striking dry stone. The word reverberates—too loud, too real. Like he’s been waiting to say it. Like it’s the only thing he has left.
“She sealed up my fucking mouth!”
He snarls the words, venom-soaked and raw, fists clenched so tight his knuckles split open.
I don’t move.
He’s not looking at me. Not really. He’s looking at the space she filled, the one Luna stepped into, the one Branwen couldn’t bear to watch someone else claim.
He wipes the blood with the back of his hand, smearing it across his jaw like war paint. His eyes are rimmed in red now, not just from the nosebleed. She pushed harder than I thought possible.
And he still didn’t fold.
“She wants to rip it out,”
he spits.
“Whatever’s left of me that’s mine, she wants it gone.”
He finally meets my gaze. No Dominion. No command. Just Lucien—furious, cracked open, still fighting.
“She’s fucking watching.”
I nod once.
“So let her.”
He’s hunched like the curse is trying to crawl out of him rib by rib. His voice is shredded. He’s not thinking in tactics anymore. He’s not calculating. He’s reacting, and that’s what makes this dangerous. Because Lucien doesn’t lose control. He removes it from others. That’s what Dominion is. That’s what he is.
And now it’s cracking around him.
“I’ve closed the bond,”
he growls, dragging a bloodstreaked hand across his jaw, eyes glowing too bright.
“But she’s still clawing through. I can feel her fucking nails trying to peel it open—”
“Lucien,”
Orin says, quiet but grounded, stepping closer like the world isn’t coming apart in front of him. His voice is a riverbed—deep, steady, immovable.
“You need to calm down.”
Lucien’s head snaps toward him with a speed that’s unnatural. His entire body coils, and I can see it in the line of his shoulders—if he moves again, it’s not going to be rational.
“Calm down?”
he spits, voice slicing the air between them.
“She sealed my mouth shut while the girl was reaching for me. She nearly dragged me across this fucking courtyard with her mind, and you want me to breathe through it?”
Orin doesn’t answer. He just watches, like he’s seen this kind of madness before, in another life, another time. Maybe he has. Hell, maybe he was the one doing the pulling back then.
Lucien keeps going.
“If I get my hands on her again—if she thinks for one second I won’t tear her apart—”
His voice drops, not quieter, just deeper. Hot with something feral.
“I will rip her limb from fucking limb. Do you hear me?”
The ground beneath him ripples. Not visibly. Not for most. But I feel it. The old Academy reacts to that kind of hatred. It remembers him. It remembers us. And somewhere inside its bones, the walls lean in, waiting.
I step forward, careful.
Not because I’m afraid.
Because I’ve seen what happens when Lucien decides the leash is coming off.
“You tear her apart,”
I say, low, slow.
“and she’ll just put herself back together. And the rest of us won’t survive the in-between.”
He turns toward me now, fury sharp, teeth gritted—but he stops.
Because I’m not Orin.
I’m not Silas or Elias.
I’ve been under Branwen’s spell. I know the way it infects you. How you can feel her inside your blood, carving you into something obedient while pretending it’s love. And I know what it costs to claw that shit out of your soul.
He sees that in my eyes.
And for one blink, one shattered heartbeat, he breathes.
But his fists stay clenched.
“I should have bonded to the girl,”
he snarls, voice ragged and splintering. He doesn’t look at me. His gaze is turned toward the cracked stone wall beside us, but he’s not really seeing it. His hands are fisted, blood still wet on his knuckles, the muscles in his neck pulled so tight I wonder if they’ll snap.
“Should’ve done it when I had the chance.”
He doesn’t say her name.
He’s too furious for that. Too far gone. But I also know the truth of it—he’s holding it back because he thinks names still have power. That if he says Luna aloud with Branwen inside his bloodstream, it’ll draw the rot closer. Maybe it will.
Orin’s voice comes from behind me, soft but anchored.
“It’s too late for that.”
“I know,”
Lucien snaps, spinning on him like a predator cornered, his Dominion leaking into the space between them like a poison mist.
“She’s already inside. Branwen’s got her fucking hooks buried so deep I can hear her whispering to me. She’s laughing. She’s telling me how sweet I taste—”
His voice fractures. Not from weakness.
From fury.
He grabs the edge of a shattered pillar and slams his hand into it, the stone cracking beneath his palm like bone under pressure. Shards crumble, fall at his feet, dust swirling around his boots. His other hand curls in his hair, gripping tight like he could claw her out if he just pulled hard enough.
“She won’t shut up. She’s in my head, climbing the walls like a spider—”
“She always whispers first,”
I say, voice low, barely more than a growl.
“She whispers, then she sings. Then she feeds. You know how this works.”
Lucien goes still. For a breath. Maybe two.
He’s shaking.
Not visibly. Not to someone who doesn’t know him.
And that’s when I step closer.
Not to challenge him.
“What do we do?”
I ask, my voice the first calm note in this chaos, not because I feel calm, but because one of us has to be.
“Tell me. What’s the move?”
He exhales hard, like the question drags something sharp through his chest. For a second, I don’t think he’ll answer. His eyes stay fixed on the stone, on the blood on his hands, on everything but me.
Then he mutters.
“We stall.”
“Stall?”
“She’s not ready for a confrontation. Not yet.”
He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand and lets out a short, mirthless laugh.
“She wants to make it personal. Make it slow. If she wanted to own me again, she would’ve dragged me back already.”
“She tried,” I say.
“She didn’t succeed. Which means she’s afraid of something.”
Lucien finally looks at me. His eyes are bloodshot, wild, but steadying. And in them, I see something I didn’t expect.
Resolve.
“She thinks I’ll beg,”
he says.
“She thinks if she takes enough from me, I’ll go crawling.”
“And will you?”
He sneers.
“I’d rather be carved open.”
I nod once, because I believe him.
But belief only gets us so far. Because if Branwen is reaching through Lucien now, it means something in this place—the way the Academy’s rebuilding itself, the way the magic is waking—is tied to her.
Lucien drags a hand through his hair, smearing blood across his scalp like it might ground him. He’s breathing harder now, but steadier. Like he’s forcing every inhale through clenched teeth just to keep Branwen’s voice from crawling farther inside.
“Keep the girl from us,”
he says, and it’s not a request.
“For now. At least until I can think.”
Lucien’s eyes flick up, locking onto mine. They’re wild still, but there’s calculation beneath the mess now. He’s already building something. A plan. A wall. Another fucking lie, maybe. But he’s trying.
“It’s her voice,”
he mutters, low and sharp.
“Branwen doesn’t like it. The sound of it... fuck, it rattles something in her. She twists when the girl speaks.”
There’s something like satisfaction in that. Something old and vindictive. Lucien might be losing his grip, but he’s not going quietly.
“I need to think,”
he says again, pacing now, his boots crunching against the loose stone. The old courtyard bends with every word he says—like the Academy is listening.
“I need to figure out how we get Caspian and Ambrose back. How we get the fuck out of here before Branwen digs too deep. But I can’t do that with the girl near me.”
I watch him for a moment longer, letting the words settle, letting the silence stretch—not to test him, but to see how close he is to snapping again. And then I speak.
“Do you want me to tell her what’s going on?”
Lucien’s steps falter. He exhales through his nose, sharp and exhausted.
“No,”
he says.
“But you’re going to have to.”
He turns, finally facing me fully, shoulders squared but weighted like he’s carrying a war he can’t win.
“Because if you don’t... she’s going to try something stupid. She’s going to come back over here, reach for me, say my name—and she can’t.”
“She thinks she can save us,” I say.
He laughs, bitter and hollow.
“She can’t. Tell her that. Make her believe it.”
“She won’t like it.”
“I don’t give a fuck,”
he snaps, then drags another breath in, slower this time.
“Keep her quiet, . Around me. Around Orin. Her voice hurts something in Branwen. And that means it’s useful. But not yet.”
I nod once.
No argument.
And the truth is—I don’t want Luna anywhere near him like this either. Not because I think she’d falter. Not because she’d be afraid. Because she wouldn’t. And that’s what terrifies me.
I move toward her.
Each step feels like I’m walking into a storm with no shelter, like the air between us crackles with something ancient and unrelenting, something I’ve spent too many nights trying to silence. Luna doesn’t move. She doesn’t look away. Arms crossed, posture locked, but there’s no defiance in her stance—just that quiet, heavy weight of concern she’s never learned how to hide.
Worry’s written all over her.
Not just in her face, but in the way she’s holding herself still. Too still. Like if she shifts even slightly, everything might fall apart. It’s the way she used to look at me before the bond sealed. Before I let her see just how bad it was inside me.
And fuck me, it’s worse now.
Silas leans lazily against the column to her left, spinning a coin between his fingers like he’s seconds from offering to flip it for who gets to speak first.
His grin is crooked, eyes too sharp.
He knows what’s coming, but of course he’s not going to help me say it.
Elias stands to her right, arms folded, mouth twisted into something between a grimace and a smirk.
Defensive. Uncomfortable. Like he knows damn well this isn’t a conversation any of us want to have, and he’d rather joke than feel it.
I stop in front of her.
She tilts her chin up to meet my eyes, and it takes everything in me not to flinch. Not because I’m afraid. Because I know the moment I open my mouth, I’m going to break something.
Not in her.
In me.
“Lucien’s not okay,”
I say, voice rough.
“He’s holding it together, but barely. Branwen’s inside his head now. Whispering. Pulling. Trying to take him back.”
Luna’s eyes narrow. She doesn’t ask why I’m telling her this instead of Lucien.
I glance at Elias and Silas, then back at her.
“He doesn’t want you near him. Not right now. Not until we figure out how to sever her reach.”
“She wants you,”
Elias mutters.
“The hot girl voice thing apparently sets off some ancient dead queen reflex. You know, shrieking and clawing and vomiting affection.”
Silas barks a laugh.
“She gets possessive. Jealous ex-girlfriend behavior. Very ghost-of-sex-pasts.”
I glare at them both. Hard.
“Shut up.”
Elias raises his hands.
“Just trying to lighten the demonic mood, brother.”
Luna doesn’t smile.
She’s still watching me. Still waiting. And she hasn’t said anything yet, but I feel the bond humming through my bones, restless and sharp.
“He asked me to tell you,”
I continue, jaw tight.
“not to come near him. Not to speak to him. Not to touch him. Not until we know what this place is doing to the bond.”
I see it then—the flicker behind her eyes. Hurt, buried fast. She doesn’t show it outright. Doesn’t make a scene. But the ache is there. And worse, the understanding. She gets it. That’s the part I hate.
“Can I help him?” she asks.
“No.”
It comes out harder than I mean it to, but I don’t take it back.
“Not this time,”
I add, a little softer.
“He doesn’t want to be saved.”
“Not by me,”
she murmurs.
The words gut me.
I look away. Because I don’t know how to lie to her anymore. And I don’t know what it means that we’re all still pretending we don’t need her.
“I assume Orin too?”
Luna asks, and her voice—gods, her voice—is too even.
Too measured. Which means she already knows the answer.
I exhale slowly, jaw tight, trying not to look at her too long. The bond’s been quiet, but not gone. Not since I stepped close. Not since she turned those eyes on me like she could rip open every part of me I’ve locked down.
“Yes,” I say.
Just that. No embellishment. No space to make it sound better.
Orin’s too still, even for him. He hasn’t spoken in the last few minutes, just watched the exchange with that unnerving calm of his, like he’s measuring something none of us can see. But I know Branwen has her claws in him too. He just hides it better. And maybe she’s not actively pulling on him the way she is with Lucien, but she’s there. Rooted in the cracks she left centuries ago.
“She wants Caspian,”
I continue, voice low, clipped.
“That much we know.”
Luna’s brows pull together. Not confusion. Calculation. She’s putting it together. Her mouth opens, but I speak first—because if she starts asking questions I can’t answer, I’ll snap.
“But with Lucien?”
I grit the words like they’ve got thorns.
“It’s fixation. Not lust. Not need. Fixation. She doesn’t just want him back. She wants him to choose her. Wants him to crawl on his fucking knees and ask for it.”
Luna flinches—barely. But I catch it.
And fuck, I shouldn’t have said that last part. I look away, but not fast enough.
She’s already watching me. Not judging. Not afraid.
Just seeing.
Gods, I hate that.
“She’s trying to tempt him,”
I add, softer now.
“Twisting the bond. Making him feel it. Making him think about what he gave up.”
“And Caspian?”
she asks quietly.
“What is she doing to him?”
My jaw tics. I shake my head.
“God only knows,”
I murmur.
“He was always the most…open. The easiest to read. She could twist that. Turn him into what she needed. And she’ll keep twisting. Keep taking. Until there’s nothing left but the version of him that serves her.”
Silas makes a low sound behind me.
“Sounds like my last relationship.”
“Shut up,” I growl.
Luna doesn’t smile. Doesn’t move.
She just stares at the ruins stretching behind us—the cracked stone arches, the overgrown stairwells, the cathedral looming like it remembers too much.
“Then we don’t wait,” she says.
Her voice is steel now.
“We find them. And we burn her out.”