Riven
There are embers in her hair.
Actual. Fucking. Embers.
And she’s laughing.
Silas has a bottle in each hand and no sense of shame, skipping beside her like he didn’t just help turn the east side of the village into a smoldering wreckage of banners and collapsed vendor stalls. Elias, shirtless and grinning, is still holding what I’m pretty sure used to be a torch. Now it’s just a smoldering stick that smells like regret and festival wine.
And Luna—
She’s barefoot. Drunk. Radiant. Covered in soot and glitter and absolutely not sorry.
I want to scream.
Lucien is twenty paces ahead, jaw tight as he glances over his shoulder. Orin murmurs something to him too low for me to catch, but whatever it is, it doesn’t stop the judgmental look Lucien throws back. It says: Handle it.
Like I’m the fucking babysitter for disaster incarnate.
I cut across the road, fast and deliberate. My boots crunch through broken glass and ash, and I don’t care how many villagers are glaring at us from their ruined stalls or smoking rooftops. I don’t care that we’ve been exiled, that we’ll have to walk the long way through the valley now just to avoid being hunted. All I care about is getting those three menaces separated before one of them decides to relight the fire fo.
“just a little more fun.”
“Enough.”
My voice slices through the haze of laughter like a blade.
Elias wobbles slightly, eyes bright.
“! Did you see—?”
I grip his shoulder, hard enough to make him wince.
“You’re done.”
He grins.
“You’re so hot when you’re bossy.”
“I will throw you into a river.”
Silas staggers into me, unbothered.
“Make sure it’s a sexy river.”
“You’re not helping,” I growl.
“I never am,”
he says cheerfully.
Luna’s watching me, and that’s worse. Her eyes are wide, glitter smeared beneath them like war paint, and even drunk off her ass she feels it—my frustration, my fury. She’s reading every sharp breath I take like it’s a command.
“I didn’t mean to burn anything important,”
she says, voice low.
“That’s not the point.”
I step toward her, and the bond thrums like a warning, like it wants to twist around my throat.
“You think because you’re powerful you can be reckless?”
“I think,”
she says carefully.
“that I was trying to live. For a second. Without war. Without Branwen. Without you looking at me like I’m a goddamn liability.”
The last word lands harder than it should.
I stare at her, chest tight.
Silas coughs behind me.
“This feels like a lovers’ quarrel. Should we—”
“No.”
I don’t look away from Luna.
“Split up.”
“What?”
Elias asks.
“You heard me. You and Silas go with Orin and Lucien. Now.”
“But—”
I turn.
“Or do you want to explain to Lucien how half the town caught fire?”
They exchange a look, drunk and half-shamed but still laughing, and I hate how much I don’t want them to go. How much I want to grab her wrist and pull her out of this chaos and into something quiet. Safe.
But nothing about us is safe.
“I’ll meet you at the western path,”
I say, low. Final.
Silas slings an arm around Elias and tugs him backward.
“Don’t do anything we wouldn’t do.”
“That’s not a reassuring benchmark.”
They stumble off, giggling, and I finally let my shoulders drop. The silence between Luna and me stretches long and uneven.
“You’re mad,” she says.
I meet her eyes.
“You lit a girl’s dress on fire, Luna.”
“She touched his arm.”
I scrub a hand down my face.
“That’s not a crime.”
She folds her arms, unrepentant.
“Looked like one to me.”
I should yell. I should tell her she can’t just wield magic like a sword whenever she gets jealous. But I don’t. Because gods help me, I liked it. The fury. The possessiveness. The power.
She stumbles sideways into me, giggling like this is just another festival, another fucked-up day in paradise. And maybe it is—for them.
Not for me.
I roll my eyes and wrap my arm around her waist, steering her forward before she faceplants into the cracked road. She’s a furnace beside me—all heat and magic and glitter-smudged fury. I can feel the echo of her fire under my skin, the way it hums against the edge of my control like a dare. And gods help me, I don’t even try to shove it down.
Across the street, the girl with the scorched hemline is still frozen, too stunned or too stupid to move. Her dress is blackened, ruined. Her pride? Worse. But Luna—oh, Luna isn’t done.
She turns in my hold, stumbling a little as she throws her voice like a dagger.
“They’re mine,”
she yells, hair catching the last flicker of magic in the air.
“All of them. Every last one.”
The girl blanches. The crowd behind her shifts uneasily.
And I—I nearly groan.
Because even drunk, even wild, Luna means it. There’s no hesitation in her voice. No apology. Just ownership and fury and a firestorm dressed like a girl with no gods and too many sins. Her gaze swings up to me like she’s daring me to say otherwise. To leash her. To deny her.
Yet, she has me—whether I want to admit it or not. Whether I ever will.
“You done?”
I mutter, tightening my grip on her waist as I guide her away.
“Or do you want to piss on me next to mark your territory?”
She smiles up at me, lazy and smug.
“Don’t tempt me.”
“Fucking hell,”
I mutter, dragging her faster.
But she leans into me, loose and humming with the remnants of too much wine and too little remorse, and I feel it—the bond thrumming between us like a taut thread, like it’s wrapping tighter the more I try to ignore it.
Ahead, the path splits. Lucien and Orin are nowhere in sight anymore. Good. They don’t need to see her like this. Don’t need to see me like this.
Because I can’t stop thinking about what she said. About how she shouted it like a war cry. They’re mine.
She leans heavier with every step. Not stumbling—melting. Into me. Like her legs are there for decoration and I’m just the furniture she’s decided to drape herself over. Her weight shifts, slumps, and when she starts dragging her boots through the dirt like a drunk toddler, I grunt and scoop her up.
“Seriously?”
I mutter, hooking one arm beneath her knees, the other behind her back.
“You’re not even trying.”
“Trying is for people who don’t have portable brooding carriers,”
she sighs, curling into me like she belongs there. Like this is her natural state—chaos and comfort, heat and danger, all curled into a girl who doesn’t realize she’s a weapon pressed to my throat.
I don’t stop walking. If I stop, I might drop her. Or kiss her. Or say something real, and I’m not suicidal enough for any of that.
But then her breath hits my neck, hot and sticky-sweet with wine and sin. Her lips brush skin, not quite a kiss, not quite not, and she murmurs.
“You smell so good.”
Fuck.
“Drunk girls don’t get to flirt,”
I bite out, jaw tight.
“That’s not flirting,”
she whispers, voice syrupy and amused.
“That’s a confession.”
I should ignore her. I should say something sharp and cruel. Something to push her away like I always do. It’s what I’m good at. It’s what I need to do.
But instead—
“Of course I smell good,”
I mutter.
“I’m wrath incarnate. Comes with perks.”
She giggles against my throat, and something in me twists. It’s not rage. Not magic. Something worse.
Something soft.
I shift her higher in my arms. Try to convince myself it’s to carry her better. Not to hold her closer. Not to keep her from sliding into the arms of someone else—Silas or Elias, those reckless bastards who make her laugh and don’t flinch when she touches them like they’re hers.
“You’re warm,”
she mumbles.
“Warmer than fire.”
“You lit a woman on fire,”
I growl.
“Maybe don’t talk about temperature right now.”
She hums.
“She touched Elias.”
“Still.”
“I’ll do it again.”
“I know.”
And gods help me—I’d let her.
Her finger jabs into my chest like she thinks she’s a threat. Like she hasn’t already carved her name into every nerve I’ve got and made herself a permanent fixture in the parts of me I didn’t think I still had.
She tilts her head, eyes narrowed in mock-seriousness, lips parted like she’s weighing something deadly and divine on the tip of her tongue.
“Do you want to know what I’d do,”
she says, punctuating each word with another prod to my sternum.
“if you smiled at another girl?”
Gods, she’s too close.
Her wine-slick breath ghosts over my jaw, and her legs shift in my hold like she’s trying to climb further up me, as if my arms—already locked beneath her thighs—aren’t close enough. Like she’s trying to break skin with proximity alone.
I grunt, not because I’m in pain. No, this is worse. She’s winning, and she knows it.
“What?”
I grind out, jaw clenched, eyes locked to hers because if I look at her mouth again, I’ll do something stupid.
“What would you do?”
Her grin curves slow and mean. She leans in, nose brushing mine, and the bond thrums between us—taut and snarling, daring me to snap.
“I’d set the world on fire.”
“That’s dramatic,” I murmur.
“Appropriate,”
she counters.
“You’d burn for me.”
And I would. That’s the sickest part of it. I would. I'd drag my claws through the dirt and gut heaven itself if she asked. But I can’t tell her that. I won’t.
I keep walking, pace steady despite the way my body wants to stall beneath the weight of her threat and her warmth. We’re gaining on Lucien and Orin up ahead—Lucien keeps glancing back like he doesn’t trust me with her, like he’s waiting for me to fail.
Maybe he’s right to.
She curls tighter into my chest, and her hand finds its way to the nape of my neck. Her fingers slide into my hair, nails grazing my scalp. A shiver rocks down my spine, furious and involuntary.
“I’m not jealous,”
she says, too casually, like she’s lying through her teeth and wants me to know it.
“I just like things that are mine.”
“And you think I’m yours?”
She doesn’t blink.
“I know you are.”
I don’t have a comeback for that.
Because I’ve never belonged to anyone. Not truly. Not until her.
She drags her teeth across her bottom lip like she’s trying to seduce a fucking demon.
I am the demon.
And she knows it.
But it’s not her usual edge-of-a-blade, queen-of-ruin kind of seduction. No, this? This is… ridiculous. It’s whatever chaotic bastard offspring would be born if Elias and Silas decided to collaborate on an elaborate plan to make me lose the last shred of sanity I’ve managed to cling to.
She tilts her head. “,”
she purrs. Except it’s not a purr. It’s a taunt. It’s the sound a girl makes when she’s been hanging around Silas too long and wants to see how far she can push before someone gets set on fire.
“Do you want me to say it?”
Her voice is low. Teasing.
“Do you want me to tell you how good your arms look when you’re carrying me like I’m helpless? Or maybe how I can feel every muscle in your chest flex every time you take a step and—”
“Stop.”
She grins.
I tighten my hold on her because if I let go now, I might actually toss her into the woods and hope a particularly judgmental shrub teaches her a lesson.
“You’re lucky I haven’t dropped you,” I mutter.
“You wouldn’t.”
She leans her chin on my shoulder like she’s settling in for a nap.
“You like having me this close. Admit it.”
I say nothing.
And then she sighs dramatically.
“Fine. Don’t admit it. But just so you know, I think this could be our thing. You, me, a ruined village, a little arson—romance.”
“That wasn’t romance. That was accidental immolation.”
“Potato, po-tah-to,”
she sing-songs, then lowers her voice into a mock-whisper.
“Besides, I saw the way you looked at me when I lit her dress on fire.”
My jaw locks.
“Like you wanted to throw me over your shoulder and drag me into the woods.”
I turn my head just enough to look at her.
She’s smirking. Drunk. Reckless. Radiating so much Silas-coded energy it makes my spine itch.
“You are unhinged,”
I tell her flatly.
Her smile widens.
“Takes one to bond one.”
Her fingers curl into the hair at the base of my neck, tugging just enough to make me grind my teeth. Not in protest—never that—but because everything about her is a provocation, even this.
She drags my head closer, lips brushing my ear, breath sticky with wine and the thrill of chaos. The kind that only comes after destruction and laughter and far too much power left unspent.
“Want to know a secret?”
she whispers, voice syrup-thick and soaked in mischief.
I don’t answer. I don’t breathe. I don’t fucking move.
She presses her lips to my jaw, soft and burning.
“I’ve got a thing for you.”
There’s a beat. Just one. Long enough for the words to punch straight into my gut, twist, and leave everything else in ruins.
“I mean, not like a healthy thing,”
she adds quickly, like that makes it better.
“More like… rage-boner-turned-emotional-devastation.”
Of course.
Of course she would confess her attraction like it’s a punchline. Like it doesn’t gut me from the inside out. Like it doesn’t feed the worst parts of me and calm them in the same breath.
I look down at her, and her eyes are glazed but bright—too fucking bright. Like she means every word and still doesn’t understand what they do to me.
“You’re drunk,” I mutter.
She grins, proud and feral. “So?”
“So you won’t remember this tomorrow.”
Her hand slides from my hair to my cheek, tracing the scar along my jaw with a care I don’t deserve.
“I always remember the important things.”
I want to snap at her. Tell her she doesn’t know what she’s talking about. That her bond to me is a mistake, a curse, something she’ll regret the longer she keeps feeding it.
But I can’t.
Because this? This moment right here—her body melting into mine, her voice threading through my ribs like it belongs there—this is everything I’ve tried to push away.
And it’s not fucking working.
I force myself to focus on the path ahead. On Lucien, who’s definitely seen us lag behind and is probably silently judging me into another dimension. On Orin, who’s watching the trees like they’ll bite him. On everything but the girl in my arms whispering that she has a thing for me.
But even as I walk, my voice comes out quieter than I expect.
“You shouldn’t.”
She doesn’t ask why.
She doesn’t need to.
Because the bond between us roars its response for me—and it doesn’t give a damn about what should be.
She pouts—lips full and slick with the ghost of wine, bottom one pushed out just enough to make my entire body stiffen with heat and regret. It's a weapon, that mouth. She knows it. Wields it like a blade laced with poison sweet enough to make you beg for the taste even as it ruins you.
“Do you even think I’m pretty?”
she slurs, blinking up at me with wide, wounded eyes that don’t belong in a war like this.
I stop walking.
That’s mistake number one.
Because stopping means looking at her. And looking at her means letting her in again, even after I’ve barricaded every piece of myself against her. She’s the kind of beautiful that hurts. Not the fragile kind. Not delicate or soft or easily forgotten. She’s wildfire—burned at the edges, too bright to look at, and getting brighter every fucking second.
But I can't say any of that.
Because if I give her an inch, she'll take every violent inch of me and carve her name into it.
So I say nothing. Just stare.
She leans back in my arms, trying to catch my eyes again, forcing me to meet the messy ache in hers.
“You’re not saying anything,”
she whispers, quieter now, which somehow makes it worse.
“That’s usually not a great sign, Kain.”
Gods.
I drag in a breath, sharp and cold, like I can freeze the answer before it slips out and brands us both.
“You’re not pretty,”
I say finally, voice low, gritty.
“You’re lethal.”
She blinks.
I keep going, because I’m already too far gone to claw my way back.
“You’re the kind of beautiful that makes men ruin themselves. The kind that drags empires to ash. And you walk around like you don’t know it. Like you’re not the kind of girl men should run from.”
She’s staring now. Not blinking. Not breathing.
And I should stop. I should walk away, put her down, let Lucien yell at her for the fire and let Silas distract her with a joke and let Elias—
No. Fuck Elias.
“She doesn’t need pretty,”
I mutter, more to myself than to her.
“She needs worship. And I’m too damned angry to kneel.”
Her hand comes up, brushes my jaw like she’s trying to decide if she’s real or if I’m the one unraveling in her arms. But she doesn’t speak. Doesn’t laugh it off. Doesn’t throw something careless at me like she usually does.
She just looks at me.
And that’s worse than any words she could’ve said.
From ahead, I hear Lucien’s voice barking my name, sharp and clipped—thank the gods—and I snap out of it, shifting her in my arms again like she’s just another burden I carry. Not the only thing anchoring me to whatever scraps of sanity I have left.
“You’re drunk,” I growl.
She smirks, cheek pressed to my chest.
“And you’re full of shit.”
I say nothing.
But I don’t let her go.