Luna
The water pours over me, hotter than necessary. It beads along my collarbone, streams between my breasts, slicks down the backs of my knees. I tilt my head, rinse the shampoo from my hair, eyes closed as the last of the lather slips away.
The door opens.
I hear it—not a slam or shuffle, just the subtle creak of old hinges, a shift in air that makes the heat feel suddenly too aware of itself.
I don’t turn.
Elias would’ve announced himself with a muttered complaint. Silas would’ve dropped something. This—this is quiet. Measured.
The door locks.
When I open my eyes, he’s already halfway across the room.
Ambrose. Shirt unbuttoned to the middle of his chest like he got tired halfway through and decided that was enough. His eyes find mine through the haze, unreadable.
The steam rises between us, thick and slow, clinging to skin and stone. I stay beneath the showerhead, arms loose at my sides, breath steady despite the way my pulse stutters at the base of my throat.
Ambrose shrugs off his shirt.
And that’s when I see them.
Tattoos. Not delicate. Not decorative. Commanding. They arc across his chest in sharp, symmetrical lines, some geometric, some jagged—none of it familiar. Black, with veins of silver glinting under the water-slick light. They curve over his left shoulder, vanish beneath the waistband of his pants, fanning like wings without mercy.
They look old. Older than him. Older than everything.
He reaches for his belt.
Undoes it.
Let’s it drop.
The rest follows. Boots. Trousers. Underwear. A slow, methodical strip, as if there’s no urgency here. No performance. Just intent.
When he steps into the shower, the space changes.
It’s not a touch. Not a word. Just the nearness of him, heat against heat, the way water slides over both of us now without choosing.
His fingers move to my hip—just the barest touch, a quiet warning that the line between restraint and possession is already starting to blur. The water pours down between us, steam curling into every crevice of the tiled walls, and still, he doesn’t speak.
His other hand finds my wrist. Not to stop me. Not to pull. He just holds it, fingers curled around mine, water running over both our hands as if the world wants to witness. His palm is rougher than I expected. Calloused. And when he drags it up my arm, it leaves a trail of heat that the water can’t compete with.
He leans in then—close enough that I feel the brush of his breath against the side of my throat, and my eyes flutter closed. I expect a kiss. A bite. Something sharp.
But Ambrose doesn’t devour.
He studies.
His mouth hovers just above my skin, lips parted, exhale deliberate. His hands roam upward, slowly—over my stomach, ribs, the underside of my breasts—until he’s cupping them with a reverence that makes my knees threaten to buckle. And still, no words. Just the rhythmic, controlled slide of his thumbs over my nipples, teasing them into tight, aching peaks.
I shift back against him, needing more, and that’s when I feel it—his cock, hard and heavy, pressed between us now, the friction barely dulled by the water. A low sound rumbles in his throat, not quite a growl, but something feral. It vibrates down my spine.
He finally moves his mouth—kissing the spot just beneath my jaw, then lower, trailing down the curve of my neck with slow, wet drags of his tongue. One hand slips lower, between my thighs, and the way he parts me with just two fingers makes me gasp, the water suddenly irrelevant.
His fingers move with infuriating precision—circling, dipping, retreating—never giving me exactly what I want, always toeing that line. And when I arch back, needing more, grinding shamelessly against his hand, he finally speaks—low, gravel-dark.
“Greedy.”
It’s the first word he’s said since stepping into the room, and it hits harder than any moan.
I reach behind me, palm skimming the lines of his thigh, higher, fingers curling around the thickness of him. The hiss he lets out against my shoulder is broken glass wrapped in velvet. He thrusts into my hand once, sharp and controlled, before he grabs my wrist again—firm this time, pushing it away.
“Not like that,”
he mutters, turning me.
His hands are on my hips now, guiding me—not gently, not cruelly, just with a certainty that leaves no room for resistance. My back hits the cold tile, and I shudder, not from the temperature, but from the contrast. Because he’s still warm. Still pressed against me. His tattoos gleam in the low light, water tracing the lines like they mean something I’ll never be allowed to understand.
Ambrose drops to his knees.
Just like that.
No ceremony. No warning.
He parts my thighs with both hands and stares up at me like he’s about to unravel something sacred. And when he leans in, tongue sliding against me with slow, devastating focus—I forget how to breathe.
He doesn’t rush.
Doesn’t perform.
He devours.
He licks like he’s memorizing, sucks like it’s strategy, and when I fist my hands into his hair, he groans into me like the sound is involuntary—like this is the only thing he’s ever craved that might actually ruin him.
I try to hold the wall. But when he pulls my clit between his lips and flicks his tongue just right—sharp, fast, perfect—my legs give out, and he catches me. One arm braced around my thighs, the other holding my ass, lifting me just enough to keep me where he wants me.
He keeps going. Keeps licking. Until I’m trembling against the tile, thighs clenched around his head, eyes wild and unfocused.
And when I come—it’s not quiet.
It rips through me like lightning. My hips buck. My fingers clutch at his shoulders. And Ambrose just holds me there, tongue still working me through every aftershock, like he’s feeding on it.
His mouth glistens with me, eyes locked to mine now, and they’re green—not just green, but fevered, fractured, that deep, gleaming jade that only surfaces when something inside him breaks through the surface. Not lust. Not hunger.
Possession.
He doesn’t give me time to recover.
He stands in one smooth motion, hands still hooked beneath my thighs, and in the same breath he lifts me. My back slams against the wall, water pouring over us, streaming down our bodies like we’ve stepped into some ancient rite and chosen to drown in it.
I gasp, arms flung around his shoulders, and he’s there—all of him, pressed against me, the head of his cock sliding into me like he’s already memorized the way I fall apart.
“Ambrose—”
It slips out without thought, more breath than sound.
His mouth crashes into mine before I can finish. It's not a kiss, not really—it’s claiming, lips parted, teeth grazing, tongue sweeping deep like he needs to taste every part of my denial, every second I didn’t think he’d take me up on that offer.
Then—he thrusts.
Hard.
All at once.
I break against him, head thrown back, a cry torn from my throat that echoes off the tile. He’s thick, unrelenting, every inch filling me in one devastating push, like he’s daring my body to reject him—like he wants to see if I’ll shatter or stretch to fit him.
I wrap my legs around his waist, and he fucks me against the wall with brutal rhythm. The slap of wet skin, the guttural sound he makes every time he buries deep—it all blends into something feral, something unholy.
He doesn’t close his eyes.
He watches me.
Those green eyes burn into mine with every thrust, like he’s carving himself into my memory whether I want him to or not. His fingers grip my thighs, holding me wide, holding me open, and the way he moves—controlled chaos—every snap of his hips calibrated to destroy and worship in the same breath.
“You feel it,”
he rasps, teeth at my throat, voice low and cracked. “Say it.”
“I—”
My head lolls back as he grinds in deeper, circling his hips, hitting that spot that makes my breath catch like he’s found the center of me and decided to live there.
“Gods, I feel you—”
His teeth scrape along my neck, not biting, just enough pressure to remind me who’s in control. He doesn’t speak again. His body speaks loud enough. Every stroke is a sentence. Every thrust, a vow.
I lose count of how long he pounds into me—the wall vibrating behind my spine, his tattoos slick against my skin as I claw at him for more. My second orgasm builds hard and fast, and he knows it—feels it in the way I tighten around him, my cries getting sharper, less words, more need.
He shifts, one hand slipping between us, fingers finding my clit with cruel precision. He rubs tight circles, relentless, dragging the climax out of me with vicious skill. I scream into his shoulder, and he swallows it whole, fucking me through it, every thrust harder, faster, deeper.
When he comes, it’s with a growl torn from somewhere ancient—his entire body tensing, then stuttering as he drives into me one last time, grinding deep, filling me with a heat that has nothing to do with the shower.
He holds me there for a moment.
Still.
Breathing ragged against my neck.
Then, slowly, he lowers me—not all the way, just enough for my feet to touch the tile, even though my knees buckle the second they do. He catches me, of course. Always so fucking composed, even now.
His green eyes meet mine. And I finally realize how dangerous it is to let someone like Ambrose touch you like that.
Because he doesn’t take. He leaves pieces of himself behind.
The moment shatters before it can settle.
Ambrose steps back.
Not gently. Not apologetically. He withdraws like he’s been burned, like the weight of what just passed between us is more than he’s willing to carry. His cock slips free with a slick, broken sound, and the absence of him hits harder than I expect—like my body can’t reconcile that he was just inside me and now he’s gone.
His hands rake through his wet hair, jaw tight, breath still ragged, but there’s no softness left in his face. No hunger. No flicker of what I thought might’ve been there.
Only distance.
“Ambrose—”
My voice catches in my throat, a whisper fractured by disbelief. My legs are still trembling, my pulse still racing, and the sting between my thighs hasn’t even faded—and yet he’s already pulling away from me like I’m a mistake carved into flesh.
He won’t meet my eyes.
“This was a mistake,”
he says flatly. The words hit harder than anything he’s done to me physically. Worse than teeth. Worse than the wall.
My lips part. I don’t know what I was about to say. Don’t know what defense I could offer, what plea would make him stay, or even just look at me. But none of it matters—because he’s already moving.
He grabs his trousers. Shoves them on with angry, frantic fingers, every motion clipped and efficient, like if he moves fast enough, he can erase this moment from both our memories.
“You don’t mean that.”
My voice is too small. Pathetic. But it’s all I have.
His jaw clenches. His shirt sticks to his damp skin as he pulls it over his head. The tattoos disappear beneath the fabric like they were never there.
“I shouldn’t have come here,”
he says. Cold. Detached.
“You don’t know what you’re doing.”
I flinch. It’s not just rejection. It’s a condemnation. Like what just happened—what we just were—meant nothing. Like I’m some reckless child who opened the wrong door, touched something I shouldn’t have.
I don’t speak again.
I can’t.
Because if I open my mouth now, I’ll scream. Or sob. Or beg.
And I won’t give him that.
So I turn my back on him, barely managing to stay upright on shaking legs as the water continues to pour down. Too hot. Too loud. The burn of it almost masking the tear sliding down my cheek.
I hear the door unlock.
Then open.
Then close.
Gone. He’s gone. I let out a breath, one hand bracing against the tile, and I lower myself to the floor. Slowly. Carefully. Because my knees won’t stop shaking and my chest won’t stop aching.
I sit under the stream of water, legs drawn up, arms around them, chin on my knees.
And then I break.
Not in a dramatic, gasping way.
Quietly. Like a crack that’s been spiderwebbing for too long. Tears mix with the shower, but I feel every one. Each one carved from something deeper than desire. Because this wasn’t just sex.
Not to me.
It felt like something else. Something real. And he threw it away like it was nothing. So I cry. I cry for the parts of myself I gave him. And for the pieces he didn’t want.
One second, I’m still curled on the tile floor, water battering down like it wants to drown what’s left of me.
The next, I’m airborne—lifted, cradled like something already broken. Riven’s grip is firm, one arm under my knees, the other braced around my back, and there’s no gentleness in the way he moves. Only certainty. Like he’s done this before—like I’ve shattered in his arms in another life and he’s memorized the angles of gathering me up.
The towel wraps around me. He doesn’t fumble. Doesn’t hesitate. Just folds the thick fabric over my chest with clinical precision, then carries me out of the steam and stone and memory.
The hall outside the bathing chamber is dim, all obsidian arches and flickering sconces. The walls here are older than the rest of Daemon—unchanged since the original academy was carved from Hollow-blessed rock. Magic seeps from the floor, the kind that pulses low and lazy, ancient and aware. It hums under Riven’s boots like it recognizes him. Like it remembers what he is.
My throat’s raw, lips cracked from salt and silence. My fingers curl against his shoulder, nails grazing the bare skin exposed by his half-buttoned shirt. He doesn’t react. Just keeps walking, each step a decree.
His room is on the eastern side, tucked behind one of the warped towers that doesn’t quite obey the laws of geometry anymore. The entrance is carved in a way that shouldn’t exist—like the stone was convinced to part for him, then never quite remembered how to seal again.
He kicks the door open.
Inside, it’s cold. Always. The hearth isn’t lit. The walls are lined with weapons and maps and books written in languages older than language. The bed is massive, draped in dark gray and charcoal sheets that smell like iron and storm. He sets me down on it like I weigh nothing.
Then he steps back.
Only a pace.
But enough that I feel it.
The towel slips slightly at my shoulder, and I clutch it tighter—not out of modesty. Just… grounding. I keep my eyes on the bedding, not on him. If I look at him, I might fall apart again. And I’m already sick of being the girl who breaks.
He doesn’t speak right away. Doesn’t push. Just waits.
The silence isn’t cruel.
It’s deliberate.
When I finally look up, his gray eyes are calm. Too calm. That unsettling stillness he wears like armor, like he’s already considered every possible outcome of this moment and picked the one where I survive it.
“You want me to ask,”
he says at last, voice low, even.
“I don’t know what I want.”
I expect judgment. Some sharp-edged reminder that I let Ambrose touch me. That I offered myself to him.
But Riven just nods once.
He leans against the tall dresser near the window, arms folding slowly.
“You’re not the first person he’s walked away from after tasting something real.”
I flinch.
Not at the truth of it.
At how easily he says it. Like it’s just another scar in the catalog of Ambrose Dalmar’s regrets.
“He didn’t just walk away,”
I murmur.
“He shattered it. Like he needed to prove that wanting something doesn’t mean he has to keep it.”
His gaze shifts, tracking something invisible beyond my shoulder.
“Ambrose is a strategist,”
he says.
“Always has been. He calculates his own ruin before anyone else can.”
Riven pushes off the dresser, moving slowly, like I’m a skittish thing he might scare off. He kneels at the edge of the bed, his hands resting lightly on his thighs.
“You need to stop waiting for someone else to choose you,”
he says quietly.
“You’re not a prize. You’re not a consequence. You’re not a damn detour from destiny.”
My throat clenches.
“Then what am I?”
His eyes darken, shifting from crimson to that dangerous, molten gray.
“You’re the storm they all forgot to prepare for.”
I don’t breathe.
He reaches forward, and for a moment I think he’s going to touch me—but he stops just shy of my knee, his fingers curling back into his palm.
“Rest,”
he murmurs.
“Stay here tonight. No one will come in. I’ll keep them out.”
“I don’t want to be alone.”
He doesn’t leave. Doesn’t retreat behind silence or offer sanctuary from a distance. He watches me unravel, soaked and shivering under the weight of Ambrose’s rejection, and without a word—he unbuckles his boots.
Slowly. Deliberately. Like he’s choosing every motion with the same precision he uses to kill.
Then the coat, discarded in a heavy drop.
The shirt next—peeled away, revealing skin marked with threads of ancient power, muscle laced with ink I’ve never seen fully, symbols too old to decipher. He pulls back the sheets and slides in behind me. He presses his chest to my back, arm curling around my waist, hand spanning the center of my ribs like he means to hold the pieces of me in place.
His breath is steady.
Mine isn’t.
“I love you,” I say.
Not tentative. Not fragile.
A scar named.
His breath hitches. Just slightly.
Then his voice—soft, but absolute.
“I’ve loved you since the moment you refused to bow.”
I roll toward him, sheets still wrapped around us, and his eyes—storm-gray threaded with that inhuman red—lock onto mine.
“You’re not a choice,”
he murmurs.
“You’re the only thing that’s ever made sense.”
And in his arms, I let myself mourn—not just Ambrose, but the illusion of what I thought we could be. The cost of wanting. The wreckage of being wanted and discarded in the same breath.
I cry until I don’t have anything left.
Then I breathe.
And Riven is still there.
Unmoved.
Unmoving.
Unrelenting.
Ambrose
I can’t find my damn bike keys. Not in the entryway where I always toss them. Not in the ruin of a living room that looks like a war crime was committed in it. Not on the kitchen counter buried beneath a half-sliced lemon, two knives, and a cup that may or may not be filled with blood. (Silas, probably.)
I know I left them on the hook. I remember the sound. The sharp clink when I hung them after we got back. But the house—if it can even still be called that—has been trashed three times over, and I’ve already circled the place like a muttering lunatic.
I find Riven in the kitchen. He’s not brooding, which is the first suspicious thing. He’s making a sandwich. Turkey, maybe. Or ham. Something carved off something else.
He looks up when I enter, barely flicking his gaze toward me.
“You lost something, or just circling like a vulture again?”
“My keys.”
He doesn’t answer. Just spreads mustard like he’s painting a canvas. I stare. Wait. Tap the edge of the counter.
“Well?”
He sighs, lifts his eyes. Gray. Flat.
“Lucien’s office.”
Of course. I almost turn without responding, but something stops me—his posture. Not tense. Not angry. Intent.
“You planning on lecturing me?”
I ask, already bracing.
“No,”
he says, taking a bite.
“I’m planning on telling you to fix your shit with .”
I stop. Don’t turn. Let the silence stretch. Let him think I’m ignoring him.
I’m not.
So what? We fucked. It wasn’t supposed to mean anything. Sure, it was a dick move the way I left her—didn’t even look back. But she’ll be fine. She’s always fine.
“She’ll be fine,”
I say aloud.
Riven steps around the counter. Slow. Measured. Like he’s not about to press a thumb into a bruise I haven’t let anyone see. He taps his finger against my chest. Once. Hard.
“You made her cry.”
My jaw tightens.
“Girls cry.”
His eyes shift. That eerie flick from gray to red—just enough to catch the light like the flash of a blade in the dark.
“Not . Not like that.”
I scoff.
“You keeping tabs now?”
“I’ve only seen her cry once,”
he says, voice quiet but not soft.
“When she said goodbye to her sister. In the Void. That kind of grief, Ambrose—it carves something out of a person. Leaves it hollow.”
A pause. Heavy. Intentional.
“And you made her feel that again.”
I don’t answer. Because what would I say?
That I meant it? That I didn’t? That I keep replaying the curve of her back when she turned away, when I didn’t stop her, didn’t reach, didn’t fucking speak? That I could take kingdoms with a whisper, and I still can’t find a way to say her name without it tasting like ash?
I grit my teeth.
“She’ll be fine,” I repeat.
Riven’s hand lowers. But his stare doesn’t ease.
“You think that makes it better? That she’ll survive you?”
“She’s stronger than all of us.”
“That doesn’t mean she deserves to be wounded by people she trusts.”
I finally turn. Meet his eyes.
“You think this is about trust?”
He steps closer. No blade in hand, but it’s still a threat. Riven doesn’t need weapons when his words are sharper.
“You think it’s about sex.”
Isn’t it?
Isn’t everything?
Except when it’s not.
“She let you see her,”
he says, voice steel.
“Not just her body. Her. And you walked away.”
“I never said I wanted to stay,” I mutter.
“Doesn’t matter. She thought you might.”
The words hit like stone through glass. I don’t flinch. Not outwardly. But something in me rattles. Loosens.
I don’t do staying.
I don’t do belonging.
But I do want. And …
is want.
Woven into every fucking breath I take lately.
I shake my head.
“She’ll get over it.”
Riven leans in. Close enough I can smell the spice of his sandwich, the metal of his fury.
“Maybe. But if you don’t fix it, I will. And I won’t be gentle.”
I smirk.
“You’re never gentle.”
“Not with monsters who forget they can be more.”
He turns, then. Just like that. Back to his sandwich. Like he didn’t just carve a warning into my ribs.
I leave.
But the words stay.
And they taste worse than regret.
They taste like her name.
Lucien’s office still smells like cedar and ink and too many secrets. I grab my keys off the edge of his desk, where Riven apparently tossed them like they were garbage instead of the last piece of machinery in this place I still trust to obey me. The door creaks as I shut it behind me, the sound dragging Riven’s voice back into my skull like a blade slipping between my ribs.
You made her cry.
I should be able to shake that. I’ve watched kingdoms burn without blinking. I’ve made gods bleed and smiled while doing it.
But I can’t fucking stop picturing her—the way her eyes looked last night when I left. Not shattered. Worse. Like she expected it.
The garage is silent when I step in. The bike waits, its lines sleek and familiar, the leather seat still indented from the last ride. It’s not magic. Not like the rest of this cursed place. It runs on grit and fuel and the quiet promise that speed still means freedom.
I slide the key in. Twist.
The engine growls awake.
I don’t move.
I sit there, hands gripping the handlebars, my body coiled like it knows what I should do and hates me for resisting.
She’s just a fucking girl. That’s what I tell myself. Over and over. Beautiful, yes. Dangerous, yes. But I’ve seen this before. I’ve lived through worse.
Except I didn’t.
The last one—Keira—tore through me like I was made of promises and bone. And … she never even had to try.
I see her crying. Not loud. Not theatrical. Quiet, in that way grief always is when it’s real. In the shower. Water masking the sound, but not the shape of it. Her spine curved, not crumbling, just… folding in on itself. Like she was trying to be small. Like she was trying not to be seen.
Fuck.
I kill the engine.
The key clicks out.
I’m on my feet before I decide to be.
Outside, the wind has teeth. It cuts down from the ridges that guard Daemon’s perimeter like sentinels that have forgotten which side they’re on. The courtyard’s still cracked from the last ritual, the stones glowing faintly where the bindings failed to hold. It’s quiet here now, the kind of quiet that isn’t peace—it’s pause.
And there she is.
Perched on the low wall near the old observatory, one leg swinging like she’s trying to pretend she’s not waiting. Her hair’s up, but there’s a streak of ash along her jaw like she’s been sparring or sifting through something that didn’t want to be found. She’s got a mug in one hand—steam curling from it lazily—and her eyes are fixed on the horizon like she’s looking for a version of herself she hasn’t become yet.
I stop walking.
Just stand there, watching her, the way someone might watch a prayer they don’t believe in but still mouth the words for.
She turns before I speak.
Her gaze lands on me, cool and unreadable, but not surprised. She always knows when I’m near. Like her bones are wired to it. Like the pull isn’t something she decided to feel—it’s just always there.
“Lost?”
she asks, voice casual. But there’s a sharpness to it. A blade behind the softness.
“I was going to ride,”
I say. Then, after a pause.
“Thought you might want to come.”
Her brow arches.
“Ride what, exactly?”
I blink. “A bike.”
She sips her drink. Snorts.
“You want me to sit on the handlebars like we’re in some tragic coming-of-age film?”
There’s a smirk tugging at the edge of her mouth, and I hate that it does something to me. Something reckless. Something warm.
I shake my head.
“Not that kind of bike.”
“Oh,”
she says, dragging the word like a knife across silk.
“You mean the illegal, unsafe kind that screams midlife crisis?”
I grin despite myself.
“I didn’t realize you cared so much about my safety.”
“I don’t,”
she says, tilting her head.
“But if you crash, someone’s going to have to deal with the fallout. And that someone’s probably me.”
I step closer. Close enough that I can smell whatever she’s drinking—dark, bitter. Not tea. Not comfort. Something to keep her awake, maybe. Like she’s afraid to rest.
“Come with me,” I say.
No Golden Tongue. No power behind it. Just… me.
She studies me. Not like she’s considering the invitation. Like she’s trying to decide what kind of damage it would do to say yes.
“I don’t want to talk,”
she says finally.
“Good,”
I say.
“I don’t want to listen.”
She sets the mug down beside her. Hops off the wall. Lands like she’s been training for war her entire life.
Maybe she has.
“You’re paying if I die,”
she mutters.
I grin. “Deal.”
She steps into pace beside me.
“Where are we going?”
she asks, that low drawl of suspicion already coiling beneath her words.
I don’t stop walking. “Town.”
She halts. Just for a second. Her boots scrape against the cracked stone like she’s debating whether to follow or hex me into next week. Then she sees the bike.
A slow, reluctant smile twitches at her mouth, but it’s her eyes that betray her. They light, faint but unmistakable, like she wasn’t expecting this. Like I’ve surprised her. Again.
She bites her lip.
Not in the flirtatious way. In the thoughtful way. Calculating. As if she’s measuring the risk of getting on a machine I rebuilt with my own hands against the kind of damage I’ve already done to her heart.
I grab the spare helmet off the handlebar. The one with glitter. Iridescent pink flecks scattered across matte finish like a child decorated it after a sugar binge.
“Silas’s,”
I explain flatly, holding it out.
She snorts, not even pretending to hide it this time.
“Of course it is.”
“He claims it was cursed to sparkle,”
I say.
“I think he just liked the shine.”
Her fingers graze mine as she takes the helmet, and I don’t flinch, but my pulse betrays me. One graze, and everything I’ve spent days suppressing rears up—want, memory, regret.
She spins the helmet in her hands like she’s stalling.
“You have a bike,”
she says.
“Even though you’ve been trapped on campus for centuries?”
I give her a look over my shoulder, already climbing onto the seat.
“Our prison was bigger than the school. The perimeter didn’t end at the gates—it bent around the entire valley. Bound by wards older than most gods. But there were ways to stretch it. Rides we could take… if we didn’t stray too far.”
Her eyes narrow. “Why?”
I slide my key in, flick the ignition. The bike growls to life, low and hungry. It’s not enchanted. Not like the ones Lucien rides when he wants to impress someone. This one’s all machine—metal, power, and raw defiance.
I look at her as I say it.
“Because you’re here.”
She doesn’t respond to that. Not with words.
But she puts on the helmet.
The glitter catches the daylight as she straddles the seat behind me, legs brushing mine. Her hands hover over my waist like she’s trying to decide how close is too close.
I reach back, take her wrists gently, and place them on my hips.
“Hold on,”
I say. Not sweet. Not careful. Just fact.
She doesn’t pull away.
She tightens her grip.
And just like that, we’re gone—riding into a town that hasn’t seen us in lifetimes, the wind whipping past us like it’s trying to catch secrets that don’t belong to it.
The road winds beneath us, and Daemon vanishes behind.
But the thing clawing at my chest?
That comes with me. Every damn mile.
I haven’t stepped foot in a town in centuries. Not like this. Not with wind in my hair and a woman who undoes me sitting close enough to hear my heartbeat. Not with the thrum of life pressing in from every side.
Daemon gave us a version of the world. Simulated. Controlled. High-speed access to surveillance, reports, history, commerce. I’ve read more about the modern era than most people living in it. I know how to crash a stock market, corrupt a satellite, drain the accounts of half a continent and leave no trail.
But standing here?
In the middle of a cobbled street turned asphalt, slick with faint neon reflections and the remnants of old power lines coiled around sleek new architecture—
I feel… out of place.
I kill the engine and the bike purrs to a stop, the vibration cutting out like a lifeline pulled. steps off behind me, stripping off the glitter helmet with a slow drag that should be nothing but isn’t. Her hair is a mess. Wind-tossed. Wild. And the sight of her next to a curb, bathed in electric signage and sunlight, should be ridiculous. It isn’t.
She stretches like she owns this place. Like the world simply rearranged itself to give her a stage.
I dismount slower.
And hesitate.
Shops line the street in garish, hungry color—nothing like what I remember. No dusty apothecaries or marble-front bookshops. No highborn fashion with corsets so tight you could mistake discomfort for elegance. This isn’t that world.
Everything’s sharper now. Meaner. Fluorescent. There’s a café across the street with signs written in three languages, two of which didn’t exist when I was last out here. Beside it, a tattoo parlor glows with blacklight ink symbols pulsing in time with a distorted bass I can feel in my spine. The smell of hot oil and ozone wafts from a food cart. The humans walk fast, faces buried in glowing rectangles, oblivious to the creature I’ve always been and the girl beside me who could raze a city if she wanted to.
doesn’t speak.
She watches me.
And I know what she sees. Me, standing still while the world pulses and churns and changes around me. Me, looking like I’ve been dropped from another era—because I have.
My hand twitches at my side, the urge to touch something, claim something, rising like it always does when I feel small. But I clench my fists instead.
“I look like an idiot,” I mutter.
turns her head slowly, eyebrows lifting with exaggerated patience.
“You are an idiot.”
I shoot her a look, and she smirks. Shrugs.
“But you’re wearing it well.”
I exhale through my nose.
“You brought your sass all the way to town. How generous of you.”
“I brought my survival instincts,”
she counters.
“This place smells weird and there’s a sign in that bakery window that says Haunted Goods: Buy One, Banish One Free.”
Her mouth quirks.
“What the hell does that even mean?”
I blink up at the sign. It’s hand-lettered in curling, chaotic script. Below it is a ghost sticker giving a thumbs-up.
“Marketing,” I say.
She gives me a look.
“It’s cursed pastries.”
“That’s what marketing is.”
snorts.
“You’ve been out for five minutes and you’re already spiraling.”
She starts walking. I follow, because of course I do.
The air here is wrong. Not bad. Just… alive. And it makes my skin crawl with the knowledge that I am not. Not in the way they are. These humans—with their plastic bags and their mechanical laughter and their music spilling from open doorways—they think they’re living.
stops in front of a glass storefront—dim, cluttered, a secondhand bookstore that still smells of ink and secrets even through the door. She peers in, and the light catches her cheekbone in a way that makes me want to do unspeakable things.
“This was a good idea,”
she says quietly.
I narrow my eyes.
“It wasn’t a peace offering.”
“I know.”
“I’m not apologizing.”
She turns toward me.
“I wouldn’t believe you if you did.”
I step closer. Close enough that I can see the reflection of the street in her eyes. It moves too fast. Too sharp. And still—she’s steady.
“Then why did you come?”
tilts her head.
“Because I wanted to see how the world breaks you.”
Her words are casual. Light. But they hit like a blade pressed to bone.
I let a slow smile curl my lips.
“It won’t.”
She leans in, and I smell her again—smoke and magic and something deeper.
“We’ll see.”
We step inside together.
And the bell above the door doesn’t chime.
It screams.