Chapter Eleven #2
“What if I try wearing you like a backpack again?” His hands are strong and warm.
He rests them on my hips like it’s natural…
like my body was built to fit under them.
He grips tighter and helps hoist me onto his back.
I yelp involuntarily. “If you keep making those little sounds when I pick you up, I’m going to fail this challenge on purpose and carry you back to the bungalow.
” He can’t help it, his flirty little comments, just like I can’t help the heat in my cheeks after he says them.
I’m thankful when we fall this time, because the sharp snap of my body on the water resets my brain and cools my blushing cheeks.
When I come out of the water and check the timer, I see that only a minute remains.
A fairy, a helper of the Moirai, flutters nearby and claps her hands, far too cheerful. “You’ll need a more intimate hold for stability,” she chirps, gesturing like this is the most normal thing in the world. “Wrap your legs around his waist. He’ll support your center of gravity.”
I flush instantly. “I—what?”
Riven doesn’t hesitate. He steps closer, hands already at my hips, steady and sure. “It’s either this or we faceplant in front of the entire realm and lose,” he murmurs. “I hate losing, but I’ll allow this to be the lady’s choice.”
My pulse stutters. “Fine.” Mortified, I do it. “Let’s do the waist one.” I glare at the beautiful fairy before stepping into Riven’s hold.
“Come here, trouble.” My legs hook around his waist, instinctively tightening. The movement pulls me flush against him—no space, no buffer, just heat and balance and the undeniable reality of his body supporting mine.
He lifts me easily, like I weigh nothing. One arm anchors my spine, firm and unyielding, keeping my center aligned with his. The other braces me from underneath, palm warm and solid, fingers flexing just slightly as he adjusts his grip. Not wandering. Not teasing. Just…holding.
I can feel everything. The strength in his arms. The steady rise and fall of his chest beneath mine. The way his stance widens automatically to compensate for my weight, feet sinking into wet stone, muscles locking in like this is instinct instead of performance.
He’s calm. Focused. Almost detached.
I am none of those things.
My thighs tremble where they’re wrapped around him, my hands clutching uselessly at his shoulders as my brain short-circuits on how we’re positioned, how easy it is for him, how unfair it feels that he looks composed while I feel like I’ve been plugged directly into a live wire.
He exhales slowly, adjusting again, voice low and steady near my ear. “Got you. Just don’t fight the balance.”
As if I could do anything but hold on.
I wait for the joke.
The innuendo.
Anything.
But he goes completely silent.
And somehow, that’s worse.
His hands settle like they know exactly where they belong, not wandering, not teasing, just holding me like I’m something fragile and necessary. The way he looks at me changes, too. No grin. No swagger. Just determined focus.
And just when we finally settle into the position that doesn’t feel like it’s going to send us both face-first into the sea, silver light coils around my wrist. Then his.
Moonstone bands snap into place like elegant cuffs, cool and humming against my skin. Above the beach, a massive crystal display flickers to life, hovering in the air with dozens of glowing heart sigils pulsing in time with the couples below.
The Maiden’s voice drifts over the water, far too pleased. “Heart monitors. Your bodies will now speak what your mouths will not.”
My pulse surges. Immediately. My bracelet flares so bright it might as well be screaming. The other contestants gasp, laughter rippling like a wave. I feel flayed open, like the entire realm just watched a private thought crawl out of my chest and set itself on fire.
I glance at Riven.
He stays perfectly, infuriatingly calm. A steady, unwavering glow. Like he’s carved from stone. Like standing this close to me means absolutely nothing at all.
Probably because it doesn’t. I’m just Pop to him. A bar maiden. A tenant. A friend.
Riven keeps us balanced on the stump, and I try to ignore the burn in my cheeks from embarrassment and the heat of his body pressing against mine with only our flimsy swimsuits between us.
I try not to overthink it. Try to forget the sting of humiliation to be the only one of our pair to have a physical reaction to our precarious situation.
Water splashes up on my calf, and I huff.
Someone nearby falls into the water, and while Riven laughs, I puff out air from my nostrils and try to tighten my wet hands around themselves, but they slip, and I have to tighten my legs around Riven’s toned core.
Riven shifts, bringing both his hands under me and locking them together, leaving his balled fists only a few inches from my center. I huff again. “What’s wrong?” he asks.
“Nothing.” I fib, avoiding eye contact even though our faces are so close I can see the micro-fluttering of his irises.
“Hmm.” His brows cinch, mouth tipping up in the corner. “You’re breathing like your lungs are staging a rebellion. Either relax…or tell me what’s wrong so I can fix it.”
He tips his head to the side, not enough to topple us over, but enough to put his eyes in line with mine. I think about ignoring him. But who knows how long we’ll be stuck here, glued at the literal hip. He is persistent. And persuasive.
As I’m thinking, both his hands cup my face, bracketing my jaw and bringing my face so close that onlookers probably think we’re about to kiss.
“Riven?” I breathe out cautiously. If his hands are on my face…what’s holding me up?
“Yes, Poppy?” I can feel the tingle of his peppermint-laced lips against my skin.
“Please tell me you did not call on your shadows, an ancient and revered piece of your heritage that very few outside the realm of Ombra understand, to hold me up by my ass in a ridiculous balance competition.” The shadows, from what I remember him telling me, are semi-sentient and undying.
They merge with a shadow fae when they are young and stay with them until they die, after which they find another host. The shadows, like the shadow fae, are mysterious, but I do know that his shadows can fight for him, shield him, spy for him, and apparently, hold up dames for him too.
A deep red blush colors my cheeks when I think about the ways he must have used them before. Like in the bedroom.
He mutters under his breath in the language of the shadows, the one I hear him use whenever his shadows are about to do his bidding, and their hold on me tightens.
I know a few words, having picked them up over the years, but one of the few things Riven has warned me about his shadows is this: not to use the Midnight Tongue without him present.
His shadows may like me, but other shadows could always be listening, and they apparently do not take kindly to outsiders using their language.
“You have no idea what you may promise or request with the use of a few simple words,” he’d warned me.
“Don’t look down,” he says quietly. “We can’t lose our balance now.”
“I’m not,” I manage, though I want to. I rarely see his shadows in action during the day, and they must be a sight to see because I can hear the murmurs of our fellow contestants, followed by the splashing of at least 3 bodies.
“Good.” His eyes lift to mine. “Look at me instead. Everyone does—it’s soothing.”
I laugh before I can stop myself.
And he freezes.
Like the sound hits him straight in the chest. Like, for half a second, he forgets about the crowd, the trial, the island, the entire world—until it’s just me in his arms and something fragile and unspoken is stretching between us.
Behind us, the heart rate monitoring screen flares. Someone’s getting excited, but I dare not look. Partly for fear it’s me, and partly so I don’t lose my balance. My eyes close, breaths forced even as I try to remain still and calm.
“Are you okay?” Curse his ability to read me.
“Mhmm.”
He doesn't buy it.
“Tell me, Poppy, or I’ll make the shadows do my bidding,” he warns, and I feel his fingers relax, slipping into my hair and holding my head aloft.
“Will you make them enter my mind and control me until I tell you?” I ask, deadpan. I’ve seen him do it before. He doesn’t know this, but I’d caught him using his shadow magic for such a thing once.
Not on purpose. I’m not a spy.
I’d been leaving the bar late. Riven stood in the shadows at the end of the alley, his posture relaxed in that way that meant absolutely nothing good was about to happen.
Riven whispered in the Midnight Tongue, and his shadows seized a man.
The man—who, I’d later learn, had walked out without paying his tab—froze in place, eyes wide and unfocused, like he’d forgotten how to blink.
The shadows weren’t touching him.
They were inside him, curling into his ears, brushing his temples, and then slipping past his lips like smoke with intent.
Riven had tilted his head then, almost curious. “Tell me again,” he’d said softly to the man, “but this time, try not to lie.”
The man’s mouth moved, but his voice wasn’t his anymore. It was flat and mechanical. Every secret spilling out like he was reading from a script only Riven could see.
And Riven just stood there, hands in his pockets, shadows obeying him like loyal hounds, taking the money that was owed to the Foxhole from his pockets. Calm. Beautiful. Terrifying.
He didn’t raise his voice.
Didn’t touch the man.
Didn’t even look angry.
That was the most haunting part.
He wasn’t being cruel.
He was being efficient.
So when he jokes now about making the shadows do his bidding, fingers warm in my hair, holding my face tilted up to his…I know he’s not bluffing.
And Fate help me, but the part of me that remembers that alley doesn’t feel afraid.
It feels…very aware that I’m in the arms of someone who could unravel minds and chooses, instead, to ask me nicely.