CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
The transition from the warmth of Asher's bed to the cold, ink-stained reality of the Tower was jarring.
The last few weeks had been a blur of whispered secrets and shared chocolate, punctuated by the frantic decoding of ancient symbols in the hushed archives.
We weren't really studying; we were excavating the truth behind Jax's journal, and with every translated sentence, the lie I was telling Asher grew heavier.
His presence was a warmth I craved and a betrayal I hated.
Every time he came to check on me, Jules and I would scramble, burying our heads in textbooks and pretending the shadows between us were nothing more than academic.
Gods, the guilt was a physical thing—a knot in my stomach that tightened every time his silver eyes lingered on mine.
I wanted to blurt it out every time his hand brushed mine. I love you. The words sat like glowing embers on my tongue, but I kept swallowing them back.
I love you.
The words sat like glowing embers on my tongue, but I kept swallowing them back.
I knew he was circling the same words. We were both dancing around it, and the tension was killing me.
"Agh, I don't know why your brother went to such lengths with Veyari script," Jules murmured, a piece of chocolate melting on her tongue.
Her eyes, big and brown behind her glasses, were glued to the text.
“The last passage confirms it,” I whispered. “Jax encountered a Veyari.”
We spent hours buried in the pages, the silence of the archives broken only by the scratch of Jules’s quill.
My mind kept drifting back to that morning, to the safety of Asher’s arms and the way he’d made me forget the world.
I held onto that feeling like a shield. If the world was falling apart, at least I had him. He was the only thing that felt solid.
Jules shot upright, her glasses slipping down her nose. “Wait!”
My heart leapt into my throat.
"What? What is it?" I asked, my voice barely a whisper.
Jules shoved two papers she'd been scribbling on into my hand.
They were more of Jax’s entries, finally translated into our tongue.
I let out a breath I didn't realize I'd been holding, Aether's coat a warm, grounding weight against my legs.
I read the first entry, my pulse quickening:
My fingers shook as I wrote. Then—eyes. Red, with slitted pupils like a feline’s, most of his face shrouded in shadow.
My heart beat wildly as he smiled and revealed his fangs.
"Veyari," I whispered. Oh my gods. Solas told me to run, but I couldn't. I had found something far more important than Eclipsa. Something Father needed to know about.
The male just stared at me, and that felt far worse. I had a feeling I might not return.
—J.
My mouth went dry, the words a physical blow.
Tears pricked at my eyes. This was him.
My brilliant, reckless brother, Jax. He had found one of them. My worst fear was right there, inked on the page.
But the second paper was even worse. Jax's handwriting here was jagged, the ink blotted as if his hand had been shaking:
He didn't kill me. Not yet. He only watched.
His silence is worse than fangs. He said I was not safe here, not safe anywhere.
He spoke the name Aelmyra as though it was a cage.
He promised protection, but I feel like a prisoner.
If anyone finds this, know this: they will use me.
They will bleed me dry. They will take what I know until there's nothing left.
—J.
The air in the archives suddenly felt too thin.
“They took him,” I whispered, bile rising in my throat. “The Astral Guard said it was a creature attack, but this… Jax thought he was being held prisoner.”
“But if a Veyari found him beyond the borders…” Jules whispered, eyes wide. “Then what actually happened to him?”
I looked at Jules. "What do you actually know about the Veyari? Beyond the basic lectures?"
Jules leaned back, her face pale.
“They’re immortal, Ava. Shapeshifters. They feed on fae magic and blood. And their eyes…” She swallowed. “They’re supposed to be crimson.”
“They can change faces,” I muttered. The thought was terrifying.
“Ava, if they’re inside the borders,” Jules said, her voice trembling, “we’re not just decoding your brother’s journal anymore. We’re trying to figure out what he stumbled into.”
I stared at the ink until the letters blurred. I wanted to run to the Riftball fields, to throw myself into Asher's arms and let the world vanish. But the journal refused to be ignored.
Whatever Jax had stumbled into had gotten him killed. And now I was following the same trail.
“We keep going,” I said, my voice finally finding its edge. “We find out exactly what Jax discovered. I’m not letting him be the end of this story.”
···
Aether prowled at my side, quiet as a shadow, as we took the back paths toward House Ignis.
he forest at this hour was a held breath, moonlight stretching between the trees.
I needed to see Asher, but for the first time, I was terrified of what he'd see when he looked at me.
My soul felt heavy with the ink of Jax's words, and my skin still crawled from the descriptions of those crimson eyes.
Crack.
My heart lurched.
I stopped, every nerve in my body screaming, and called into the dark, "Hello?"
"Let's go," Aether growled through the bond, his fur bristling against my leg.
Another crack sounded—closer this time. Someone was here, watching me from the veil of trees. My heart was racing, my mind immediately jumping to the worst-case scenario. Probably Zorian, back for revenge after I'd singed his dignity off in the arena.
"Zorian, you have the nerve to come back!" I shouted into the trees. Bastard.
A breeze came through, making the leaves whisper like a thousand tiny voices.
"Little one, let's go. I don't like this," Aether warned in my head.
I nodded and started walking, but the hair on the back of my neck was prickling.
"Should we call the Dark One?" Aether asked.
"No. I can handle myself." Flame licked my fingertips and Aether's power flooded through me.
"Come out, motherfucker." I stepped toward the forest line as fog began to roll in, thick and unnatural. My shields were up tight; I didn't need Asher to save me.
I lifted my hand toward the darkness, my flame brightening the trees, and a hand shot out of the mist and clamped onto my wrist. My fire extinguished instantly. A wet hiss crawled from the creature’s throat.
The grab was firm—cold.
. I looked up into dark eyes, and oh my gods, they were rimmed in vivid, bleeding red.
"Ava!" Aether growled and lunged forward. For a second, I thought I saw the glint of fangs, but the face was obscured by the swirling fog.
Pain shot up my arm as its grip tightened. Aether clawed at the thing, earning another vicious hiss.
While it was distracted, I slammed a second, concentrated burst of fire into its fingers. It screamed—a high, piercing sound—and let go. I stumbled back into the grass and the creature vanished into the mist.
"Aether!" I called into the dark. He burst out of the trees a moment later, panting, fur on end.
"I lost it," he said. "You okay?"
"Yeah," I breathed, my throat tight. I lit up the forest line again, but there was nothing but shadows. "What the fuck just happened? Those eyes... they were red, Aether. Just like in the journal."
Anxiety clawed at me.
The Veyari were real, and they were here.
"We need to get out of here," Aether growled.
We ran through the Academy's back paths toward House Ignis, my heart jackhammering against my ribs.
I rounded the final corner and slammed into something solid.
Warm hands grabbed me, arms locking around my ribs.
Panic flared. I bit down hard on the arm holding me.
“Aaah! Ava, what the fuck?” he swore, the familiar voice cutting through the dark.
The scent hit me before I stopped struggling. Pure, unrelenting shadow. I froze. The voice softened near my ear. "Breathe."
My shoulders started to unclench. I closed my eyes, the adrenaline finally ebbing away.
"There we go," he breathed, and my body eased into him like I'd been found in a storm.
He spun me toward him, and I came up into silver eyes that were searching mine with a terrifying intensity.
"How—how did you find me?" I stammered, the journal and the red-eyed creature tangling in my head.
Asher's brows drew together, calculation settling into his features.
“Why wouldn’t I?” His brows drew together. “I can feel you, remember?”
"Oh—yeah. Sorry. We were spooked." I forced a laugh that sounded too high, too brittle.
He blinked, looking slightly amused. "You okay? Because you bit me," he said, half-smirking, half-challenging.
"Yeah. Sorry. A rogue wolf boundling spooked us on the path." I smiled, trying to be casual. “Aether went after it, but we lost it in the trees.”
Disapproval hissed through my bond with Aether, but I kept my face smooth.
"And where is it now?" Asher raised one brow.
"The wolf?" I echoed, my heart in my throat. "Oh—gosh—I was running so fast I slammed into you.
Must've been scared of your shadows." I let my hands trail up his arms in a careless way, feeling the electricity of him watching every movement.
His eyes tracked my fingers, and the bond flooded hot and close. I licked my lips on instinct. He groaned low—an animal sound that made my skin tingle.
"Hmm, Darling," he murmured, voice rough.
He closed the distance in a heartbeat, palms at my waist. Before I could think, he picked me up, my legs instinctively winding around his hips.
"I've been waiting for you," he said, his wicked grin softening into something honest.
Everything else went blank. The journal, the red eyes in the dark—the world narrowed to the press of him, the beat of his heart under my ear, and the pull of his shadows that promised to swallow the fear.
We barely made it upstairs. My hands tangled in his hair as he carried me the rest of the way, my legs locked around his waist. At my door, he murmured a rune, the lock sighed open, and he kicked it shut behind us.
At the landing, he murmured a rune, the lock sighed, and he shoved the door closed with his foot. He pushed me back against the wood, chest to chest, then gave me that lopsided grin.
"I'm going to draw us a bath," he drawled, kissing the hollow of my neck.
I giggled, my heart still hammering. He gave my ass a final squeeze as he set me on my feet and padded toward the bathroom.
The second he was out of sight, I leaned against the door, my mind a chaotic storm.
The red eyes. Jax’s journal. The Veyari.
Every secret sat heavier than the last. And I was hiding all of them from him.
"Bubbles, darling?" Asher called from the bathroom, the sound of running water filling the space.
"Yes—always!" I replied, forcing my voice to stay steady. I took a deep breath, trying to push the fear into a box.
Not tonight. I couldn’t tell him tonight.
By the time I’d stripped off my clothes, steam was drifting from the bathroom.
I walked bare into the bathroom, my head still heavy with thoughts of the forest, but the sight that greeted me stopped me dead.
Asher was already in the tub, steam curling around him like a cloak. His head rested against the rim, throat bared, silver eyes fixed on me.
Gods—my thighs clenched, my pulse tripped. He looked carved from shadows and steam.
He chuckled, low and wicked, the sound sliding over my skin like a physical touch. Then he tilted his head, one eyebrow raised, mischief carved into his grin as his gaze dragged slowly down my body.
Gods. I might combust right there.
“Coming in, darling?”
Words failed me, so I nodded and slipped into the water. He caught my waist almost immediately, turning me toward him and pulling me onto his lap.
My thighs locked around his waist as a broken moan escaped me.
“Gods, I fucking missed you,” he groaned.
In one fluid motion, he pulled me down onto his aching length, filling me so suddenly a broken moan tore from my throat.
"Gods, I fucking missed you," he groaned, his voice raw with a hunger that matched my own.
His fingers dug into my thighs, holding me in place as I began to move. My breasts lifted with every roll of my hips, the water sloshing violently, bubbles spilling over the edge onto the floor.
His groans deepened as I moved against him, water spilling over the edge of the tub.
Every thought of the Veyari, Jax, and those crimson eyes began to blur beneath the overwhelming presence of him.
My palms pressed flat against his chest, feeling the hard muscle beneath, feeling him everywhere.
He was my anchor; he was the only thing that felt real.
"Asher,"
I lost myself in him, letting the darkness and steaming water swallow every secret I was carrying.
But as the bond stretched between us, something else rose above the fear. Something I couldn't keep buried anymore.
I leaned forward until my forehead rested against his.
“Asher,” I whispered. “I love you.”
He stilled instantly. His hands stopped their frantic roaming, his fingers tensing against my skin. The steam seemed to freeze in the air. He pulled back just enough to look me in the eye, his silver gaze searching mine with a raw, soul-shattering vulnerability I'd never seen before.
The silence lasted only a heartbeat, but it felt like an eternity.
Then, his hand moved to the back of my neck, his thumb tracing the line of my jaw as he pulled me into a kiss that tasted like a vow.
"Gods, Ava," he rasped against my lips, his voice breaking. "I love you. I have loved you since the moment you set my world on fire."
The bond didn't just hum; it exploded.
A wave of pure, unadulterated devotion crashed through me, erasing the last of my doubts.
He pulled me tighter, his forehead leaning back against mine, our breaths mingling in the mist.
"I'm yours," he whispered, a promise that felt more permanent than any throne or betrothal. "In the light and the dark. Always."
I let out a shaky breath and kissed him again. For that one stolen moment, there was no journal. No crimson eyes. No Veyari hiding beyond the trees.
There was only Asher.
And the three words I'd finally stopped being afraid to say.