CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE #2
The table went still. The air felt suffocating. The very ground beneath the tent gave a low, warning rumble of earth magic.
Jeremy's grin sharpened into something lethal.
"I dare you to a challenge."
My heart stuttered.
"I love a challenge," Asher mused, his voice smooth and untroubled.
"Asher—" Ezra tried again, but Asher silenced him with a flick of his fingers. Ezra sat back, his fists white-knuckled, his entire body trembling with the effort of restraint.
"What the fuck is happening?" Ember whispered, her eyes wide as she looked between the three of them.
“Asher, no,” I hissed through the bond. “Don't. You don't need to do this. He's just trying to bait you.”
"A game is a game, darling," he purred back, his mental voice smug and reckless.
Jeremy leaned in further. “I dare you to challenge me for my betrothal.”
Gasps erupted like a wave around the table. My heart seized so hard I thought it might actually stop.
Surprise flickered down the bond from Asher—brief and sharp—but it was instantly swallowed by that wicked, hungry grin.
"What the fuck, Jeremy?" Ryven shot to his feet.
"Yeah, that's low," Ember spat, slamming her drink onto the table. "Gods, you really are a fucking sore loser. This is pathetic."
Jeremy's smirk didn't falter. “You've all heard the terms before. A dare's a dare. Unless Maddox is a coward?”
"Fuck your terms," Ryven seethed.
Mavrik rose too, a literal mountain of a male, squaring off against Jeremy and his lackeys.
And in the middle of the brewing chaos, Asher took my hand and kissed my thumb. It was soft. It was deliberate. It was deadly.
"Let's hear the specifics," he murmured.
Every head at the table whipped toward him in shock.
"What?" I hissed, the word breaking in my throat.
Asher's grin widened. Shadows swirled around our table, spreading across the floor in restless coils.
"Asher, think," Darcy warned from behind, her violet eyes serious, but he didn't move. I was still perched on his lap, his hand drawing lazy circles on my thigh.
Jeremy's voice cut through the charged air, venom laced in every syllable.
“He wins, I sign the papers dissolving the betrothal and send them to the King myself. I walk away.”
My heart stuttered.
What did he just say?
Asher's shadows lashed out, furious, but Jeremy only sneered. "Or I win… and you leave my betrothed the fuck alone. Permanently. You don't look at her, you don't touch her, and you stay out of our lives."
I shot up, rage shaking my entire frame. "What the fuck, Jeremy? I'm sorry I hurt you, but I am not a trophy! You can't just—"
"Ava," Ember said suddenly. She stood across from me, her green eyes burning and unflinching.
"What?" I snapped, looking at her.
“He can.” Ember’s face had gone deathly serious. “I was raised to know the laws that protect you, Ava. And the ones that can be used against you.” Her jaw tightened.
“It’s an old royal law. Ancient. Barely used anymore, but still binding. He can.”
The world tilted. My stomach dropped straight through the floor. The betrothal wasn't just a promise. It was a binding royal contract, and apparently, it could be wagered.
Jeremy's grin widened, satisfied. He'd gotten exactly what he wanted.
I turned to Asher, desperate, pleading with my eyes.
He saw it. He felt it all through the bond—my panic, my sense of betrayal, my desperate love for him.
"That won't happen," Asher promised. "I won't lose you. Not to him. Not to anyone."
But then, aloud, he stood up, towering over the table.
"Deal."
"No," I whispered, clutching my chest, but the word was swallowed by the sudden roar of the tent erupting into absolute chaos.
Jeremy's final words echoed in the air like a death sentence.
"See you on the field, Maddox. Let's see whose blood hits the dirt first."
···
My head spun. Nausea clawed up my throat, a bitter companion to the adrenaline, but I couldn't just sit there.
I couldn't let this stand.
I needed to see Jeremy. To look him in the eyes and make him understand the gravity of what he'd just done.
I sprang out of Asher's lap, climbing right over Rhea's legs in my haste.
"Ava—" he growled, a large, calloused hand shooting out to snag my wrist.
I spun on him, fury breaking through my tears like a sudden flare of white-hot heat. "Don't you fucking dare."
The bond pulsed between us, jagged with possessiveness and fear.
Asher's eyes went dark, his jaw ticking as he fought his own instinct to haul me back.
After a tense second, he gave me a clipped nod and let go.
I bolted out of the tent, the muffled shouts of our friends and the thumping music fading behind me.
Outside, the crowd was already buzzing, the news of the challenge spreading like a contagion.
They were cheering for it like it was a sport. Like my life wasn't the wager.
How could he do this? How could he be so cruel?
I spotted Jeremy at the edge of the pitch, his teammates crowded around him, laughing and slapping his back as if they'd already won.
"Your ex has some serious nerve," Aether said lazily through the link. He and the other boundlings were lounged across the grass near the equipment sheds, watching the drama like bored kings.
"Jeremy!" I yelled, storming across the grass, my cheer skirt fluttering in the wind.
His head snapped up.
He muttered something to his lackeys and waved them off, stepping forward to meet me alone.
"Ava—"
My palm cracked against his cheek before I could even stop myself.
The crack rang out across the open field.
Gasps and whispers rippled through the nearby students, but I was beyond caring about the spectacle.
His jaw ticked, a red mark blooming over his skin. He looked at me with those green eyes—eyes I used to love. Eyes I once trusted with every secret I had.
"You've ruined everything between us," I spat, my voice breaking. Tears blurred my vision, making the world a smear of green and gold. His eyes flickered with something—remorse? Guilt? It didn't matter. Not anymore.
“I think the worst part,” I whispered, “is that somewhere in all of this, I lost my best friend.”
His face twisted, and gods, for a heartbeat, I saw the male I used to know.
The male who used to lie under the stars with me and talk about the future.
"Ava," he said, his voice raw and thick. "It's not that I want you for myself. Gods, I would love that—but I knew I lost you a long time ago. The day you lost your brother… I lost you."
Tears streamed hot down my cheeks because he was right. He had lost me. I'd retreated into a shell of grief, and Jeremy hadn't known how to reach me.
"Then why would you do this?" I whispered, my voice trembling.
He reached out and took my hand.
My breath caught, the bond jolting with a sudden, violent surge of Asher's rage.
I could feel him standing far behind me, a silent, seething shadow, watching Jeremy's every move.
Jeremy's thumb brushed mine, and his voice cracked. "Because I promised your brother I would always protect you."
My heart shattered. Jax. Always Jax.
"And I'm still going to keep that promise, even if you don't love me. Even if it kills me to see you with him."
His eyes cut toward the distance where Asher stood, venom and grief tangled together.
"That male—you can't see it because you're blinded by what he gives you, but he's the definition of darkness. “And I will do everything in my power to stop him from destroying you.”
He released me then, stepping back. His face was a mask of defeat and determination.
He turned and walked away, disappearing into the growing roar of the crowd near the arena.
His words lingered, cutting through me like salt on an open wound.
"Darling."
His voice slid through the bond—silk over steel. He was calm now, his fury settling into something steady and terrifyingly sure.
"What did he say?"
I turned and just stared at him across the grass, letting him feel everything—the fear, the ache, the storm Jeremy had just kicked up in my chest.
My throat burned. I swallowed hard.
"Don't let him win."
For a beat, Asher was still, his silver eyes locked on mine.
Then his grin curved—slow, dangerous, and inevitable. Shadows licked around his feet, hungry and dark.
“Darling, hear me. As long as darkness breathes, I am yours. I will never let anyone come between us. Never let another steal what we are. You are my fire, my ruin, my salvation. And if the world dares to try, I will drown it in shadow before I ever let it take you from me.”
The vow scorched through me, fierce and unrelenting. My own fire flared deep in my core, desperate to meet his shadows, to entwine and burn.
My breath caught on a sob I couldn't release. He meant it. Every devastating word.
My heart cracked open, spilling straight into the bond with all my love and surrender.
His shadows surged in response, wrapping around me like a second skin, a promise etched into my very soul.
I whispered back, my mental voice trembling but unbroken.
"And as long as fire burns, I am yours."