ASHER
The whiskey wasn’t working.
It should have. It was Aelmyran-aged, older than most kingdoms, decanted from a cask that had outlived every Fae who’d ever sworn the stuff could kill.
I’d poured it into crystal because some part of me was still pretending this was a drink and not a sentence, and I’d been staring at it long enough for the fire to burn down to embers without my permission.
I drank.
It tasted like smoke and bad decisions.
Fitting.
Because this was not how it was supposed to happen. Not even fucking close.
Beyond the windows, Isereth glowed beneath a moonless sky, silver-glass bridges strung with starlight and the Umbrithorns standing guard in the distance. Home. I should have felt something about being back. Relief, maybe. Satisfaction.
Instead, all I could feel was her.
Ava.
Somewhere beneath me, behind wards I’d keyed with my own blood, she slept. I could feel every slow breath through the blood bond, every faint flicker of emotion, every tiny shift of that impossible fire that had somehow become as familiar to me as my own fucking heartbeat.
She was here.
In Isereth.
Because of me.
I dragged a hand through my hair and stared out over the city.
This wasn’t the plan.
I’d gone to the Academy with one fucking mission. Get in. Find what I needed. Get out.
Simple. Clean. Controlled.
I’d planned for questions. Suspicion. The Astral Guard. Professors who watched too closely and students who didn’t watch closely enough. I’d planned every lie before I ever stepped through those gates.
I had not planned for Ava Pyreson.
Firecracker. Princess. Walking fucking catastrophe.
She’d been too curious from the beginning. Too stubborn. Too reckless. Too willing to look me directly in the eye and question every word that came out of my mouth.
I should have stayed away from her.
Gods, I’d tried.
Then came the Orb.
The blood oath.
The bond.
And everything went to shit.
For months, blaming the bond had been convenient. Ancient magic. Fae instinct. A blood oath neither of us had asked for. It explained the constant awareness. The hunger. The way her fear became mine and her anger burned beneath my skin. The instinct to protect her, touch her, keep her close.
Except I’d known for a long time that it was bullshit.
The bond had intensified what was already there.
It hadn’t created it.
And it sure as fuck hadn’t made me fall in love with her.
I’d managed that catastrophe entirely on my own.
Fuck.
I loved Ava Pyreson.
I loved her smart mouth. Her temper. The way she threw herself headfirst into danger and somehow expected everyone else to keep up. I loved the way she challenged me, the way she laughed, the way she looked at every dark piece of me I’d allowed her to see and never once fucking flinched.
Somewhere along the way, the mission had stopped mattering.
She mattered.
And now, when she woke, she was going to hate me.
The bond stirred faintly beneath my ribs.
I froze.
Still asleep.
For now.
I set the glass down before I shattered it.
I’d imagined telling her the truth a hundred different ways. Slowly. Carefully. On my terms, maybe, because apparently I was still arrogant enough to think I could control how something like this unfolded.
I’d imagined her screaming at me.
Threatening me.
Probably setting something I owned on fire.
That I could handle.
What I hadn’t imagined was this.
Ava waking in Isereth, restrained by magic, surrounded by a world she’d been taught didn’t exist.
And realizing I had known.
Every fucking second she’d known me.
Her rage I could survive. I’d earned it.
It was everything before the rage that terrified me.
The recalculation.
She’d go back through every moment we’d shared and pull it apart. Every sparring match. Every stolen look. Every kiss. Every secret. Every time my shadows had behaved in ways an Umbra wielder’s shadows shouldn’t.
Every lie.
Veyari.
Safely extinct.
Monsters from history books and bedtime stories.
Except we weren’t extinct.
And eventually, she’d reach the question I’d been trying not to think about all fucking night.
Was Asher even real?
My fingers tightened around the glass.
She could hate me for lying. Hate me for bringing her here. Hate me for every truth I’d kept buried.
But if she looked at me and wondered whether every touch had been manipulation, whether every kiss had been part of the mission...
Whether I love you had been another lie...
That would destroy me.
Because those words had been the truest thing I’d ever given her.
Go to her.
I stared into the dying fire.
I would.
When she woke, I’d be there.
No disappearing into shadows. No carefully constructed half-truths. She could scream. She could rage. She could tell me she never wanted to see my face again.
I’d stand there and take every fucking piece of it.
I owed her that much.
Zya shifted at the edge of my consciousness, her displeasure rolling through our connection.
"You should have told her."
I grimaced. "Your support is overwhelming."
Silence.
Fantastic.
Even my own boundling thought I was an asshole.
I was reaching for the decanter when the door opened without a knock.
Of course.
Nobody entered my rooms without knocking. Nobody except the one male alive who considered a locked door a personal insult.
“Well, hello, brother.”
I closed my eyes.
Of fucking course.
“Khai.”
I turned.
He stood in the doorway like he’d been invited, lean, gilded, and insufferable. His pale eyes swept over the room, taking in the dying fire, the whiskey, the state of my hair.
Then me.
His mouth curved.
“You look terrible.”
“Get out.”
He stepped inside instead.
Naturally.
“I crossed an ocean and that’s the greeting I get?”
“I didn’t ask you to come.”
“No. You rarely ask for anything. It’s one of your more irritating qualities.”
“Khai.”
His gaze dropped to the whiskey. “Drinking alone?”
“I was enjoying it until recently.”
“Liar.”
I glared at him.
His smile widened.
Then his attention shifted downward.
Toward Ava.
Every shadow in the room went still.
“Don’t.”
One brow rose. “I didn’t say anything.”
“You were thinking.”
“I do that occasionally.”
“Whatever it was, stop.”
His mouth twitched. “I only wanted to meet our guest.”
“No.”
“No?”
“You’re not going anywhere near her.”
Khai stared at me.
Really stared.
Then something changed in his expression.
“Oh.”
I hated that fucking oh.
“What?”
His mouth slowly curved.
“Oh, brother.”
“Finish that sentence and I’ll throw you through the window.”
“You love her.”
The room went silent.
I stared at him.
Khai stared back.
Then the bastard grinned.
“Fuck off.”
A laugh escaped him. “You do.”
“I’m not discussing this with you.”
“You don’t have to. Your face is doing a spectacular job.”
I reached for my glass. “Did you cross an ocean solely to irritate me?”
“No.” He glanced toward the floor again. “But watching you drink yourself stupid because you’re terrified she’s going to hate you has certainly made the journey worthwhile.”
“I said fuck off.”
“You are absolutely fucked.”
“I’m aware.”
Then the blood bond changed.
I stopped breathing.
Something flickered through it, faint at first. A disoriented pulse of awareness that had me setting the glass down before I dropped it.
She was waking.
I felt the exact moment consciousness found her.
Confusion came first, heavy and muddled with sleep. Then discomfort sharpened into pain as she moved against the magical restraints holding her.
My jaw clenched.
Fear followed.
It tore through the bond so suddenly that every shadow in the room went still.
“Asher?”
I barely heard Khai.
I could feel her searching. Trying to understand where she was. Why she couldn’t move. Why unfamiliar magic held her in place.
Then came the realization.
And with it, hurt.
Gods.
My hand closed around the edge of the table.
It wasn’t physical. I almost wished it were. I could survive pain. I could survive her fire tearing through my skin and burning me down to fucking bone.
This was worse.
Betrayal flooded the bond.
Hers.
Because of me. It hit so hard I forgot how to breathe.
Every fear I’d spent the night drowning in whiskey was suddenly there between us. Whatever she was seeing, whatever she was beginning to understand, was tearing through every piece of trust she’d given me.
Ava.
I reached for her through the bond without thinking.
The response nearly brought me to my knees.
Hurt. Fear. Betrayal.
And beneath it all, something beginning to burn.
Rage.
Not the familiar anger I’d spent months provoking just to watch those golden-brown eyes ignite. This was different.
Colder. Deeper. Rage born from heartbreak.
I pushed away from the table.
“She’s awake.”
Khai’s pale blue eyes gleamed.
Then the bastard smiled.
Slowly.
Wickedly.
“Good luck, brother.”
He leaned against the doorway, looking entirely too pleased with himself.
“It’s so good to be home.”