34
Where the Oath Falters
Riven
I stride beside Ronin toward the council chamber, refusing to glance back to be sure she’s safe. I can’t. If I see her right now—if I catch even the smallest trace of her scent—I’ll drag her back into my arms and damn everything…my oath, my control, my sanity.
But when the rift’s magic had flared and the soil split open, instinct had ruled me. Every part of me had screamed to get her out, to shield her with my body—and it wasn’t just the oath I swore to protect her. No, this thing between us is older and darker than any oath.
My arousal still throbs, a physical, maddening reminder of the taste of her lips—blueberries and honey—and the way she ground herself against me, as though she belonged there. Where had she learned to do that?
A wave of hot fury slices through me at the thought that she might have been with someone during the year she was gone. Some human . Every instinct screams to hunt him down and rip him apart. What is wrong with me?
Everything.
Because she is Caryan’s mate. And I just kissed her as if she were the only thing that could fill the hollow inside me.
And worse—she didn’t shy away from my darkness.
Fear—not for myself, but for what comes next—twists deep in my gut.
What if, when she has time to think, she no longer wants me near?
The thought is enough to make me drag a hand over my face.
Two centuries old and I feel like a boy again, wild and reckless, sick with the need for someone who might never be mine.
Ronin and I approach the towering doors of the council chamber. My blood cools instantly when I hear Caryan’s voice from within, low and commanding. The sound roots me to the floor. Ronin’s hand on my arm pulls me back before I can step inside, drawing me into a shadowed alcove.
“What?” I snap, sharper than I mean to be.
He doesn’t flinch, just holds out a shimmering stone. Magic hums against my senses, layered and complex. When I brush it with my power, it answers: a cleansing spell. One that doesn’t just remove blood or dirt—it strips away scent too.
“You should use this,” Ronin says quietly, pain flickering in his golden eyes. “If Caryan scents her on you, you won’t survive the night.”
I snatch the stone and let the spell wash over me, burning away her warmth from my skin, her sweetness from my clothes. It feels like losing her all over again. Not that I ever really had her in the first place.
“So he’s here,” I grind out, voice rough. “Finally.”
“Yes.” Ronin’s expression doesn’t change.
When the glamour fades, I move to pass him—but his hand clamps on my arm again. No one touches me like that except Caryan. Or Melody. And my voice comes out a hiss. “What?”
“You need to let her go, Riven.”
“As if I don’t know that.”
“Tonight it didn’t look like you knew,” Ronin says softly. “It didn’t feel like it either. If Caryan decides to read your blood—or mine—he’ll know exactly what happened between you two.”
His words land like a blade between my ribs.
“You think I don’t know what’s at stake?”
Ronin’s catlike eyes soften, not with judgment, but with sorrow.
“I know she makes you happy. And I’m the last one who wouldn’t want you to have that—gods know you deserve it more than most of us.
But she’s Caryan’s mate. Even if she fights it now, the bond will only get stronger.
One day, she won’t be able to resist. Not even if she wants to. ”
Ronin knows about the mating bond. He approached me a few days after I discovered what Melody is to Caryan—though he’d suspected it for some time. When he finally asked me outright, I confirmed it.
“It won’t happen again,” I growl, daring him to pull his arm away.
He doesn’t. “You’re hurting her, too, Riven. You’re making it harder for her to choose, harder for her to face what’s coming.”
I stare at him, breath caught. I haven’t even thought that far.
“I’ll let her go,” I whisper, disgusted by myself for my ignorance. He is right. Of course, he is right. But I can’t help that the words taste like the ash of a dream that’s been burned before it’s ever had a chance to live. “If that’s what makes her happy.”
He studies my face for a moment, then nods and lets me go.
We approach the council chamber side by side.
The doors swing open onto a room dominated by firelight.
A massive fireplace fills the far wall, its flames casting a warm glow that does nothing to ease the tension weighing down the air.
Before it, the great council table gleams, carved from dark oak and scarred by centuries of battles fought in words as often as steel.
And at the head of the table stands Caryan.
His presence is a storm contained within a single body— barely contained.
Power coils around him like living shadow, black as the void, pressing down on everyone in the room.
At his right hand sits Queen Daphina, her doe-eyed admiration painfully obvious—and utterly pathetic.
She doesn’t even sit at the head with him, only along the side, like every other subordinate. And worse, she accepts it.
Among fae, weakness like that gets you killed.
Caryan’s eyes—those bottomless black holes—lock on me, and my heart stills for a moment. He’s been gone for so long. There has been so little contact between us that the sight of him feels unreal. I force myself not to look away. To breathe. Then I bow.
“My Lord.”
“Riven.” His voice is cool, impersonal—as if I were nothing more than one of his subordinates. As if I had never been anything else at all. And that, his coldness, hurts far more than the months of silence ever did. “You will report what happened.”
The weight of his magic presses on my shoulders as I recount everything, sparing nothing. By the time I finish, silence blankets the room.
“The wards must be repaired immediately,” Caryan snaps, his tone sharp enough to cut.
Daphina just nods, too quickly, as though she’s grateful to be told what to do. My teeth grind. The commanders exchange wary glances.
“I will see to it myself,” Caryan says at last and the tension in the room loosens almost audibly. A few even sigh in relief.
“If the wards stay weak, Avandal will fall within the year,” he continues, voice low and lethal. “Station more soldiers near the rift. High elves only. The campus must be defended—from demons and from anyone foolish enough to cross our borders.”
His power lashes through the chamber like a whip—dark, cold—and every spine snaps straight, every head bows, every knee bends. Satisfied, Caryan turns away and strides out without a backward glance, leaving silence and submission in his wake.
Ancient gods help me—feel my oath to him no longer solid and grounding like an anchor, but heavy like an invisible chain.
I wonder when that changed.
And it terrifies me.