His hand tightens on my neck, just enough to blur the world, to tilt it sideways. Colors smear. Sound drops away. All that’s left ishim.Inside me. Around me.Consuming me.
When I cum, it’s violent. My body locks up, then trembles. He doesn’t stop. He keeps going until I’m crying silent, gasping sobs of pleasure too deep to make a sound. He only lets go when I start to black out.
Then he flips me. Lifts me onto the table. Pushes his cock back in from below. Fucks me while I’m wrecked and open and limp. My eyes stay on his. And I don’t look away.
His climax hits like a detonation. He spills into me with a groan torn from his chest, head thrownback, muscles shaking. When it’s over, he collapses forward, pressing his forehead to mine. We’re both soaked in sweat, blood, and spit. Our bodies are still joined. Our souls are still snarling. I stroke the side of his face and whisper, “Death didn’t touch what’s yours.”
He opens his eyes. Dark. Certain. “No,” he breathes, voice so low it’s almost a growl. “But hewantedto.” His hands drag over my ribs, my stomach, my hips, searching for proof. “Where did he touch you?” he snarls.
“He didn’t.”
“Don’t fucking lie.”
“I’m not…”
He grabs my chin, tilts my face up. “Then why can I feel it?”
19
Burn What Remains
The table’s still warm beneath me, it’s the kind of warmth that lingers after something violent, after the pulse stops pounding and the air settles like ash. One of the legs is cracked, tilted just enough that my weight makes the whole thing tilt slightly to the side.
There’s blood smeared across the wood in a slow, drying arc. Not enough to cause panic. Just enough to mark it. Like a seal. Like a vow made in sweat and ruin.
Riven stands across the room with his back to me, one hand braced against the counter, the other curled into a fist tight enough to tremble. He’s still shirtless, still dripping from the storm he walked through to get here, but the heat that used to pour off him is gone. What’s left is a different kind of pressure, one that makes the air feel heavier, like it’s waiting to collapse.
He’s not speaking, just breathing in that controlled, clipped way that says he’s either holding himself together…or about to come apart.
I don’t speak. I don’t cover myself. The towel he tossed onto the table is balled under my hip, untouched.
I sit up slowly, my muscles aching in ways that aren’t unpleasant. I can still feel the sting of his blade, a thin line carved into the skin of my thigh, and the dull ache in my throat from the brutal way he took my mouth like it owed him something. And maybe it did. Maybe I wanted it to.
I don’t regret any of it. But that doesn’t mean I’m not changed.
He doesn’t look at me when he speaks. His voice is low, like he’s trying not to wake something. “I felt him before I saw you.”
I blink slowly. My body’s humming. My heart hasn’t settled into place since he touched me, not Riven.Vale“You mean Death.”
He nods, just once. A shallow movement that barely registers. “It’s like standing on a fault line. Right beforethe quake. Everything stills with restraint. The kind that knows it won’t last.”
I swing my legs off the table and stand barefoot on the wood floor, staring at him. “You sound like you respect him.”
He doesn’t move. Doesn’t flinch. “You don’t live this long without learning what deserves your fear.”
I take a step toward him, my voice barely a whisper. “Do I?”
This time he does look at me, over his shoulder, eyes rimmed in shadow and heat, expression unreadable. “Yes.” The word lands between us like a drawn blade.
I don’t stop. I close the distance slowly, the floor cold under my feet, my pulse a steady drumbeat beneath the surface of my skin. “You’re afraid of me.”
“No,” he says quietly. “I’m afraid for you.”
“Same thing.”
His mouth curves, not a smile. More like a crack in stone. “No. It isn’t.”
He turns fully now, arms still braced behind him, like he doesn’t trust himself to reach for me. “You’re not whatwe thought,” he says. “You’re not a tool…and you’re surely not a warning. You’re a fucking anomaly.”
