The words sting more than I expect. “You make it sound like I’m a mistake.”
“You’re not. You’re the correction.”
I stop a breath away from him. The blood is still drying on my thigh. My hair’s still tangled from his hands. There’s a part of me that wants to curl into him. Let him pretend we’re whole. But we’re not.
We never were.
“You’ve been hiding something,” I say. His silence is answer enough. “The prophecy,” I continue. “What does it actually say?”
He closes his eyes like the weight of it is trying to break through his chest. “It doesn’t say your name. But it describes you. A woman born outside the line. A convergence point. A vessel. A key.”
“A key to what?”
His voice is barely audible now. “To all of us.”
I stare. “So, I’m not just connected to you.”
“No.”
I swallow. My hands are shaking now, but I don’t let him see it. “Elias. Vale. Famine. All of them?”
“Yes.”
I back away slowly, each step like peeling off skin. “You knew.”
“I suspected.”
“You knew.” I’m not yelling, but my voice is sharp enough to slice. “You used me.”
He finally moves, steps forward, closes the space like he’s walking into a fire he’s already decided he deserves. “No. I tried to keep you from them. I thought if I could hold you long enough, mark you deep enough, it might delay the pull. But you’re not something that can be kept.”
I feel the heat rise behind my eyes.Rage. “You should have told me.”
He stops inches away. Looks down at me with something close to guilt, but not close enough. “I didn’t want to lose you.”
“You never had me.”
The silence that follows is worse than the fight because it’s honest. He lifts a hand, brushes a knuckle down theside of my face like he’s already memorizing the parts he’ll have to let go. “You’re unraveling,” he whispers. “And I don’t know what comes next.”
I lean into his touch, just for a second. Just enough to feel the power behind his pulse. Then I step back. “I do,” I say. He blinks; I meet his gaze dead-on. “I burn.”
The silence snaps.The crack is sharp. Real. A sound that doesn’t belong in a place that was just holding the shape of an almost-truth between two bodies.
Then a second sound follows, the unsteady slam of a fist. Flesh on wood. Bone on something harder.
I’m already moving before Riven curses under his breath. His whole frame shifts, tension recoiling from spine to shoulder like a blade being drawn. He doesn’t hesitate. Doesn’t stop to explain.
“Clothes. Now,” he snaps. His voice is steel, no room for argument.
By the time I drag on yesterday’s jeans, he’s at the door. The lock turns. Not careful, not cautious. He throws it wide like he already knows what’s waiting.
A man stands there, staggering, his weight pressed into the frame. His sleeve is in ribbons, his chest darkwith blood. One word leaves him before he collapses forward—
“Breached.”
Riven catches him before he hits the floor. His jaw is stone, his voice colder. “Where?”
The man’s eyes flutter, but he gets the word out again. “The mansion…”
