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But Riven doesn’t stop. He doesn’t even falter.
Instead, his breath slows, steady, measured, too measured. His pupils dilate, body thrumming with something raw and untethered, something unstoppable. The shift in the air is palpable, thickening with the heat of his Wrath as it unfurls inside him like a living thing.
“Oh, good,” I mutter under my breath, already bracing myself for what comes next. “This is gonna go great.”
Lucien barely spares me a glance, eyes fixed on the fight. “Let him burn through it.”
“Uh-huh,” I say dryly, already calculating how the fuck we’re going to pull him back from this. “And when he decides we’re all enemies?”
Lucien doesn’t answer because he knows what I know. We have seen this before. The deeper Riven sinks into his Wrath, the harder it is for him to claw his way back. It’s power, but it’s also destruction. And right now, he’s past the point of pulling back.
The creature lunges again, its massive form a blur of shifting limbs and gleaming fangs, but this time Riven doesn’t move to block. He doesn’t dodge. He takes the hit.
Claws rip through his ribs, tearing skin and muscle, but instead of stopping him, it feeds him. The more pain he endures,the stronger he becomes, every injury fueling the storm inside him, twisting agony into raw, uncontested power. His body absorbs it all, bending it into something monstrous, something even the creature itself doesn’t seem to recognize.
And then, he roars.
The sound is not human. It is a war cry, a promise, a declaration of ruin. It shudders through the ruins, shakes the ground beneath our feet, and the creature flinches.
For the first time, it hesitates.
But hesitation is fatal.
He swings his blade in a wide, vicious arc, and this time, it doesn’t just cut, it destroys. The sheer force of the blow rips through the creature’s body, tearing through the thick, writhing mass as if it were nothing but mist. A sickening, wet sound follows as the beast shudders, splitting apart, unraveling beneath the weight of his fury.
And Riven doesn’t stop.
His blade comes down again, and again, relentless, each strike fueled by the storm inside him, by the Wrath that has already consumed him whole.
Luna steps forward, lips parted, watching him like she’s never seen him before. Maybe she hasn’t. Not like this. Not unbound. Not like a weapon that doesn’t know when to stop swinging.
Her fingers twitch at her sides, indecision flickering behind her gaze. She knows, we all know, that if this goes on much longer, he won’t know the difference between what he’s fighting and us.
I exhale sharply, rubbing my jaw, already exhausted. “Alright,” I say, flicking my gaze toward her. “Someone get ready to put him down before he starts swinging at the rest of us.”
Luna doesn’t hesitate. She moves like a wildfire, fast, reckless, unstoppable.
She doesn’t calculate the risk like Lucien would, doesn’t think through the hundred different ways this could go horribly, irreversibly wrong. She just acts, her body a blur of motion as she throws herself at Riven’s back.
And for a split second, I swear time stops.
His blade is already mid-swing, coated in the thick, inky remains of whatever the hell that thing was. His body isn’t his own anymore, consumed by the Wrath that burns through him like an unquenchable fire, like a storm that only grows more violent the longer it’s left unchecked. His breathing is too even, too controlled for someone who’s supposed to be bleeding, supposed to be human. The longer he stays in this state, the harder it is to reach him, to pull him back before he stops recognizing us.
And yet, Luna doesn’t stop.
She collides with him, arms locking around his shoulders, legs wrapping around his waist with all the grace of someone who knows exactly what she’s doing and none of the survival instinct to back it up. The impact sends them both staggering, her weight throwing him off-balance for the first time since he entered this berserker’s state.
A sound rips from his chest, low and guttural, somewhere between a growl and a snarl, and for one sharp, deadly moment, he turns on her.
His body moves on instinct, his hand shifting to strike, but it never lands.
Because it’s Luna.
His bond recognizes her even if his mind doesn’t.
Instead of tearing her apart, instead of tossing her off him like an insect, his body locks up. His muscles tense, his grip on his blade tightens to the point of shaking, his breath turning ragged, uneven. It’s as if the Wrath inside him is at war with itself,fighting between the compulsion to destroy and the binding that ties him to her, the bond that tells him, mine, mine, mine.
And then she speaks.