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My heart thunders in my chest, my body still tingling from the remnants of his emotions bleeding into mine. I could let it go,pretend along with him, ignore the way it changed something between us.
But I won’t.
Not forever.
Because for one perfect second, I felt exactly what it meant to be loved by Silas Veyd. And I’m not letting him take that away from me.
They move as one.
Lucien, Orin, Riven, Elias, and Silas, a wall of defiance, a shield of sharp edges and lethal intent. They step forward in near-perfect synchrony, bodies tensed, power thrumming beneath their skin, ready to meet whatever is about to crawl out of the shifting, rippling earth.
But it’s Lucien who moves first.
Lucien, who calculates, who never acts without reason, without knowing every possible outcome first. Lucien, who stands at my back but never at my mercy, who plays his games with the board only he can see. He is always three steps ahead, always deciding what I need before I know it myself.
And yet, he was the first.
The realization crashes into me, cold and sharp as a blade pressed to my throat. Lucien doesn’t move first unless there’s no other option. Unless he believes, even for a second, that I can’t handle what’s coming.
And that? That means something.
I take a breath, steady, even, but my pulse hammers against my ribs as the ground splits open in earnest.
From the dark maw of the Hollow, they spill out.
A tide of writhing, shifting bodies, monsters with too many limbs, too many mouths, too many eyes that gleam in unnatural hues. They move with jerky, inhuman speed, the sound of their limbs scraping against stone and dirt setting my teeth on edge. Severin’s creatures. His nightmares made flesh.
Lucien draws first. A whisper of steel and power.
Then Orin, silent, but unshakable.
Riven cracks his knuckles, a growl low and dangerous curling from his throat. A man already half a beast, already ready to sink into it.
Elias sighs, stretching his arms over his head like this is an inconvenience, like he’d rather be anywhere else but here. But I catch the way his fingers twitch at his sides, how his weight shifts to the balls of his feet, ready to strike.
And then Silas, grinning, loose, fluid. Like, this is fun for him. Like he’s been waiting for an excuse.
“Severin really can’t take a loss, huh?” Silas murmurs, spinning a dagger in one hand. “How do you still have a grudge when you’ve lived for centuries?”
“I don’t know,” Elias says, side-eyeing me. “Luna, you’re the one he’s pissed with. Maybe you should ask him?”
I roll my eyes, but before I can bite back a response, the creatures lunge.
And the Sins? They meet them head-on.
I call it to me without hesitation, a weapon forged from Wrath and Envy, summoned from the place inside me that is both hunger and fury, sharpened into something lethal. The blade hums in my grip, the weight perfect, as if it’s been waiting for my hands all along.
I shift my stance, balancing on my heels just like Riven taught me, my body coiled and ready. Stay light, stay fast. Hit first, hit hard. Make them regret thinking they could touch you.
Fine. Let them regret it.
The creatures surge forward, a tide of horror and nightmare made flesh. Their bodies contort and snap unnaturally, too many limbs bending in too many directions, their gaping maws slick with something black and viscous. The air is thick withthe scent of rot and hunger, their guttural screeches rattling through my skull.
I don’t wait for them to reach me.
I lunge. The first creature swipes, claws slashing through the space where I stood a second ago, but I move faster, Riven-fast, Wrath-fast. I twist, pivot, and rive my blade deep. Black ichor spills, sizzling where it touches the ground, and I pull free just in time to meet the next one.
To my left, Lucien is already cutting a path through them, his swordplay almost elegant, every movement measured, deliberate, controlled. A creature lunges at him from behind, but he doesn’t even turn, his shadow does the work for him, rising and skewering the thing through the chest before curling back into him like it never left.