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“You know this isn’t how I wanted this to go,” he says, voice quiet, almost careful.

“No one gives a shit what you wanted,” I snap. “You didn’t stop it. None of us did.”

“I wasn’t given a choice.”

“There’s always a choice.”

“Easy to say when yours isn’t being dragged through you like barbed wire.”

Iknow. Branwen’s grip isn’t soft. It’s invasive. Ittwists. But hearing him say it, hearing that edge of pain slip through his perfect mask—it fuckinggrates. Because I’m the one who gets to be angry. That’s my role. He’s supposed to be above it. Cool. Collected. Superior.

Nothuman.

But right now, flat beneath me, chest heaving with the effort of not clawing his own power back, Lucien Virelius lookshuman as hell.

I don’t ease up. I don’t trust the space between us.

He shifts once under me, not to fight—just to feel it. My weight. The reminder that even he can be brought down. And itkillshim. That’s what’s fucking with him more than anything. Not the dirt. Not the wound. Not even Branwen’s magic. It’sme.

He doesn’t like being beneath anyone.

Especiallynot me.

“Get off,” he mutters finally, voice low, embarrassed.

“Say please.”

He growls under his breath. “Go fuck yourself.”

“Tempting,” I reply, pushing off him with a grunt, standing slow, not offering a hand. “But I’ve got better things to do. Like making sure Luna doesn’t get gutted while you have your existential breakdown.”

“All you need to do is tire us out,” he says, spitting blood like punctuation, like the taste of iron might buy him enough seconds to get clever again. Lucien’s tone is razor-flat, but behind it—beneath that veneer of calm that only cracks when he's bleeding—he’s almost impressed. That pisses me off more than it should.

I roll my shoulder, feeling the dull throb from where his knee had caught me earlier. I didn’t notice it in the heat. I only feel it now that the adrenaline's thinning and the Hollow’s quieted enough to breathe again. There’s always a moment after combat where you can hear your own body screaming at you, accusing you of ignoring it.

“I’m working on that,” I grunt, letting my gaze sweep the fractured battlefield.

It’s chaos—coiled and beautiful in the way ruin always is. The Hollow bears our weight, but it’s changing beneath our feet. Magic scars the ground in etched sigils and broken stone. Blood paints the grit in streaks of memory, and the air smells like the aftermath of something we should’ve never started.

Lucien shifts behind me, slow and careful like he knows I’m still too keyed up to trust.

I don’t turn back to him. I drag a breath down into my lungs. It catches at the edges, sharp with smoke and frustration.

“Where’s Caspian?”

“Ambrose has him,” Lucien says.

“Great,” I mutter. “That’s definitely not going to get complicated.”

Lucien’s laugh is low, bitter, more exhale than sound. “Everything’s complicated now.”

He’s not wrong. But it still grates. I don’t like hearing it fromhim. Not while he’s still pulling himself upright, brushing dirt off his coat like we didn’t just try to kill each other.

Lucien doesn’t say it like he expects resistance. He says it like he’s already three moves ahead, like he knows my decision before I’ve made it. There’s no edge to his voice, no urgency. Just the kind of precision that always makes me want to punch him. He doesn’t command. He places pieces.

“Go,” he says. “She’s focused on Orin. You’ve got one shot.”

I don’t waste time with questions. I nod—once—and I take off before I can second-guess it.