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I don’t push him.
I’ve learned better.
With Riven, pressure is a trap. A trigger. You corner him, he bolts. You dig, he buries deeper. The bond between us doesn’t change that. If anything, it makes the stakes sharper—because I can feel the storm always brimming under his skin, and if I’m not careful, I’ll be the one it breaks on.
So instead, I lean back on my elbows, let the silence stretch, and toss the grenade I’ve been sitting on all day.
“You know,” I say casually, “I walked in on Silas and Elias flexing at each other shirtless this morning.”
Riven chokes mid-sip, sputters, glares at me like I’ve just spoken an unspeakable horror into the world.
I keep my face neutral, but inside I’m already laughing. “In the mirror. Bathroom. Full-on competition. I think Elias was winning until Silas started whispering compliments to himself.”
Riven blinks. And blinks again.
Then, like the sun cutting through the Void, he huffs out a single laugh. Just one. Sharp. Dry. Butreal.
“I hate that that doesn’t surprise me.”
“Oh, it gets better.” I turn to face him now, curling one leg under me. “Elias panicked when I knocked. Couldn’t find his shirt. Silas opened the door like he was auditioning for a romance cover. I swear Elias flexed harder just to keep up.”
Riven exhales slowly, the edges of his mouth twitching. “You’re making this up.”
“You wish I was.”
He finally looks at me, really looks, and I feel it—the fracture in his armor. The way he wants so badly not to care, not to feel. But something about the idea of Elias panicking half-naked is pulling the corners of his mouth into something dangerously close to a smile.
“You’re lucky I didn’t walk in,” he mutters. “I would’ve left.”
“And missed the show?” I say sweetly. “You’d never forgive yourself.”
“I wouldn’t forgivethem.”
“You say that like they’d care.”
He grunts. “They wouldn’t.”
We fall quiet again, but it’s softer now. Warmer.
He doesn’t pull away when my shoulder brushes his. Doesn’t snap when I lean the tiniest bit closer. The bond between us pulses once, a low thrum, and for a moment, I wonder if he even realizes his body’s begun to mirror mine—elbow propped, head tilted, that one storm-wracked hand still cradling the beer he hasn’t touched in minutes.
“You think they’re okay?” I ask eventually. Not about Elias or Silas. He knows it. I know it.
Lucien. Orin.
His jaw flexes. He doesn’t answer right away, but I don’t fill the silence. I wait.
“No,” he says at last. Quiet. Flat. Honest. “But they will be.”
And somehow, that’s worse than if he’d saidno, and I’m scared shitless.
Because Riven doesn’t do hope. Doesn’t make promises unless he knows he can keep them. So if he says they will be—it means he’s already planning the cost.
And that thought?
It terrifies me.
But for now, I just lean my head on his shoulder. Let the bond stretch, thrum, settle.