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TWENTY-FIVE

LUCIEN

T he night was thick with fog and tension.

Lucien stood beside the dying fire, fingers stained with ink and ash, watching as the shadow raven pulsed to life in his palm. A twisted thing of smoke and intent, its wings unfurled in the shape of darkness stitched with silver threads—an Umbraclaw signature.

Evryn sat nearby, her back to the stone outcrop, knees tucked close. Her eyes hadn’t left the flame, but he could feel her watching him through it. Since the truth—since the unraveling—they hadn’t spoken much.

But nothing between them had stayed silent either.

Lucien held the tiny scroll of ciphered warning between two fingers. One for Seraphine. One for Calder. One for Malrik Sablewing—the bat shifter whose allegiance was murkier than most, but whose name still held weight in ancient courts.

He tied the threads tight.

“This won’t reach them immediately,” he murmured.

Evryn glanced up. “But it will reach them.”

Lucien nodded. “And when it does, they’ll know the stakes. That it’s not just your bloodline in danger. That if my mother gets her hands on this power, the throne won’t be the only thing she rewrites.”

Evryn swallowed. “They might not believe you.”

“They’ll believe you .”

He let the raven go.

It beat upward, scattering shadow-sparks in its wake, before vanishing into the mist.

Lucien turned back toward her, the emptiness in his chest no longer hollow, but dense —like it was being filled with something too sharp to keep carrying.

They ate in silence, half-burnt bread and dried fruit; neither of them touched much. The wind had quieted. The trees stood still. Somewhere in the distance, a nightwolf howled low and long across the fen.

Evryn lay back, arms folded behind her head, eyes on the stars.

“I never thought I’d want something after this,” she said softly.

Lucien lay beside her, close enough to feel the heat of her shoulder. “Want what?”

“A future. A life. I always thought surviving would be enough.”

Lucien stared up with her. “And now?”

She didn’t answer right away.

“Now it feels like surviving isn’t enough if it’s just me at the end of it.”

Lucien turned to look at her. She met his gaze, slow and certain.

“I tried to fight it. Lie to myself, but… You make me want something more,” she whispered.

Lucien’s chest tightened.

He reached out, brushing her fingers, slow and unsure. She curled them around his.

They moved at the same time, drawn like magnets, like tides. Their mouths met—not rushed, not furious like the last time—but steady, needing.

Lucien kissed with a need that he couldn’t hide.

Evryn kissed him like she was afraid they’d never have another night.

The stars burned cold overhead, but her skin was fever-warm under his palms. Lucien’s shadows coiled around them like living silk, insulating their makeshift bed of cloaks and pine needles.

His thumb caught on the raised scar bisecting her ribcage—a relic from her first altercation at sixteen, she’d told him a week ago, voice casual as if recounting a tavern brawl. Now, her breath stuttered.

“Still think I’m going to vanish?” Her teeth grazed his collarbone, hands sliding under his tunic. “Or are you waiting for me to sprout fangs?”

He huffed a laugh against her throat. “You already bite.”

“Only when provoked.” She nipped his earlobe to prove it, then stilled when his fingers found the knot of her leathers. A beat too long. Her pulse thrummed against his lips.

He pulled back just enough to catch her gaze. “Evryn.”

“Don’t.” Her palm pressed over his heart, steadying them both. “I’m not glass, Lucien. You won’t break me.”

“That’s not what I’m afraid of.”

Her laugh frayed at the edges. “Right. Because the assassin prince is terrified of a half-starved orphan.”

He trapped her wrist, guiding her hand lower, past the scar beneath his ribs where his mother’s blade had once slipped, past the ink sigils binding him to a throne he loathed—until her fingers splayed over the hammering truth beneath his navel. “Terrified,” he repeated, raw.

She went very still at his hardness. Then her free hand yanked him closer by the hair. “Good.”

Their foreheads collided. Clumsy. Human. Her next kiss tasted like recklessness, her hips arching into his. The laces of her trousers gave way under his shaking fingers.

“Wait.” She shoved at his shoulder, sudden enough that his shadows lashed out, gouging the earth.

He froze. “What is it?”

Her grin flashed wicked in the dark. “Boots. Unless you want to explain why your shadow-walking ass got kicked by a buckle.”

He blinked. Then barked a laugh, sharp and startled. “You’re insufferable .”

“And you’re still wearing yours.” She hooked a heel around his calf, toppling him onto his back. Pine needles clung to his hair as she straddled him, yanking at his bootlaces with theatrical fury. “Gods, do you armor your feet for battle or just to vex me?”

“Both.” He tangled a hand in her curls, tugging her mouth back to his. “Hurry up.”

She bit his lower lip. “Make me.”

The boot hit a tree trunk with a hollow thud. Her laugh dissolved into a gasp as his shadows swarmed up her bare thighs, liquid and hungry. Later, he’d map every scar. Later, she’d trace the tattoos he’d earned in service to a crown that wanted them both dead.

Her voice splintered as he slid into her, their shared breath frosting the air between desperate kisses.

“Lucien.”

His name cracked like a prayer as her hips rolled, taking him deeper.

Every ridge and scar of him pressed against her inner walls—a map of violence she traced with her body.

He’d memorized the hitch in her breath when he angled upward, the way her thighs tensed when he hit the spot that made her curse the gods.

“Look at me.” His command frayed at the edges, silver eyes burning through the dark.

Her violet gaze locked onto his, unblinking even as tears blurred her vision.

Not pain— recognition . The same raw terror that had clawed his throat when he’d found her bleeding in the fen, when he’d believed the silence of her pulse.

Her fingernails carved into his shoulders. “Harder.” A challenge, not a plea.

He obliged, hands gripping her hips as she rode him, shadows coiling around her thighs to pull her down each time she rose. Her laugh broke into a gasp. “Cheating bastard.”

“Adapting.” He thrust upward, swallowing her moan with his mouth. She tasted like stolen wine and recklessness, her skin salt and wildfire under his tongue. Her legs cinched around him, heels digging into the small of his back as if she could fuse their skeletons.

Enveloped in the heat of their passion, Evryn moved with a sinuous grace that belied the raw power coiling within her.

Each undulation of her hips drew Lucien deeper into the abyss of desire, the friction between them stoking a fire that threatened to consume them both.

He could feel the rigid length of his arousal, a testament to the exquisite torment she evoked with every roll of her body.

The knowledge that he was the architect of her undoing, the one pushing her to the precipice of ecstasy, only served to harden him further.

Her wetness, a slick sheath that enveloped him with each thrust, was a potent elixir, headier than the most potent spirits of the realm.

It was a tangible manifestation of her desire, a silken proof of her body's eager response to his touch.

Lucien's hands, ever restless, roamed the contours of her form, torn between the allure of her full, pert breasts and the temptation of her round, firm ass.

Each option presented its own temptation; her breasts, a perfect handful, beckoned his palms with the promise of her pebbled nipples grazing his skin.

Her ass, with its inviting curve, seemed to demand the firm grip of his fingers, guiding her rhythm and drawing her closer with each surge of his hips.

In the end, his hands settled on the swell of her hips, fingers digging into her soft skin as he matched her fervor, thrust for thrust. The shadows at his command danced along their entwined bodies, a dark ballet that accentuated the contrast between his pale skin and her honey-toned flesh.

The night air, cool and crisp, was a stark contrast to the furnace of their passion, yet it did nothing to douse the flames that raged between them.

Evryn's breath came in short, sharp gasps, each one a silent plea for more.

Her violet eyes, darkened with desire, locked onto his, and in their depths, he saw the reflection of his own need.

She was close, so deliciously close, to the edge he had so meticulously coaxed her toward.

And as her body began to tremble with the onset of her release, Lucien knew that he would follow her into the abyss, willingly lost in the maelstrom of their shared desire.

When her release hit, it wasn’t quiet. She threw her head back, a scream tearing loose as her body clenched around him.

He followed, spilling into her with a growl that shook the pine needles beneath them.

For a heartbeat, the world narrowed to her trembling heat, the pulse fluttering in her throat, the way her fingers tangled in his hair like an anchor.

She collapsed against his chest, breath ragged.

The fire had dwindled to embers, the night air sharp enough to sting. Yet her warmth seeped into him, a live wire humming against his skin. He shifted, tucking his cloak around her bare shoulders.

Her laughter vibrated against his chest. “Since when do assassins play nursemaid?”

“Since you’re terrible at staying clothed in freezing fens.”

Her breath evened, limbs heavy against him. The stars blurred above, indifferent witnesses. He counted her heartbeats, each thud a rebellion against the silence he’d once called peace.

Evryn traced a scar on his ribs. “When did you get this one?”

“Witchblade. Grimhart skirmish.”

“This one?”

“Training. I was fifteen. Cassian broke the rules.”

She was quiet a long moment.

Then, “He’s not going to stop, is he?”

Lucien shook his head. “No. He wants to prove I failed. That I went soft.”

Her voice was a whisper. “Did you?”

Lucien turned to face her, hand cupping her cheek saying what he’d been denying since he let himself know her. “If loving you is soft… then yeah. I did.”

She leaned into the touch, her fingers curling into the fabric at his chest.

“But if loving you means you live ,” he said, “I’d do it again.”