Page 14 of The Scars of War (Of Ruin and Fire #1)

A Memory Not Her Own

I wake up standing, which should be the first sign that I’m not awake at all.

Something about the room is unsettling. The angles don’t match.

The corners stretch like shadows that don’t know when to stop.

There’s no ceiling, just light. White and endless and humming.

Like a sterile heaven. I blink, and the floor beneath me flickers.

It becomes tile. Then dirt. Then something slick like blood. My boots leave no sound.

I start walking. It’s all I know to do. Each door I pass has no handle, just a thin slit of darkness at the edges, like they’ve been sealed shut by something that doesn’t want them open. Or worse, something waiting inside.

I glance behind me. The hallway has changed. It’s not white anymore. It’s stone. Wet and black. The hospital lights crackle overhead, then turn red, like something out of a surgical horror film. The sounds of water dripping echoes like a metronome.

Then I see it. A figure on the floor, slumped, twisted. A body. Its face is smooth. Blank like a mannequin. Blood drips from its chest in slow motion. Thick. Coagulated. Too dark.

I take a step back.

My body won’t move. My voice won’t work. I’m pinned to something slick and cold. I can hear someone breathing—frantic, wet, choked.

“Please…” “I didn’t mean, fuck, I didn’t mean to, please…”

The voice breaks off into a sob. A gasp. A rattle that means too late . I try to look. Try to scream. I see my hands around his throat. Squeezing. Something shifts above me and I feel a presence.

He steps into the flicker of firelight. Tall. Pale. Smoke and shadows wrapped in the shape of a man. His hair glints silver. His glasses catch the flames. And his eyes…I know those fucking eyes. Not warm. Not cruel. Just cold .

He kneels beside the boy. Doesn’t touch him. Doesn’t rush. Just tilts his head like he’s curious about how the body’s breaking.

Then, softly, like a prayer or a curse… “Necrose.”

The word coils into my blood like venom. Every inch of me seizes. I feel it. Like it was waiting inside me. Waiting to be called awake.

The boy stops breathing. Dead. Gone.

The man lifts his gaze to mine. He doesn’t smile.

He just watches me. Like he knows something I don’t.

Like I belong to a story I haven’t been told yet.

His voice is quiet. Too quiet. “You’re late.

” I try to move. To run. To wake the fuck up.

His hand lifts, slow, reaching for my face.

“You’ll understand soon.” Then everything fractures.

I wake up choking on a scream in a bed I don’t recognize.

I know the ceiling. Black wood, carved with spirals.

The scent of smoke still lingers from a fireplace that’s long gone cold.

Riven’s mansion. I’m back in his bed. I can still hear Elias in my mind…

that word scraping the inside of my brain like it belongs there .

Necrose.

And my hands…fuck. They’re wet. Bright red blood coating my fingers, smeared across my wrist and under my nails. I throw the covers off and stumble to the edge of the bed, breathing hard. The air in the room is too still. Too sharp. Like it’s been holding its breath with me.

My reflection in the glass wall looks like something unfinished. Eyes wide. Hair tangled. Skin pale except where the blood stains it. And it’s not mine. I don’t feel pain. I don’t see a wound. I remember it.

Fingers wrapped tightly around his throat. The scream followed by complete silence. I stagger backward, still wrapped in the sheets, hitting the edge of the desk with a crack. My palm leaves a red smear across the wood

“Lux.” His voice cuts through the panic like a blade.

I turn. Riven stands in the doorway, barefoot, shirtless, his pants slung low on his hips like he rolled out of bed the second he felt something change.

His eyes lock to mine, then drop to my hands.

He crosses the room in three long strides and grabs my wrists.

His grip is tight. Too tight. I let him.

“This isn’t yours,” he mutters, scanning me for wounds. “You’re not hurt. ”

“I saw it. I saw everything.”

“What did you see?”

“A boy. Dying. Blood. I was the one…I was…” My voice cracks.

He exhales slowly, dark eyes narrowing. “He’s already inside,” Riven says, more to himself than to me. “I thought we had more time.”

“Who?”

“Elias.” The name drops like poison in my throat. “This is his work,” Riven says. “Dreams. Visions. Echoes. He doesn’t touch your body. He touches your mind .”

“Why?” My voice trembles. “What does he want?” Riven steps closer, wiping my hands with a towel pulled from the desk.

“He wants to know if you’ll survive the unraveling.”

“What unraveling?”

His gaze is quiet. Heavy. “ You. ”

I should be afraid of all the blood, the dream, or the fact that my mind seems like it is no longer mine. All I can feel is him. Riven.

He doesn’t ask. He decides. He scoops me up, sheets and all, and carries me out of the room. I barely register the hall, the turn, the marble floor beneath his feet. My heart’s still thrashing, my skin crawling.

I can hear the water as it starts running.

Hot. Fast. The hiss of steam hits the air.

We’re in a massive, black-tiled bathroom.

The light is dim, but the heat is immediate.

The glass shower fogs before he even steps inside.

He sets me down gently and peels the ruined fabric from my body.

“You need this,” he mutters. The water hits, scorching, cleansing.

I gasp and brace against the tile. Blood runs down my thighs in red ribbons, swirling down the drain.

Riven steps in behind me and presses against my back.

“I’m not scared,” I whisper, even though I fucking am.

“You should be.” His hands trail up my sides. Slow. Deliberate.

“Riven…”

“You’re safe,” he says against my ear. “He’s not here. I am.”

I suck in a breath and turn to face him as steam curls through his hair, eyes dark and locked on mine.

“Let me feel something real,” I whisper.

He starts to respond, but I’m already dropping to my knees.

Tile cold under my skin. Steam rolling around me.

I look up at him as I run my hands up his thick, muscular legs.

His cock is already hard, thick, flushed, demanding.

My mouth waters. I take him in without a word.

His breath hitches. One hand slams against the glass wall above us, the other gripping my soaked hair “Fuck…” I hollow my cheeks and work him deep, tongue swirling, letting the water hit my back as I choke down every inch.

He looks down at me like I’m something unholy.

I moan around him, and that’s when his control snaps.

“You little fucking…” He pulls out with a growl, drags me to my feet, spins me, and shoves me face-first into the tile.

“You want real?” he snarls. “I’ll give you something real.

” He slams into me from behind. No buildup, no softness, just pure brutal claiming.

I gasp, and his hand wraps around my throat. Not squeezing. Yet. “Say it.”

“Fuck…”

“Say. It.”

“I’m yours,” I rasp.

“Louder.” He tightens just slightly, his thumb under my jaw, fingers curled against my throat, and thrusts again. Harder .

“I’m yours,” I scream. “Fuck, I’m yours .”

The water beats against my back. His hips slam into me again and again, pace vicious and perfect.

My palms splay on the tile. My vision blurs.

I don’t want soft. I want this. Ruin wrapped in muscle and control.

He bites my shoulder. His other hand slips around to rub my clit, fast and cruel and perfect.

I cum hard, legs shaking, throat tight, and he keeps going.

He fucks me through it like I’m not made of flesh but flame, and he’s trying to douse the fire and stoke it at the same time.

When he finally lets go, it’s with a growl that shakes my bones.

He spills inside me with one savage thrust, then rests his forehead to the back of my neck.

We’re both panting. Steam clouds the room.

My pulse thrums everywhere. For a second, we just breathe.

The shower thunders down. His arm slides around my waist “You're still here,” he says, voice low.

“Barely.”

“That’s enough.”

I towel off like it matters. Like the bloods really gone. Riven hands me a clean shirt, one of his, silk, and I pull it on without meeting his eyes. He doesn’ t say a word as he leads me back through the mansion. Barefoot and half-wrapped in silk, and the heat from the steam.

We pass through the front atrium and into that hallway again. The one with the glass cases. I slow my steps, staring into the display of ruin, the crown still shattered, that knife still glinting with memory. “You ever wonder,” I murmur, “if all of this is your confession?”

Riven doesn’t answer. He stops at the black door at the end of the hall, touching his hand to the center.

The lock clicks open. It’s the same room, the one where he first cornered me and I stood my ground.

Now, I walk in first. I cross to the desk.

He doesn’t tell me to sit, so I don’t. “Who is he?” I ask, voice calm.

Too calm. “Elias,” he says, simply. “Pestilence.”

“That’s not a name. That’s a fucking omen.”

“So is yours.”

I flinch, just slightly. Enough. Riven crosses the room, picks up a decanter, and pours two fingers of something dark and expensive into a crystal glass. He hands it to me, but I don’t drink it. “You knew he’d get in my head,” I say. “You knew what he’d show me.”

“I knew he’d try. I didn’t think he’ d succeed so soon.”

“Then why the hell didn’t you stop it?”

“Because I’m not the one he answers to.”

I stare him down. Hard. “So who the fuck do you answer to?”

Riven smiles. “No one. That’s the problem.” The silence crackles.

Outside, the wind picks up. A tree limb scrapes against glass, unleashing haunting wails through the nearly deserted halls. “Elias sent me a word,” I say suddenly. His head tilts up, sharp.

“What?”

“In the dream. One word. Latin. I think”

“What was it?”

“Necrose”

His body stills. The glass in his hand tightens just slightly, not enough to crack. “That’s not just a word,” he says. “It’s a sentence.”

“What does it mean?”

He meets my eyes, dark and steady. “It means rot. Not just decay, but willful destruction. From the inside out.”

“And he said it like he knew me.”

Riven nods once. “Because he does.”