Page 18 of The Scars of War (Of Ruin and Fire #1)

In Death’s Wake

I wake up wrong. Not the kind of wrong that comes with blood, screams, or hands that don’t feel like mine. No. This time I wake up and it’s wet. Sheets tangled between my thighs. Breathing fast. Throat dry. Skin flushed.

It takes me a second to realize that I’m not in Riven’s bed. I’m not in anyone’s bed. I’m on the couch in my apartment. Alone. Fully dressed in the hoodie and leggings from yesterday.

I remember being naked, with hands all over my body. A mouth at my throat…not biting, just grazing, and then hovering. A voice whispering things I couldn’t understand and still wanted to obey.

I sit up too fast. The whole room sways.

My sketchbook is open on the coffee table.

Pencil resting across the center fold. I don’t remember drawing.

There, on the page, is a perfect rendering of a hand.

Not mine. Long fingers. Elegant joints. Black veins curling up the forearm.

There’s blood on the tip of one finger. And around it?

Smudged, like I tried to erase the lines but couldn’t, are faint outlines of a throat. A jaw. My jaw.

I remember the dream now. Not all of it.

Just the feeling. I was standing in a room made of glass.

It didn’t reflect. It absorbed. Everything I was…

anger, fear, desire, pressed back against me like fogged heat behind a windowpane.

I wasn’t alone. He didn’t appear. He didn’t speak. He just was. Elias.

I couldn’t see his face, not fully. Just the glint of his wire-rimmed glasses.

The flick of his white-blond hair. The sharp lines of his suit.

He didn’t move fast. He didn’t need to. He touched my wrist. Ran a finger along my pulse point, and smiled when it skipped.

“You’re adjusting faster than I expected,” he said.

His voice wasn’t cruel. It was…clinical.

Curious, like I was the test subject and he was enjoying the results.

I tried to speak. Couldn’t. He touched my throat next.

That’s when I moaned. A low, involuntary sound, dragged from my lungs like he’d reached inside and twisted something loose.

He leaned in. Didn’t kiss me. Just breathed against my skin.

“Fever’s rising,” he whispered. He traced the shape of my mouth with one gloved fingertip.

“Let’s see how long it takes you to burn. ”

The chill runs so deep through my body, it almost feels like I'm burning. I feel it everywhere in my body now. I can’t explain the way it makes me feel, terrified that I want something more.

I want him inside me. I want to fight. I don’t.

I just stand there… trembling, aching, waiting.

Teeth chattering so loud it’s vibrating my skull.

So eager to feel more, wanting to feel every part of him. Teasing me, making me want him more.

He starts fucking me with his hands. With his words. With the way his voice coiled around my neck and pressed between my legs without even touching what it aimed to ruin.

I come back to myself gasping. Clenching. My body doesn’t know it wasn’t real. And worse? Part of me doesn’t care. I press the heel of my hand between my thighs and hate how responsive I am. My body left aching for more. How quickly my breath catches. How close I am to…

NO .

I stumble to the bathroom. Splash water on my face. Ignore the mirror. I can’t look at it. Not after what I saw last time. I strip off the hoodie. The leggings. Everything. Step into the shower and blast it cold. It helps. Until I look down and realize…

There’s a handprint on my thigh. Just above my knee. Faint, but distinct. Too long in the fingers. Exactly like the one I drew. Exactly like his.

The shower isn’t helping. Switching the temperature from cold to hot and back to cold.

I scrub until my skin stings. Until the mark on my thigh fades…

or I convince myself it does. It’s not the handprint that rattles me.

It’s the want. Because I didn’t wake up afraid. I woke up needing, and that’s worse.

I step out of the stall dripping and furious. Wrap a towel around my body. Lean into the mirror, and freeze. There’s something’s there…in my head. A sound. No, a voice. “Please.”

The word slices through the quiet like a scalpel. The unfamiliar voice that doesn’t belong to me or Riven, or even Elias. It’s a boy. Desperate. Gasping. And I know that voice. Even though I’ve never heard it before.

The world blinks. Flickers. I fall forward, but I don’t hit the counter. I hit the pavement. It’s raining. Cold, hard needles of water hammer down onto my skin. And I’m kneeling. My hands are slick. My dress… black, thin, soaked…clings to me like oil. There’s someone beneath me.

His chest rises and falls in short, sharp bursts. He’s young. Eighteen. Maybe. His eyes are wide and glassy, mouth red with blood. He tries to speak, but only a gurgle comes out. I watch him choke.

My hands are around his throat. And I don’t let go. Even when he stops breathing. Even when his body goes limp. I squeeze harder. And then…I smile. Not with joy. Not with hate. Just…curiosity. Like I’m studying what death looks like up close. Like I’m trying to decide what part of me likes it best.

The scene fractures. Glass shattering. And I’m on the bathroom floor. Gasping. Trembling. Sobbing without tears. No wounds, but there’s blood on my towel that doesn’t belong to me.

My hands shake as I reach for the counter. I pull myself up slow. Every inch of my body feels like it’s lying to me. I don’t know if that was a vision. A dream. A memory. Or something else Elias put in me. I know how it felt. Familiar and true.

I don’t know how he gets in. I don’t hear the door.

I feel the air shift. I look up from the bathroom floor and there he is.

Riven, framed in the doorway, black shirt stretched across his chest, sleeves rolled to his elbows, jaw locked tight.

His eyes sweep over me—kneeling, towel-wrapped, shaking—and something behind them fractures.

“Lux,” he says, low. Not soft but low, more like a warning. Like thunder before the sky breaks.

“I’m fine,” I rasp.

“You’re not.”

“I said…”

His hands are on me before I can finish. Pulling me up too fast. Towel slipping. Chest to chest. He cups my jaw and tilts my face toward the light, eyes scanning for wounds like he doesn’t already know where I’m broken. “You’re shaking,” he mutters. “You’re not fine.”

“I said…” I shove his chest. Hard. “I’m not fucking yours to fix.” That stops him .

His brows knit. He steps back. Just enough. “You saw him again,” he says, flatly. I don’t answer. “Elias,” he adds, like the name’s poison in his mouth. I still don’t answer. He exhales. Slow. Controlled. Too controlled. “He’s in you now.”

“No.” I cross my arms, towel barely hanging on. “He’s not in me. He’s under my skin.”

Riven’s expression darkens. “That’s worse.”

“And who’s fucking fault is that?” I snap.

“You think I wanted this for you? You think I wanted any of this?” He’s frustrated I can tell. Furious, even. “You think I wanted any of this, or that I could’ve stopped it even if I wanted to?”

“You didn’t even try!” My voice breaks like a bone under pressure. “I begged you for answers. I begged you to tell me what was happening to me, and you…what, fucked me into submission and hoped I’d stop asking questions?”

His jaw ticks. Just once. He steps forward. I don’t flinch. “I did what I had to do to keep you safe.”

“You don’t get to define what safe means for me.”

“Someone has to. ”

“Then maybe it shouldn’t be you.”

The silence between us goes sharp. And in it, something shifts.

His eyes drop to my mouth. To the towel clutched in my fists.

To the bruise just beginning to bloom at my collarbone, from the last time his teeth touched my skin.

He takes a step closer, and I stand my ground.

Another step. My breath catches. “You’re spiraling,” he murmurs.

“I’m evolving.”

“You’re dangerous.”

“I fucking hope so.”

His hand moves so fast as he fists the towel at my waist and yanks it off in one clean pull.

I’m bare in front of him. I let him look.

Let him see me. All of me. I’m not ashamed or afraid.

And sure as shit not his. “Tell me what he showed you,” Riven says, voice low, dark, churning with something that sounds too much like jealousy.

“No.”

“Lux.”

“No.”

“You don’t get to protect him. ”

I smile…slowly. Bitter. Wild. “Maybe I’m not protecting him. Maybe I’m protecting me.” With that, I slap him. Open palm and full force.

The sound cracks the air. He doesn’t move at first. Just drags in one breath, sharp and hot through his nose, like he’s trying not to lose control. And then he does.

His hands are on me in a blink, rough at my waist, yanking me forward before slamming me into the vanity so hard the perfume bottles rattle and my knees jolt against the wood. My cheek hits the mirror with a brutal kiss.

Then his hand fists in my hair and yanks my head back just enough to see my reflection, the wild mess of me, pupils blown wide, lipstick smeared where my mouth dragged against the glass. A slash of red like blood. He doesn’t pause. Doesn’t ask.

He crushes himself against me, his chest branding heat into my spine, his breath growling by my ear. One hand still tangled in my hair. The other sliding low, low, lower. Possessive. Desperate. Like he’s trying to carve himself into my skin. This isn’t soft. It’s hunger. Violence .

I use all my strength to turn my body so that we are chest to chest. And I fucking kiss him. Teeth. Tongue. Fury. Clawing at his shirt. He tears at my skin like he’s trying to find where I end and where Elias began to slip in.

I break the kiss first. Panting. Eyes wild. I say the one thing I know will ruin him. “He made me come without even touching me.” Riven freezes. Stone cold.