Page 22 of The Scars of War (Of Ruin and Fire #1)

His face is carved from something older than beauty, but I still register it, not out of instinct, but out of need.

He’s devastating. Elegant and severe, the kind of gorgeous that doesn’t beg for attention because it already owns it.

A jaw built for silent judgements. A mouth that looks like it’s never whispered comfort, only truths. And eyes…

God, his eyes.

They carry the weight of endings and the quiet promise that you’re next.

He doesn’t blink; he doesn’t speak. Until he does.

“Lux.”

My name lands like it belongs in his mouth. It doesn’t sound like a greeting. It sounds like a claim. I don’t answer at first. My throat tightens, but I manage enough sound to push a whisper through it. “Who are you?”

His gaze never wavers. His mouth doesn’t twitch. “Death,” he says simply. “Vale.” It’s not a threat or a title. It’s a truth laid bare between us, stark and unadorned. Like he’s telling me the sky is blue, or the sea is deep.

And something inside me folds inward. Because the name doesn’t just land, it fits, like I’ve known it all along. Like some buried part of me has been saying it in dreams I’ve never remembered .

He steps forward again. Smooth. Measured. Like the laws of movement don’t apply to him, they ask for his permission. I don’t move because it doesn’t feel like I’m in danger; it feels like I’m under judgment.

His gaze moves over me, slow and clinical. Like he’s trying to locate the place where I stop being me and start being something else. “I’m not here to hurt you,” he says. The words land like a promise already fulfilled. And I believe him.

Death doesn’t hurt you; it’s just final. He brings an end.

“You’ve been watching me,” I say, trying to sound level.

“Yes.”

“For how long?”

His head tilts, just slightly. “Always.” The word could’ve sounded poetic. Romantic, even. But coming from him? It sounds like a sentence. Like I’ve never actually been alone, just waiting to be claimed.

I should be panicking. My brain should be clawing at escape plans. My body should be laced with adrenaline. It isn’t because none of this feels foreign. It feels like inevitability. Like the moment before a candle dies, where the flame flickers, then folds.

He raises his hand again, slower this time, and brushes something invisible from my cheek. His glove just grazes smoothly.

There’s nothing there, but my knees buckle, and he catches me.

Not rough, not possessive… just sure. One steady palm pressed against my shoulder like he’s been doing this for centuries.

“You’re unraveling,” he says quietly. I nod.

Not because I agree…but because denial feels irrelevant at this point. “You’re not alone.”

The words should feel comforting. They don’t. Because they’re not comfort. They’re context. “Why not?” I ask. My voice sounds far away, like it’s had to travel through something thick to get to him.

“Because you’ve reached the edge.”

“Edge of what?”

His eyes flick toward the room. “Of yourself.”

I want to laugh. A sharp breath of disbelief catches in my chest. Because he’s not wrong. I’ve changed. I don’t know when it started, or how far it’s gone, but I can feel it in my bones now. In the way the world folds when I walk into it. In the way people look at me, like I’m becoming.

I used to be a girl behind a bar. Now I’m something that they watch. The horsemen. The shadows. The veil. And now Death himself.

He leans in, just slightly. The air around him bites with a chill—not physical, but carved from existence. The void where his breath should be whispers against my skin like a secret. “I’m not here to claim you,” he says.

My breath stutters. “Then why?”

His lips barely move, but the words cut like they were carved into stone. “I’m here to see what you become.”

It doesn’t sound like hope. It sounds like design. Like this was always going to happen, and I’m just catching up to the story. I don’t know what expression crosses my face, but his lips tilt. The barest echo of a smile. Like he already knows how the story ends.

Then he’s gone, no shift in the air or blur of movement. It’s just silence where his presence used to be.

And on the floor, a single black feather. The only evidence that the moment ever happened. Without it, it would be as if he was never here. Like I imagined it all .

I didn’t imagine anything. The cold still clings to my bones…but the flame in my chest? It burns.

The feather smolders on the floor. Not visibly. There’s no flame or smoke. There is just the lingering heat of something impossible. It pulses with a slow, dark energy that curls the edges inward like it’s folding into itself, like it’s being unmade from the inside out.

I don’t touch it…I don’t even want to look at it. Because I know if I do, I’ll feel it again.

Him.

And I don’t think I’ll come back the same.

The apartment is too quiet. It’s the silence left behind after a storm.

The couch doesn’t hold me when I sit. It braces.

I sink back and stare at the ceiling, legs drawn to my chest, arms wrapped around them like a barricade.

My skin still remembers his touch, cool and light as ash.

My shoulder tingles where his hand steadied me, and for a sick second, I want it back.

I want that stillness again. That clarity.

I know what he left behind.

Permission.

To break. To burn. To become .

And just when I start to come apart, the door swings open slowly like it resents being used.

There is no knock because Riven doesn’t fucking knock. He fills the door frame and then crosses the threshold like it is his and I’m the one intruding in his space.

His hair is soaked, curls plastered to his brow, jaw clenched so tight it’s a miracle it hasn’t splintered. His coat swings open like wings as he stalks inside, boots thudding heavy, slow, inevitable.

He’s a storm in a tailored shell.

And his eyes? They find me in an instant. And freeze .

He smells it. The ghost of another. Death’s touch still lingering like a bruise beneath my skin. I stare him down. “Thought you left,” I say quietly, voice steady.

His jaw ticks. “I did.”

“But you came back.”

He doesn’t answer. He doesn’t need to. His eyes drop to my neck.

The skin still tingles where Vale’s voice brushed it. “You let him in,” Riven growls, voice dark, thick with something feral .

“He didn’t hurt me.”

“That’s not what I fucking asked.”

I stand. I want to feel tall in front of him, even if I’m seconds from getting wrecked. “He didn’t touch what’s yours.”

Riven’s across the room in two steps, hand in my hair, yanking my head back until I’m forced to look up at him. “Yes,” he breathes, voice low and brutal, “He did.”

The kiss is savage. It isn’t foreplay. It’s retaliation. Teeth. Tongue. Heat. His mouth crashes into mine, and I taste metal…blood. Mine or his, I don’t know, and I don’t care. His fingers tighten in my hair. My scalp stings. “You taste like him,” he growls against my lips.

“No, I fucking don’t.”

“Then prove it.” He shoves me backward. I hit the wall hard enough to knock a picture frame loose. It crashes to the floor. I don’t look. I don’t breathe.

He’s already unbuttoning his pants, watching me with eyes that don’t blink. That burn. “You want soft?” he asks.

“No.”

He fists my hair, tugs hard until I drop to my knees. “Then open your mouth and prove it.” I do .

He slides his cock over my tongue with no warning, no hesitation. The taste of him is all salt and heat, already hard, already furious. He doesn’t give me a second to adjust.

He starts to fuck my mouth like he is well aware that it’s mine but he owns it anyway .

His hand never leaves my hair. His hips move with a punishing rhythm, his cock bruising the back of my throat again and again.

I gag and moan at the same time, tears streaking down my cheeks.

He doesn’t slow. “Look at me,” he snarls, voice wild.

I do. My eyes are watering, chin soaked, jaw sore.

And he smiles like a goddamn devil. “That’s mine,” he says, thrusting deeper.

“This mouth. This throat. This fucking soul.”

I choke on him, spit trailing down my chin. My lungs scream for air. He pulls out only when my body starts to shake and my knees begin to buckle.

He drags me up by the hair, slams me against the table, chest pressed to the wood, my cheek hot against the surface. I don’t beg. I spread my legs. His fingers tear the panties from my body like they offended him. Then cold metal glints. My breath stutters. I feel the blade first .

A sharp point pressed at the top of my thigh. “You want to feel?” he asks, voice a growl against my ear. “You want to know the difference between death and me?” I don’t answer.

He drags the edge slow, a shallow line up my skin, just enough to raise blood. It beads along my thigh. And his tongue follows. I gasp, one hand clawing the table, the other fisting in my own hair.

He licks the blood clean. Not with hunger. With reverence. “You bleed for me,” he whispers. “You break for me.” He shoves two fingers inside me without warning. I scream. “Say it.”

“Fuck… Riven…” He curls them, finds that spot that makes my vision go white. “Say you’re mine.”

“I’m yours.”

He withdraws. “Louder.” He slaps my ass, hard, handprint blooming across my skin.

“I’m yours!” I scream.

He presses the blade to the small of my back, not cutting now, just reminding. Then he enters me.

His cock splits me open like he’s trying to carve his name inside. I brace on the table, fingers clawing at wood, sweat slick across my back. He fucks me like he’s mad at Death for ever thinking I could be touched by someone else.

His other hand wraps around my throat and pulls me up, flush against him. “I want you to remember this,” he growls. “Next time you feel cold. Next time he fucking whispers your name. I want you to remember who you scream for.” And then he fucks me harder.

His hand tightens on my neck, just enough to blur the world, to tilt it sideways. Colors smear. Sound drops away. All that’s left is him. Inside me. Around me. Consuming me.

When I cum, it’s violent. My body locks up, then trembles. He doesn’t stop. He keeps going until I’m crying silent, gasping sobs of pleasure too deep to make a sound. He only lets go when I start to black out.

Then he flips me. Lifts me onto the table. Pushes his cock back in from below. Fucks me while I’m wrecked and open and limp. My eyes stay on his. And I don’t look away.

His climax hits like a detonation. He spills into me with a groan torn from his chest, head thrown back, muscles shaking.

When it’s over, he collapses forward, pressing his forehead to mine.

We’re both soaked in sweat, blood, and spit.

Our bodies are still joined. Our souls are still snarling.

I stroke the side of his face and whisper, “Death didn’t touch what’s yours. ”

He opens his eyes. Dark. Certain. “No,” he breathes, voice so low it’s almost a growl. “But he wanted to.” His hands drag over my ribs, my stomach, my hips, searching for proof. “Where did he touch you?” he snarls.

“He didn’t.”

“Don’t fucking lie.”

“I’m not…”

He grabs my chin, tilts my face up. “Then why can I feel it?”