Page 29 of The Scars of War (Of Ruin and Fire #1)

He steps into the room like it hurts to look at me.

Like he’s afraid he’ll find something else in my place.

His eyes scan the shadows. Land on me. And stop.

His mouth doesn’t move. Not at first. Something shifts behind his eyes, a crack in the armor, a silent kind of grief.

The kind reserved for things you can’t stop from dying. I don’t say his name. I don’t have to.

He moves slowly. Controlled. That feral energy is simmering just below the surface, but leashed.

Like I’m something unholy and terrible now, and he’s unsure which side of me will speak first. “You screamed,” he says finally.

His voice is lower than usual. Stripped down. There’s no fire in it—only ash.

I drag my knees up to my chest. Let the blanket fall from my shoulders. “Did I?”

He nods once, stepping farther into the room. “I felt it. From the other side of the house. It shook the foundation.”

“It wasn’t pain,” I murmur.

“No. It wasn’t.” He stops at the edge of the bed, like there’s a line there he’s not sure he’s allowed to cross. I tilt my head. Study him.

“Were you afraid I wouldn’t come back? ”

“I was afraid you would.” He exhales sharply like the truth cost him something. Like it burned on the way out.

My throat is tight. The pull of something still clawing through me. Not Oblivion. Not yet. Just the echo of it. “I didn’t want this,” I say quietly.

“No,” he says, stepping closer. “You survived it. You don’t come back from that unchanged.”

“I don’t feel merely changed. I feel…rewritten.”

“That’s what power does.”

“No,” I say, shaking my head. “That’s what knowing does.”

He moves then, slowly and surely, until he’s kneeling in front of the bed. I could cry if I had anything left to give. Tears would make this softer, and nothing about what’s left inside me is soft. He lifts one hand. Reaches toward mine. Hesitates. I offer it anyway. Palm up. Glowing.

His thumb brushes the center of the mark, slow and reverent. His brows draw together, and I watch as a flicker of fear…real, honest fear crosses his face. He doesn’t pull away. “What is it?” I ask, barely br eathing.

He meets my gaze. “It’s not a sigil,” he murmurs. “It’s something older. It doesn’t mark you as one of us.”

“What does it mark me as, then?”

He’s quieted a beat too long. His words should unnerve me. They don’t.

Because the part of me that should be afraid isn’t in control anymore, it’s been devoured, not by him, not by the thing in the vault, but by me. Something ancient and bone-deep that’s finally opened its eyes.

I shift forward. Riven doesn’t move. Not when I place my hand flat against his chest. Not when I press him back against the edge of the bed frame. Not when I swing a leg over his lap and settle onto him with the slow certainty of a storm that doesn’t need to announce itself.

I sit there, straddling him, eyes locked on his, my hands planted on his chest. I feel the tight rise and fall of his breathing beneath my palms. Fast. Controlled. Barely. “You keep looking at me like I might disappear,” I say softly.

“I’m not afraid you’ll disappear,” he murmurs. “I’m afraid I already lost you. ”

“You didn’t lose me.” I lean in until my mouth brushes the corner of his. “You just don’t get to keep me the same way anymore.”

His eyes flash. That possessive, barely caged violence is simmering just beneath the surface. He doesn’t speak or move. Because he knows what this is. Knows it’s mine now.

I kiss him. Slow at first. Then deeper. Tongue curling into his mouth, teeth dragging across his lower lip. I bite hard enough to leave heat behind and pull back just enough to watch him breathe. “You want me like this?” I ask.

He swallows hard. “I want all of you.”

“Even this version?”

“Especially this version.”

I grin, something feral and filthy. “Good.”

Because that’s all he’s getting. I push him down against the bed, his back flat against the mattress, and he lets me.

His arms stay at his sides, knuckles white where he fists the sheets, body tensed beneath me like a weapon waiting to be wielded. His cock is already hard, thick and leaking and so ready it’s obscene, but I don’ t touch it yet.

Instead, I undress him. I peel the layers off slowly. Shirt first, dragging it up over his chest, fingers catching on scars and muscle. Then pants. Then briefs. Until he’s laid out in front of me, gorgeous and brutal and mine.

I strip next. My jacket, my shirt, my bra. I leave the pants on for a moment. Just to watch the way his eyes drag over me like he’s memorizing every inch…although he still doesn’t touch.

I slip my pants down slowly, revealing the wet dark patch clinging between my thighs. His breath punches out of him in a sharp exhale. “You gonna lie there like a good boy?” I murmur, sliding back into his lap.

His jaw clenches. “If that’s what you want.”

I tilt my head, eyes sharp. “No. I want you to suffer for it.” I rock against him once—just once—letting the heat of me smear across the length of him. His hips twitch, but he catches himself. He doesn't thrust. He doesn’t grab me. He just groans.

That sound breaks something in me. I reach between us and guide the head of his cock to my entrance, and then I stop. Hovering. Slick and pulsing and so close we’re practically shaking. His voice is a rasp. “Lux ”

“I take what’s mine,” I whisper.

And I sink down. The stretch is devastating.

I’m wet, dripping and open and aching for it, but he’s still so fucking thick it steals the breath from my lungs. I drag him in inch by inch, savoring the pressure, the fullness, the claim of it. By the time I bottom out, he’s panting.

I grind once, a cruel, slow twist of my hips, and his eyes flutter closed, mouth parting with a sound that might be a prayer, or a curse. Maybe both. I plant my hands on his chest and start to move.

No rhythm at first. Just chaos. Instinct. Rocking, grinding, riding him with the desperation of a woman trying to fuck herself back into control. His cock drags along every hypersensitive nerve, and I moan, loud and unfiltered.

He watches me like I’m the last thing he’ll ever see. I rake my nails down his chest. Lean forward. Bite his neck, his shoulder, the hard plane of his collarbone. I mark him. I own him. And still he doesn’t take control.

Because he knows. Knows I need this. Knows this isn’t just about pleasure. It’s about power .

The pace builds. I bounce harder now, thighs slapping against his, my cunt making slick, obscene sounds as I ride him raw. Sweat drips down my spine. My mark pulses on my hand like a brand made of lightning.

I feel him twitch inside me, feel the tension in his thighs, the way his breath hitches like he’s seconds away. “No,” I pant. “Not until I come.”

He groans, grinding his hips up once, but doesn’t finish. “Fuck, Lux…please…”

“Wait.” I slam down harder, angle my hips, and cry out as the pressure builds, coiling low, sharp, brutal. I chase it like a knife in the dark. Let it tear through me.

When I come, it’s a fucking storm. I scream. My whole body locks down. I shake so hard it feels like the bed might splinter beneath us. And only then do I give him permission. “Come inside me,” I whisper, teeth still bared. “Mark me. Be mine.”

He shatters. With a broken, vicious growl, he thrusts up once, twice, and spills inside me in hot, pulsing waves. His body goes rigid, muscles flexing under my palms, and for a long, brutal second, we stay locked together like we’re the only two things that exist .

I collapse on top of him. Sweat-soaked. Shaking.

His heart pounds beneath my cheek. His arms finally come around me, pulling me tight.

And I feel it in the quiet. The shift. The choice that was just made.

Not a bond like theirs. Not something dictated by prophecy.

Something else. Something older. Something worse.

I don’t sleep because something inside won’t let me. The sheets are damp with sweat, sex, and memory. Riven lies on his back, one arm curled under the pillow, the other slung across where my body used to be, the imprint of me still warm in the bed.

He looks younger when he sleeps. Quieter. The chaos buried. Like the monster in him has curled in on itself for a few stolen hours of peace. I can’t follow him into that kind of silence. Because mine is too loud.

The mark on my palm doesn’t pulse the way it did before. It vibrates. Deep and low, like the hum of machinery under ancient stone, the sound you only notice when everything else stops.

There’s something alive inside me now, and it’s waiting. I slide out of bed slowly, careful not to wake him. Riven stirs but doesn’t open his eyes. His brows twitch, just once, a subtle crease like he senses I’m leaving and doesn’t like it. He doesn’t reach for me, and I don’t look back.

I wrap a thin sheet around my body and step barefoot into the hall.

The floor is cold stone. The air cooler than it should be.

I move through the darkened corridor like a ghost, the walls pressing in tighter than before.

The house feels different now, aware. Like it’s listening through the glass cases, through the bones of the structure, through the dust caught in the edges of the light.

Something has shifted. Not just in me. Everywhere.

I pass the war cases. The relics behind the glass flicker faintly, like they’re trying to warn me. The weapons look sharper. Bloodier. The armor darker. The symbols on the walls, the ones I thought were decorative, almost seem to move when I blink.

Like the house is rearranging itself around me. Testing me. Preparing me. I could turn back. Climb back into bed and curl into Riven’s warmth. Pretend I’m just tired. Pretend it was just a dream. But I don’t.

Because whatever’s humming beneath my skin is pulling me forward.

And it doesn’t feel like a question. It feels like a summons.

The corridor bends left but I don’t remember this hall.

Not this path. Not this door. It’s open just enough to see the light spilling through.

Not warm, not inviting. A cold silver that slithers across the stone like moonlight poured from a vein.

And through that door, standing perfectly still in the center of the room, is Vale.

I stop at the threshold. I don’t say his name out loud.

I don’t have to. Because he’s already looking at me.

He’s dressed in black. Not ceremonial. Not formal.

Just…final. His shirt is open at the collar, sleeves rolled to his forearms, pale skin catching the light like frost in a graveyard.

He stands with his back half-turned toward the window, hands folded loosely behind him.

Like he’s been waiting for me. Not for hours. For eternity.

The air in the room doesn’t move. The smoke that curls along the floor is too intentional, too thick.

“Vale,” I murmur, voice barely louder than the hush of the sheet dragging across the floor. His gaze flicks to mine, and the silence stretches so long, I feel it down to the marrow. “You shouldn’t be up,” he says .

“You’re in my house.”

His brow lifts slightly. “No. You’re in ours.”

My fingers twitch. I don’t move any closer, but I feel the draw between us like static. Like something unresolved. Like a door that was opened once and never fully shut. “You didn’t answer me,” I say. “Why are you here?”

He doesn’t shift. Doesn’t blink. His voice is low. Cold. “To see what you’ve become.”

The words cut deeper than they should. Not because of what he says, but because of what he doesn’t. I wrap the sheet tighter around myself. Not out of modesty, because his gaze doesn’t feel like it’s on my body, it feels like it’s underneath it. “You knew,” I whisper. “What was in the vault?”

He nods once. “We’ve always known.”

“And you said nothing.”

“There was nothing to say.”

I shake my head, heart beginning to pound. “I felt it. I heard it. Something’s…moving in me now. Like it recognized me.” He doesn’t deny it. Doesn’t try to comfort. He doesn’t even flinch. “That’s not possible,” I say, to o quickly.

“It is.”

“Then why not warn me?”

His expression is still. Unreadable. His voice is a blade. “Because it doesn’t matter now.”

The floor seems to shift beneath my feet. My throat tightens. My mark pulses once, faint but sharp. “I deserve the truth.”

“I didn’t come here to give it.”

“Then why are you here?”

Vale finally moves. Just a single step forward. Controlled. Measured. But it lands like thunder. “To make sure you rest.”

My pulse spikes. “You think I’m dangerous.”

He doesn’t nod or speak. The answer is carved into the space between us. I back up a half-step. The sheet loosens at my hip. I don’t care. I look into his face, not for a hint of violence, but for a reason. Something to hold onto. Something human. But I don’t find it.

Only silence. Only smoke. Only inevitability.

His voice, when it comes again, is soft. “You’ve taken the first step.”

“Toward what?” My voice cracks. “Toward becoming the thing in the vault? ”

Vale says nothing. And the worst part is, I know he already sees me that way. I could scream. I could run. I could reach for Riven and demand to know why he isn’t here. Although none of that would stop what’s coming.

Vale takes one more step forward. Close enough now that I can smell him…cedar and wind and something faintly electric. Death made clean. “You should sleep,” he says again. His tone is so calm it might be a kindness. But it’s not. It’s a fucking eulogy.

I take a final breath, and the air tastes different. Like metal. Like surrender. “Will you be here when I wake up?” I ask.

The answer is a whisper. Barely a breath. “I’ll be here.”

And I know, without question, that he’s not talking about me waking up tomorrow. He’s talking about after. After the mark fades. After the scream. After the stillness.

He’ll be there.