Page 21

She’s still at that godsdamn tavern, tucked away in a room down the street like she’s not already half mine, and I hate it. Hate the distance. Hate how much easier it was to keep her at arm’s length when she wasn’t under my roof, under my skin.

Because if she moves back in, she’ll be closer. Easier to reach. Easier to take. And gods, I want to take her. I want her in my house. In my bed. Where I can have her anytime I want. And I want. Every godsdamned second of every godsdamned day.

Even now, if it weren’t for the shit waiting for us today—the plan, the Warden’s Keep, the question of whether Branwen left us another way out—I wouldn’t have come home at all.

I’d still be in her bed, inside her, driving her to the edge again and again until she stopped thinking about leaving at all.

Instead, I’m here.

And the gods are laughing.

Because the second I step into the kitchen, they’re all there.

Elias is the first to look up, perched at the edge of the battered wooden table, a half-eaten piece of bread dangling from his fingers. He grins the moment he sees me, slow and sharp, his dark eyes dragging over me deliberately.

“Well, look who finally decided to crawl home,” he drawls, voice thick with amusement. “You look like shit.”

Riven doesn’t even look up from where he’s sharpening a dagger at the table, but his mouth twitches at the corner, and that’s enough to tell me he’s listening.

Caspian is leaning against the far wall, arms crossed over his chest, gaze flicking lazily from me to Elias like he’s already bracing for whatever is about to be said. He’s better now, steadier since Branwen’s death, but he’s still dangerous in that way only Caspian Vale can be—half healed, half feral, watching everything too closely.

And at the head of the table, Orin sits with his hands folded, looking at me like he can already read every single thought I’m trying to hide.

I drag a hand down my face, jaw tightening, pulse pounding in my throat.

I don’t want to do this.

But Elias isn’t done.

He leans back in his chair, propping his boots on the table like he owns the place, and tilts his head toward me with a grin that’s all teeth. “Rough night, Luce? You look like you lost a fight with a—” His gaze flicks down my rumpled clothes, my unkempt hair. “—kitten.”

I keep my voice flat, clipped. “We have work to do.”

Elias hums, drawing the sound out like he’s savoring it. “Sure, but I just think it’s worth noting…” He gestures vaguely toward me, his grin widening. “You look like you’ve been thoroughly fucked.”

My jaw tightens until it aches. “Enough.”

Caspian’s gaze sharpens further, flicking toward Orin for half a second before returning to me.

Riven shakes his head once, low and quiet. “You didn’t come home last night.”

My hand tightens around the handle of the mug, but I don’t rise to it.

He doesn’t stop.

“Was it fun?” he continues, voice lilting, dark amusement curling under every word. “Should we all be taking a turn at the tavern, or is that an exclusive offer?”

Elias snorts from the counter. “Exclusive, unfortunately. Though, based on how long it took him to stumble back here, I’d say our dear leader isn’t exactly rationing.”

I glance up, fixing them both with a look sharp enough to cut. But Elias only grins wider, tapping his mug against the table like he’s already preparing his next snarky jab.

And Orin—wise, patient, deliberate—finally glances up from the hearth.

“Enough,” he says simply, voice quiet but cutting.

The others fall back, mostly because when Orin speaks like that, we all listen.

I sit down heavily at the table, the chair groaning under the weight of me, and let the mug burn against my palms. Because today isn’t about what I did last night. Today, we move toward the Warden’s Keep.

I’ve barely gotten halfway through the cup of tea before the door creaks open again. Ambrose steps inside like he’s already exhausted by the day, his hair damp, his coat half-buttoned, the dark circles under his eyes worse than usual. He doesn’t say anything at first—just walks straight to the cabinet, pulls down the chipped ceramic mug he always uses, and moves toward the hearth where Orin’s left a kettle already steaming.

Then his eyes cut to me.

He pauses, mug still in hand.

“What the fuck happened to you?”

His voice is low, not loud, not teasing—just tired and sharp like glass at the edge of a blade.

I glance up from my seat at the table. “Drop it.”

Ambrose lifts a brow, sips his tea like I didn’t speak. “You look like something clawed its way out of you and forgot to put the pieces back.”

“That’s because something did,” Silas chirps from the counter, positively vibrating with the need to gossip. “A sweet, curvy little something with teeth and thighs and no concept of moderation.”

I shoot him a glare sharp enough to kill.

It bounces off him like light.

“Oh, come on,” he continues, eyes wide with faux innocence. “Why do you all act like I’m not the most observant person here? He’s glowing. He’s defiled. He’s ruined for anyone else.”

“I’m going to break your jaw,” I say calmly.

“Wouldn’t change the facts,” he beams.

Ambrose sets his mug down a little harder than necessary and turns toward me, arms crossed, mouth drawn tight. “So? You gonna say anything, or should I start drawing conclusions?”

“No one’s asking you to draw anything,” I snap.

“Not what it looked like from the outside,” Ambrose counters. “You looked like you hadn’t slept in days. Now you look like you haven’t slept but for entirely different reasons.”

Elias chimes in from behind his mug. “I’m just impressed she didn’t kill you afterward. Or during.”

“Yet,” Riven mutters without looking up.

And still, none of them say it directly.

None of them ask the question I know they’re all thinking.

Not until Silas—because it’s always Silas—tilts his head and smiles wide enough to show teeth.

“So?” he asks, grinning. “Is she coming home?”

The room stills. Just a little. I sip my tea, slow and deliberate.

“She hasn’t said,” I answer, and I hate the way the words taste like they matter.

Silas raises both brows. “But you want her to.”

I meet his gaze with a look flat and cold. “Careful.”

“Oh, I’m always careful,” he says sweetly. “Except when I’m not.”

Ambrose exhales, quiet, steady. “You realize this entire thing’s been on hold because of you.”

“Because of her,” I correct, too fast. Too sharp.

Ambrose narrows his eyes. “You’re the one who made it impossible for her to stay. Now you’re the one who wants her back and can’t ask.”

I don’t want her back because it’s strategic. I don’t want her under the same roof again because it makes sense, or because she’s safer here, or because the others miss her.

I want her close so I can have her.

So I don’t have to wait.

So I don’t have to pretend I don’t wake up aching for her, don’t feel the ghost of her fingernails down my spine, don’t remember the exact way she said my name last night when I made her come apart for the third time.

I want her in this house, in my reach, in my bed.

And if she doesn’t come willingly, I don’t know what I’ll do.

But I will not beg.

I will not ask.

So I stand, finish my tea, and say nothing else.

Because I don’t need to tell them what they already know.

Ambrose

Silas is making sounds no grown man should make.

It starts as a sharp, undignified gasp—then devolves rapidly into a string of breathless swearing and what I think is genuine hyperventilation. He’s halfway off the path before any of us even register what he’s pointing at, limbs flailing like he’s seen the gods themselves descending from the clouds.

“You’re joking,” I mutter under my breath, already knowing I’ll regret looking.

I glance up anyway.

Across the ridge, at the edge of the hollowed-out forest Branwen built to mimic the northern ranges, sunlight glints off something unnaturally white. Not just pale—blinding. Their coats shimmer like they've been dipped in starlight, manes rippling silver through the trees, hooves so light they barely disturb the dead leaves littering the forest floor.

And horns.

Fucking horns.

Long, spiraling, sharp.

Unicorns.

I let the word settle in my head like I’m tasting something sour.

Silas has already stumbled down the slope, pointing wildly like a child who’s seen something magical. “Look at them! They’re real! Majestic! I’m ascending! Someone slap me, I think I’m dreaming—”

“I’ll slap you,” Elias mutters beside me, not even glancing up, eyes fixed on the chaotic mess Silas is making of himself. “Might knock some sense back into you.”

Riven exhales heavily from further up the trail, the sound sharp and unimpressed. “They’re not real.”

“They’re right there!” Silas waves both arms dramatically, nearly tripping over himself. “Look at them! That one’s smiling at me.”

“It’s not smiling,” I say dryly. “It’s sizing you up.”

Because these aren’t the sweet, storybook creatures the children in the empire whispered about before bed. There’s something wrong about them—something too perfect, too deliberate. Their eyes don’t gleam with innocence; they gleam like polished obsidian, cold and depthless. No real creature looks at you like that. No real creature looks like prey calculating whether it wants to bother hunting you.

Elias leans over, voice low and conspiratorial. “You think they bite?”

I glance at him flatly. “If we’re lucky.”

Silas keeps rambling, breathless and awe-struck, already halfway down the incline toward the herd like he doesn’t recognize the way this place works. Everything in the Hollow looks the way Branwen wanted it to—pretty, polished, inviting—but nothing here is safe.

Nothing here is real.

Orin stands beside me, his gaze fixed sharply on the clearing beyond, the faintest crease between his brows.

“She made them,” he says quietly, mostly to himself. “The unicorns from the northern legends. Exactly as they were described in the old books.”

“They’re too perfect,” Riven adds, eyes narrowed.

Because that’s the point. Branwen’s whole world here is a copy—a warped, obsessive recreation of the empire she lost. She didn’t create animals or forests because she loved them; she made them because they were hers.

Everything here was.

Everything except us.

I glance at without meaning to, catching the way she’s watching Silas trip over himself like he’s never seen anything so beautiful in his life. She shakes her head, exasperated, but there’s something soft at the edge of her mouth.

Something almost fond.

That shouldn’t bother me, but it does.

Because she smiles like that for him. For all of them.

Except me.

Not yet.

“Tell me you’re not going to let him go near them,” I murmur without looking away from her.

’s lips twitch. “He’d be devastated if I didn’t.”

Silas is already making his way down the hill like he’s immune to consequence, like he’s never been bitten, torn apart, or burned alive before—which, frankly, is debatable at this point.

Elias leans forward, whispering toward her loud enough for all of us to hear. “I mean, if anyone here deserves to ride a unicorn, it’s me. Look at me. I’ve got the bone structure.”

doesn’t look at him, but her mouth twitches again. “You’d fall off in two seconds.”

“That’s rude,” Elias replies. “I’ve been practicing. I’m very good with… mounts.”

Silas howls from below. “That’s what she said!”

I glance back toward the herd—perfect, still, watching us with too-bright eyes, unmoving. Predatory.

The world Branwen built here doesn’t give anything freely.

And whatever those creatures are, they’re not here to be touched.

“Keep him back,” I murmur to , my voice lower now, quieter. “Or they’ll gut him.”

She glances at me then. “You cannot be serious.”

She starts walking toward them like she knows how this will end.

And when she passes me, Elias leans in, voice pitched low, lazy amusement curling beneath it. “What do you think’s more dangerous—the unicorns, or ?”

It’s almost funny, how fast it happens.

One second, is moving, quiet and deliberate, weaving between the low skeletal trees toward creatures that should kill her without hesitation—and the next, Lucien is moving too.

He doesn’t even realize he’s doing it. That’s the part that almost makes me laugh. Cold, ruthless Lucien Virelius, who would rather die than bend, walking after her like he’s tethered. No barked orders to stay back. No clipped warnings about how reckless she’s being. He just follows.

That’s how I know we’re all fucked.

Because it was never supposed to be like this. She was never supposed to be the thing around which all of us revolved.

But she is.

Orin glances after her, too, gaze sharp and unreadable, but there’s something deliberate in the way his hand drops to his side, fingers flexing once. Like he’s preparing to follow her as well, to catch her when she falls.

It’s not lost on me—the way even Orin, who is made of patience and quiet calculation, is moving toward her now. Like there’s something inevitable pulling him forward.

Then there’s Elias.

The second Lucien starts after her, Elias lengthens his stride, muttering something under his breath, a half-laugh curling in his throat like he can’t believe we’re doing this.

He catches up too fast, glancing at like he’s going to say something clever, something sharp—but it falls apart on his tongue, and instead, he blurts, “If you ride one first, I’m going to be jealous. And that’s not a good look on me.”

She doesn’t even glance back at him. Which, predictably, makes him grin harder, speeding up until he’s walking beside her, bumping his shoulder into hers like a schoolboy with no idea how to behave.

I hang back, for a moment, watching the line they make—the girl and her sins, strung behind her like a trail of knives.

It’s not subtle.

It never was.

It’s not about the unicorns. Not really. It’s about her. It’s always about her. That’s the part none of them seem to realize. We all keep following her. Like moths to flame. Like fools to the gallows.

I shake my head, slow and deliberate, letting the curve of a smile pull at the corner of my mouth.

It’s almost admirable, how quickly she undoes us.

One look. One decision. One step forward.

And like dominoes, we all fall in line.

Her. Always her.

Silas is practically vibrating ahead of me. He’s bouncing on the balls of his feet like a child who’s had too much sugar and too little sense, wide-eyed and breathless as we move closer to the clearing. The others follow behind, some slower, some reluctant, but it’s obvious now—we’re all moving the way we always do. After her.

The unicorns don’t scatter as we approach.

They should. Any real animal would. But these creatures—Branwen’s creatures—don’t move like animals. They don’t twitch or shy. They stand perfectly still, perfectly arranged, as if she built them for this exact moment and nothing else.

Up close, they’re even worse.

Their coats shimmer like frost and bone, too white, too flawless to be natural. Light doesn’t cling to them; it warps around them, bending slightly at the edges of their bodies, making it hard to look too long without something in your skull twisting.

Their eyes are black. Not soft, not gentle, but obsidian-dark and depthless. They look through you, like they’re already imagining what you’ll taste like if you bleed beneath them.

And those horns.

Each spiraled, smooth, polished so fine it catches the weak morning light and scatters it in fractured beams. If you looked too long, you’d forget they’re weapons. You’d think they were beautiful.

Which is exactly how they’ll kill you.

Silas stops a few feet ahead, breathless, grinning like he’s in love. “They’re magnificent.”

“They’ll gut you without blinking,” I mutter under my breath.

“That’s the dream,” he replies, almost giddy.

Orin approaches silently, his expression unreadable, but I catch the slight crease between his brows. He’s thinking—calculating—not about the danger, but about how Branwen built this, why she left these creatures here. He’s wondering what it means.

Lucien, as always, is focused on the practical.

“If we can ride them,” he says evenly, “we’ll cover more ground.”

It sounds tactical, like he’s not half-watching when he says it, like he didn’t just follow her into the clearing without a second thought. Like he didn’t offer the idea only after she’d made the first move.

It’s laughable.

Elias snorts beside me, voice low and sharp. “Sure. Let’s all ride the murder horses. What’s the worst that could happen?”

He glances at , waiting for her reaction.

She doesn’t look at him.

Which, naturally, only makes him worse.

“I mean, unless you want to share mine,” he adds, casual as sin, flashing her a crooked smile. “I’m very good with… mounts.”

The unicorn closest to her—the largest, its horn longer than her forearm, its coat almost silver beneath the light—shifts when she approaches. It watches her carefully, deliberately, like it’s already made its choice.

And maybe it has.

The moment hangs sharp, stretched tight as a blade.

Then Elias breathes out, low and careful, and I feel the shift before I even register it. The air slows around us, like the world’s breath catches for half a second. The light warps softer, movement thickening just enough that everything feels a fraction delayed. It’s not enough to stop time, but enough to buy us a moment.

Elias can’t compel like Lucien, but he’s always known how to skew the odds. A subtle slant to the universe, like the entire world humors him because he asked nicely.

The unicorns freeze.

Just long enough.

tenses beside me. She doesn’t want to do this. She’s walked into the clearing, but she hasn’t moved closer. There’s something rigid in her spine, her gaze locked on the creatures like she already knows how this ends and wants nothing to do with it.

I don’t give her a chance to second-guess.

Before any of the others can move—before Silas can fling himself onto one like a fool, before Elias can charm her into trusting him—I step forward, catch her by the waist, and lift her clean off the ground.

Her breath punches out of her in a sharp, startled sound, fingers curling reflexively against my shoulder. “Ambrose—”

I don’t let her finish.

I swing her up onto the back of the unicorn in front of me, smooth and efficient, like it’s already been decided. She lands lightly, legs straddling the creature’s back, her fingers scrambling instinctively for purchase in the glimmering white mane.

Before she can say anything else, I move, vaulting up behind her in one fluid motion. I settle behind her, one arm looping around her waist, careful but firm, anchoring her without giving her room to bolt. She’s warm against me, stiff but steady, the curve of her spine pressed to my chest.

“Didn’t want you getting left behind,” I murmur near her ear.

The second she settles against me, the others lose whatever restraint they had left.

Silas is the first to move, of course. His eyes locked on the unicorns like he’s been handed a godsdamned miracle. Before I can blink, he’s lunging forward, hands out like he’s afraid they’ll disappear if he hesitates.

“Okay, okay—nobody panic, I call dibs on the one with the murder eyes!” he shouts, practically skipping toward the creature that looks most likely to impale him.

The unicorn he chooses watches him approach, its gaze flat and depthless, like it’s already decided it’s too good for him. He throws himself up onto its back in one fluid, graceless motion, nearly sliding off the other side before he steadies himself. “Holy shit—this is happening. I am majestic!”

Elias follows behind, slower, more deliberate—but not by much. His smirk is sharp enough to cut, eyes glinting as he circles one of the smaller unicorns, sleek and silver with a horn curved like a blade.

“If I die,” he says casually, glancing toward without subtlety, “tell everyone it was because I was too handsome to live.”

doesn’t bother answering, but I see the flicker at the corner of her mouth—the part of her that still softens for him, despite everything.

Riven mounts next, efficient and silent, as if this is just another task to complete. He moves like he’s done this before, like he’s already calculated every risk and decided it doesn’t matter.

Orin waits until the last, moving slow and deliberate, his gaze heavy on the herd before choosing the largest of them—a creature with scars etched pale across its flank, like something’s already tried to kill it once and failed.

When he swings up onto its back, the unicorn doesn’t even flinch.

Typical.

The clearing shifts around us, the light catching in sharp, blinding shards off polished horns and perfect coats. The creatures move beneath us like liquid muscle, too smooth, too poised. The air crackles with the weight of something unnatural.

This was never meant to be safe.

And we’re riding them anyway.

Silas whoops from the front, twisting half around in his saddleless seat like he’s king of the godsdamn Hollow. “Look at us! We’re unstoppable! A deadly, beautiful nightmare brigade!”

I glance down at , her breath sharp against my chest as the unicorn beneath us stirs, ready to move.

“You realize this is suicide,” I murmur against her ear.

Her lips twitch, that same quiet, sharp smile she only gives when she knows she’s already won.

“I thought you liked bad decisions,” she murmurs back.

The unicorn beneath us shifts again, its muscles coiling tight like it’s ready to fly.

And then Silas yells at the top of his lungs, grinning wildly, voice carrying sharp and bright across the clearing.

“Race you all to death, assholes!”

He kicks his unicorn forward without warning, the creature launching into motion like a streak of light and violence. The others follow instantly—Elias whooping something obscene, Riven silent and sure, Orin steady at the rear.

And us. The world rushes past in a blur of light and sound and sharp, dangerous beauty.

And for the first time in weeks, I feel it.

Laughter, low and dark, curling in my throat. Because if we’re riding straight to our doom, we might as well look good doing it.

The unicorn beneath us moves like silk over stone—effortless, dangerous, too smooth to be natural. Each stride devours the ground, the landscape shifting in the corners of my vision like a living thing. Branches blur past, brittle and skeletal, trees too tall, too narrow, as if Branwen carved them from memory and left the warmth out of them.

But it’s not the ride I’m paying attention to.

It’s her.

sits rigid against me at first, every line of her spine stiff, as if she’s trying to pretend she doesn’t feel the way I’ve molded myself around her—one arm looped lazily at her waist, my chest against her back, my breath ghosting over the curve of her neck every time she exhales.

I let it hang there, the weight of it, the quiet inevitability of us pressed this close.

I could tell her to lean back, to let me carry her weight like I’ve carried worse things. But I don’t. Instead, I lean in, my mouth a fraction from her ear, my voice pitched deliberately soft.

“You know,” I murmur, smooth as sin, “this isn’t how I imagined my morning starting. I thought we’d be trudging through another miserable stretch of this godsdamned world, arguing over who has to carry the supplies, maybe watching Silas try to drown himself in a river. Not riding mythical death beasts with you tucked so sweetly in front of me.”

I let the next words drag, slow and sharp, curling deliberately around her.

“I have to say—it’s a better view than I expected.”

Her head tilts slightly, not enough to look at me, but enough that I know she’s listening.

“You’re relentless,” she says finally, her voice light, but there’s something underneath it—sharp and dangerous, the edge of something she won’t name. “Do you ever turn it off?”

“Never,” I admit easily, letting my fingers slide a little lower across her stomach, casual and deliberate. “You should know by now, . I don’t let go of things I want.”

She huffs something that might be a laugh, but it’s soft and jagged at the edges. Not sweet. Not easy.

“I think you like the chase more than the catch,” she says, voice dry, cutting. “It’s never about the prize—it’s about watching them squirm.”

I grin, sharp and pleased, because she’s not wrong. Not entirely.

“You say that like you’re not squirming right now,”

“You mistake survival for squirming,” she says quietly. “I’ve learned how to live with men like you.”

I smile wider, leaning in until my mouth almost brushes the line of her jaw.

“No, darling,” I murmur, voice sinking lower, silk over steel. “You’ve learned how to live despite men like me. That’s why you’re interesting.”

She doesn't flinch. Doesn't shy away.

Instead, she holds my gaze for one long, pointed second.

Then she smiles—slow, sharp, dangerous.

“You should be careful,” she says softly, like she’s already sealed something between us. “You might not like what happens when I stop surviving you and start choosing you.”

The wind pulls strands of her hair loose, tangling them across her shoulders, and I want to reach forward, wrap my fingers around them, make her look at me again. Instead, I lean in, my mouth grazing just behind her ear, voice low and deliberate.

“Would you?” I ask, keeping my voice even, careful. “Choose me?”

She doesn’t answer right away. It’s deliberate. A negotiation. A challenge.

Then she glances back, her smile sharp, cutting, dangerous. “That depends, Ambrose. Do you want me to?”

I lean in closer, tightening my arm around her waist so she can’t pretend to miss the weight of me, the way I’ve anchored her here against me, like I’d keep her if I could.

“I don’t want you to,” I murmur, my voice like velvet wrapped around steel. “I need you to.”

The words are quiet. Measured. But they feel like they cost something. She stills. Just for a breath.

I drag my mouth lower, close enough that she can feel every syllable when I speak again. “I’ve spent my entire life taking what I want, . Twisting the world until it bends beneath me. But you…”

I trail the back of my fingers up the curve of her waist, slow, deliberate, like I can map every place she’s already sunk beneath my skin.

“You’re the one thing I can’t force. I hate it.”

I let the last word curl sharp between us like a blade.

“Because it means when you choose me, it’ll be real.”

She breathes in, sharp, shaky, but I don’t give her a chance to answer. I lean in, my mouth brushing the corner of hers, not quite a kiss, but enough to make her chase it if she wants.

“Choose me,” I murmur, voice rough now, edged with something dangerous. “I’ll make sure you never regret it.”

For a heartbeat, she doesn’t move.

Then she glances at me again, her eyes sharp and dark, something dangerous curling in the corners of her mouth.

“I think you’d ruin me,” she says softly.

I smile, slow and wicked. “I know.”