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I can feel Elias grinning against the side of my neck like he hasn’t just whispered something wildly inappropriate in my ear for the fourth time in three minutes. His arms wrapped around me, loose but stubborn, like he’s pretending this is about emotional comfort and not the slow, strategic migration of his left hand up under my shirt.

Subtle. Almost.

If I weren’t me, I might’ve thought it was accidental. Just a casual graze along my waist, fingers slipping over skin like they’re lost. Innocent. Warm. Familiar.

But I know Elias.

He doesn’t do accidental. He does intention wrapped in mischief. He does flirting like a weapon and affection like a dare. And right now, that hand is inching north, slow and deliberate, fingertips brushing over the space just beneath my ribs with a kind of reverence that dares me to say nothing.

We are not alone.

The others are ahead of us on the trail. Not close enough to hear, but close enough to notice if I suddenly start moaning in the middle of a conversation about which cursed direction to take next. I should stop him. I should push him away.

But I let him go just a little further. Just until the heel of his palm brushes the swell of my breast, so lightly it could almost be excused. Almost.

Then I clamp down on his wrist. Hard.

He freezes instantly.

And I don’t look at him. Not yet. I keep my gaze ahead, on the backs of Orin and Riven in the distance, like I haven’t just caught a thief red-handed.

“I know what you’re doing,” I say, my voice low enough to be mistaken for boredom.

His breath hitches. Just enough for me to feel it.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he murmurs into my hair, voice low and innocent and absolutely full of shit.

I finally turn my head just slightly, enough to let him see the edge of my smile.

“You think I’m going to let you feel me up while Orin’s twenty feet ahead and Riven’s probably cataloguing every move you make like he’s preparing your eulogy?”

Elias presses his mouth to my temple, exhaling like he’s suffering. “You used to be fun.”

“I used to be alone when you tried this.”

His hand tries to wiggle, just a little, but I tighten my grip. Not painfully. Just enough to remind him that no part of me moves unless I want it to.

He groans quietly. “This is actual torture.”

“Then stop touching me.”

“You say that,” he mutters, “but you let me get all the way to—”

“Another inch,” I warn, “and I’m telling Silas you said you’ve never actually made a girl come.”

He gasps, scandalized. “That’s slander.”

“That’s incentive.”

His laugh stutters against my skin, a helpless sort of sound that tells me he loves this—being put in his place by someone who sees him. All of him.

And still doesn’t flinch.

I release his wrist slowly, deliberately, letting his hand fall back down to my waist like it belongs there. I don’t shove him away. I don’t end the moment.

He thinks he’s won something, even after I caught his wandering hand and nearly threatened his entire sex life into extinction. But that’s the thing about Elias—he’ll always go too far, and he’ll always enjoy the fallout.

“Run along,” I murmur, tilting my face toward him, not quite meeting his mouth, “before I let Silas catch you trying to grope me like we’re fifteen behind a tavern.”

He leans in instantly, and for a second I think he’s going to whisper something crude again. Instead, he kisses me—fast, hot, and just long enough for his tongue to flick teasingly against mine before he pulls away with a grin that belongs in a cell.

“Tell Orin I say hi,” he says, breath warm on my cheek. “And maybe don’t let him lecture you too hard, yeah? I’d hate to come rescue you from a philosophical orgasm.”

I slap his chest, more amused than annoyed, and he jogs off like I haven’t just tempted fate by letting him live another day. I watch him go—his easy, loping stride, the careless roll of his shoulders, that mouth still tilted into the kind of smile that dares the world to take him seriously. It never does. But I do. Because under all that noise is something worth fighting for. Something real.

I turn and find Orin, standing a few paces off the trail beneath a twisted yew tree, arms folded, gaze fixed on me like he’s been waiting for this shift all along. He’s patient in the way old things are. Not ancient like time. Older than that—older like stone, like silence, like devotion so precise it stops being worship and starts becoming truth.

I walk to him, letting each step slow me down, not because I’m afraid, but because he deserves more than whatever leftover energy Elias just clawed into my skin.

Orin watches me like he’s cataloguing every movement. Not in hunger. In reverence. As if the act of coming to him means something. And I think maybe it does.

“You let him get away with too much,” Orin says softly. There’s no judgment in it. Just observation. “He’s all impulse.”

I shrug, leaning one shoulder into the tree beside him, letting my eyes roam his face. “And you’re all deliberation. Somehow, I still end up craving both.”

Orin’s mouth curves slightly. Not a smile. A warning. “You don’t have to crave me, .”

“I know,” I murmur. “You wait. You let me.”

“I won’t always,” he says, and the promise in it makes something hot unravel at the base of my spine.

There’s something deeply, cosmically unfair about how calm he is.

Orin doesn’t pace. Doesn’t fidget. Doesn’t blink more than necessary. He doesn’t look over his shoulder like the others, doesn’t reach for me unless it’s to ground—not provoke, not manipulate. Just anchor. And somehow that’s worse.

He’s standing half in shadow, the collar of his coat soaked through at the shoulders, silver strands of hair damp where they brush the line of his jaw. Rain clings to him like an afterthought. It hasn’t touched him. Not really.

Meanwhile, I feel like a wreck. There’s a smear of mud near the hem of my coat I don’t remember getting. My braid’s unraveling. I’m ninety percent sure I’ve got a leaf stuck somewhere in the back of my shirt. And the longer Orin watches me like I’m worth dissecting down to the last breath, the more I start spiraling.

Do I have something in my teeth?

Gods.

None of the others ever made me feel like this. Not even Lucien, and he’s a walking, weaponized catastrophe. With him, it was rage and fire and obsession masquerading as strategy. With Elias, it’s chaos and comfort and lust all tangled up in the same kiss. Even Riven, who sees me like he built me himself, doesn’t make my stomach flutter like it’s trying to climb out of my throat.

But Orin—He just looks at me. Still. Silent. And it’s all I can do not to fidget like a child under a spotlight.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” I ask before I can stop myself, voice tighter than I mean it to be.

His brow lifts, slow and deliberate. “Like what?”

“Like you’re trying to figure out where I’ll split.”

That gets the faintest curve of his mouth. Not a smirk. Not even amusement. Just… acknowledgment.

“I already know where you’ll split, .”

I go still.

He steps toward me. One pace. Measured.

“The question,” he continues, “is who you’ll let watch when it happens.”

My breath stumbles. That’s all it takes. One sentence. One look. The soft, graveled weight of his voice pressing into the space between us like it was made for me.

I glance away, which is a mistake, because I feel him move again.

Another step.

He stops just short of touching me, his height casting a kind of hush across my shoulders. I feel it like a shadow that wants to be shelter. His hand doesn’t reach out, but I swear I can feel the heat of it hovering near my waist. Not a threat. Not a question. Just a presence.

“I make you nervous,” he says. It isn’t a boast. It’s an observation.

“Yes,” I whisper.

His head dips slightly, so close I feel the brush of his breath near my cheek.

“Good.”

That one word hits lower than it should. Sharp and knowing. Like he’s been waiting for me to admit it. I want to say something clever. Something scathing or dismissive. Something that proves I’m still in control of this moment.

Instead, all I manage is, “I think I hate you a little.”

He hums low in his throat. “You’ll learn to live with it.”

And when I finally look up, meet his gaze again, his eyes don’t waver. Not once. No flinch. No flicker. Just endless, ancient patience wearing a body that makes me want to bite things I shouldn’t.

And that’s when I realize the worst part:

He’s not trying to seduce me.

He’s just being honest.

He’s looking at me. No, studying me—like I’m a riddle he already knows the answer to but still wants to hear me say it. And that should annoy me. It should light that sharp little spark in my chest that makes me bite back or raise my chin or throw something hard enough to break bone.

But it doesn’t.

Because Orin isn’t playing.

And gods, it’s the hottest thing I’ve ever seen. His smile is slow, too restrained to be cocky, too knowing to be kind. Like he’s letting me see only the barest edge of what he actually wants to do to me. Not out of mercy. But because he enjoys this—me unraveling.

It’s subtle, the way he tilts his head, the way his gaze drops to my mouth and then lifts again like he’s cataloging the heat rising in my cheeks.

And there it is.

The flush.

Fuck.

I feel it, and it’s not soft or sweet. It’s humiliating. My skin betrays me before I can catch it, blood rising to my cheeks like I’ve never been near a beautiful man before.

Which is laughable.

I have five of them.

Five impossibly powerful, unreasonably hot, maddeningly bonded men who look at me like I’m holy and haunted all at once. I’ve been kissed against walls and pinned beneath hands that tremble just from touching me. I’ve had love poured into my mouth like worship. I’ve tasted want that came with teeth.

And still—

None of them make my fucking knees buckle just by smiling.

My throat is tight, dry, and my chest is tight in a way that has nothing to do with panic and everything to do with want. Not just desire, not just lust, but something weightier—something that feels like it’s been waiting for this moment, for him, to come closer.

And he does.

Not rushed. Not dramatic. Just one smooth step closer, like I called him forward with my pulse.

He leans in—not touching me, but almost. His mouth hovers beside my ear, and his breath is warm and patient and absolutely devastating.

“You blush for me,” he murmurs.

My whole body ignites.

Not explosively.

Quietly.

Like a slow-burning fuse that knows it’s seconds from detonation.

I don’t respond. Can’t. Not when he’s this close, not when I can smell him—damp earth and cold iron and something ancient beneath it all. Not when his voice has dropped to that impossible register that makes everything else disappear.

“I didn’t think you blushed for anyone.”

His mouth is still by my ear, and his hand—gods, his hand—rises slowly, not to touch, but to hover just above my hip. A promise. A dare.

“You do,” he says, more to himself than to me.

And then—

He smiles again.

Like he’s just won something.

I should leave. Walk away. Say something cool, indifferent, maybe even a little cold. There’s a way to recover from this heat crawling up my neck—I’ve done it before. With Silas. With Lucien. Even with Elias mid-sex joke and half-naked in front of a mirror.

But Orin isn’t saying anything. He’s just watching me like I’m made of slow-burning confessions, and the longer I stand here letting his eyes undress me in complete silence, the worse it gets.

And then I say it.

Gods help me—I say it.

“You’re, like… really hot.”

The words drop out of my mouth in one long, breathless, uninvited confession.

I blink.

He blinks.

And because I’ve clearly lost every ounce of social instinct I’ve ever had, I double down like a fucking idiot.

“I mean—I’ve always thought so. I just didn’t say anything because, you know, ancient immortal power and probably ten thousand exes and a moral compass forged by cosmic fire or whatever. But, uh. Yeah. I’ve got a huge crush on you.”

Kill me.

Orin’s smile doesn’t widen. It deepens. Sharpens. Like a line of ink dragged through wet parchment.

I can’t stop. I should. I need to. But apparently now is the moment my brain decides to vomit every humiliating thought I’ve ever had about the dangerously hot philosopher who’s been following me through shadow realms and giving me soul-stirring eye contact for weeks.

“I just thought you should know,” I add. “Before I say anything else completely idiotic. Or, like, catch fire spontaneously from the shame.”

His silence is a noose. I glance up at him, heart thudding somewhere near my throat, and he’s still smiling.

“I’m hot,” he repeats, voice low and amused, but not mocking.

“I’m deeply aware of how that sounds.”

“You have a crush on me.”

I groan, pressing a hand to my face. “Can you not repeat it? It’s bad enough I said it once.”

He doesn’t stop.

“You’ve been staring at me like you want to solve me,” he says, moving close enough that I feel his words like static across my jaw. “And you think I’m the dangerous one.”

I pull my hand away from my face, heat practically radiating off my skin. “You’re definitely the dangerous one.”

He hums softly, and then—finally—he lifts his hand. Slow. Intentional. His fingers brush the edge of my jaw, and it’s not possessive. It’s not even commanding.

It’s reverent.

And somehow, that’s worse.

“I knew you wanted me,” he says, voice velvet-drenched sin, “but I didn’t know you’d tell me like a teenager trying to impress a god.”

My mouth opens. No words come out.

He leans in, just enough for his lips to hover by mine, not kissing. Not touching. Just waiting.

“Next time,” he murmurs, “say it with more conviction.”

And then—just as my pulse finally starts to normalize—he steps back.

Not because he’s dismissing me.

Because he’s letting me chase him now.

Gods, I do the stupidest thing imaginable.

I do chase him.

Not with words. Not with strategy or command. I chase his mouth. His silence. That maddening restraint that’s been curling beneath my skin for days, for weeks—since the first time he looked at me like he’d already seen every way I would come undone.

I move.

Quick. Reckless. I don’t even think. There’s no time to second-guess the burn in my cheeks or the ache in my chest or the fact that his smile is still lingering on his lips like he knew I’d break first.

I close the distance and reach for him, one hand at his jaw, the other catching the edge of his collar like I need something solid to anchor me.

And then I kiss him.

I kiss him.

And it’s not smooth. It’s not practiced or perfect or even particularly graceful. My mouth hits his a little too fast, our noses bump slightly, and for a horrifying half-second I think I’ve misread it—that he’ll pull away, that he’ll let me collapse into this mortifying spiral alone.

But then—

He catches me. Like he was waiting for me to fall.

His hand rises to the back of my neck, slow and firm, fingers threading into my hair with the kind of control that doesn’t demand—it claims. Not because I’m weak. But because he wants me strong in his hands.

And he kisses me back. Orin kisses like he moves—deliberate, devastating, disciplined. But there’s heat underneath it. The kind that’s been waiting far too long to be let loose. The kind that isn’t patient anymore.

His mouth parts just slightly, just enough for me to taste the groan he doesn’t quite let out. I open for him, greedy, pulling him closer, and when I feel the scrape of his teeth against my bottom lip, I nearly collapse.

Because it’s not a kiss meant to seduce.

It’s a kiss meant to mark.

He pulls back an inch. Just enough to speak against my mouth.

“I told you,” he says, voice rough with restraint, “say it with more conviction.”

And then he kisses me again.

Slower this time. More measured. His other hand slides to my hip, thumb pressing into the bone like he’s making space for me there. Like I belong tucked into him, trembling and flushed, gasping between words I no longer remember how to say.

I don’t know how long we stand there. Could be seconds. Could be centuries.

His mouth is still on mine when he says it. Not a whisper. Not a moan. Not that low, seductive murmur meant to coax me into something I’ve already given him. His voice is deliberate. Steady. Like he’s speaking a vow into my throat.

“I love you.”

Three words. Simple.

But gods—they land like a blade.

He’s said it before. Once. Maybe twice. Quiet declarations in the spaces between chaos. In passing. In moments that felt too safe to be real. But this time… this time he says it after.

After I kissed him first. After I chased him. After I flung every ounce of cool composure to the wind and told him I had a crush on him like a teenager scribbling names into the margins of a spellbook.

He doesn’t kiss me harder. He doesn’t press his body into mine like the others might. He just holds me there, his lips brushing mine as he breathes those words into the space I cracked wide open.

I believe him.

I feel it in the way his fingers spread over the back of my neck, not possessive, but anchoring. The way his other hand never moves from my hip. The way his body stays steady, quiet, deliberate—like he’s been waiting for me to catch up.

“I love you,” he repeats, softer now. “Even though you said my abs were just okay.”

That makes me laugh. Which is dangerous.

Because the second I do, it catches in my throat—tight and awful and humiliating—and I feel tears press behind my eyes like traitors. I try to turn away, but he doesn’t let me. Not roughly. Just enough.

Just enough to make me stay.

“I was trying not to seem too thirsty,” I murmur, eyes half-lidded, mouth brushing his again like I need one more taste to keep breathing. “It was a lie, obviously. Your abs are… they’re ridiculous.”

Orin smiles against my skin.

“I know.”

Gods, he’s infuriating. And beautiful. And mine.

That thought makes my chest clench because it’s real now. Not theoretical. Not buried under magic or war or the fucked-up chaos we keep crawling through. This isn’t about a bond or a past or a prophecy.

It’s just him.

And me.

And the way he keeps looking at me like I’m the answer to a hunger he spent centuries pretending didn’t exist.

I bury my face against his shoulder, hiding the heat on my cheeks, the tightness in my throat, the absolute mortification of realizing I just ugly-crushed myself into an ancient immortal’s arms and he still loves me for it.

His lips brush the curve of my jaw.

“You don’t have to say it back,” he murmurs. “I already know.”

My heart skips. Then stumbles.

But I don’t pull away.

I stay.

Because maybe I don’t have the words yet.

But this—this closeness, this breath, this quiet surrender in his arms—is a start.

Ambrose

Riven reshapes the ground like it’s a living thing that remembers him. He doesn’t speak, doesn’t look up, just presses his palms into the earth and pulls. Stone rises in a slow arc behind him, curling into a cradle of jagged walls around the spring. Shelter. Not permanent. Just enough to block the rain and wind, to make this temporary place feel like we haven’t been hunted for weeks.

Steam coils up from the hot spring, heavy and slow, carrying the scent of minerals and smoke from the fire Silas started the old way—no magic, just spark and flint and a long string of curses. Elias told him to give up halfway through. He didn’t. He never does. That’s his problem.

The water glows faintly with residual heat magic, probably Orin’s touch, though he says nothing about it. He hasn’t said much since he and came back, eyes heavy-lidded, mouth soft at the corners. She hasn’t looked at anyone for longer than a blink since. And I’m not sure whether I hate Orin more for getting there first… or for earning it.

I sit with my back against one of the stone walls, legs stretched long, arms draped over bent knees, watching the flicker of firelight play across her face. She’s exhausted. It makes her soft around the edges. I want to touch her in that moment more than I want to admit.

But instead, I watch.

And I listen.

Because Silas is mid-story. And somehow, gods help us, it's working.

“So then,” Silas says, gesturing wildly with a stick that may or may not have once been on fire, “I’ve got the two-way mirror in one hand and a ball of hydra venom in the other, right?”

“No,” Elias mutters, sprawled out on his back beside , eyes closed, “no one sane has ever held those two things at the same time.”

“I wasn’t sane,” Silas says proudly. “I’d just come off a three-day bender with a succubus priestess who told me I was her soul bond.”

“She told everyone that,” Riven adds, dry.

“Details,” Silas snaps, pointing the stick at him. “So anyway, I’m trying to break into this vault beneath the Academy, right? Because Caspian said—”

Caspian doesn’t even look up from where he’s polishing one of his knives. “Nope.”

“—that there was something incredibly rare and magical down there.”

“I said there was a magical lock,” Caspian corrects.

“Same thing. Anyway, I sneak in—well, sneak is generous, I fell down an elevator shaft—and I find the vault. And I’m like, this is it. My moment. So I do what any logical genius does. I throw the ball of venom at the magical lock.”

snorts. Soft. And it hits something raw and wicked in my chest.

“Let me guess,” she murmurs, eyes half-lidded.

“It exploded. Everywhere. I couldn’t see for two days. All my hair fell out.”

“There’s no way,” Elias says. “You weren’t bald.”

Silas nods solemnly. “Illusion spell. I was walking around with a glamor for two weeks while it grew back.”

“And the vault?” asks.

“Turned out it was a wine cellar.”

The fire cracks. A beat of silence—and then everyone loses it. Even Riven, who just shakes his head and laughs into his hand.

And I… smile.

Only a little. Because I can feel her eyes on me then, flicking sideways through the flicker of light and steam, catching that rare slip in my composure.

She sees it. And she likes it.

Fuck.

The village today gutted something I didn’t know was still alive in me. I kept my expression blank through all of it—the stares, the whispers, the brush of fingers that remembered me far better than I remembered them. Past lovers, past sins, past failures that looked at me like I’d once promised them eternity and never delivered.

And maybe I had.

It was easy back then. To fuck. To forget. To move on without remorse because there was no weight in my chest to pull me back. My body was made from dirt and blood and divine spite—I wasn’t born to love. I was born to devour.

And then happened. Now everything feels heavy in a way I wasn’t built for. She shouldn’t look at me the way she does. Not after today. Not after seeing the kind of man I used to be, reflected in the bodies of women who once begged me to stay. Who died without ever hearing why I left.

But she did look.

I don’t understand it.

I don’t deserve it.

And gods help me, I want it anyway.

I drag a hand through my hair, exhaling slow through my nose, willing the thought to dissolve before it settles too deep. I didn’t ask for the bond. When it snapped into place, I wanted to tear it from my skin. Rip her name from my soul. It was beneath me, the way I felt it—like a leash I hadn’t consented to. Like she’d infected me.

But now…

Now I sit here in the warmth of a fire shaped by Riven’s hands, watching her lips wrap around the rim of a chipped mug, and I think—fuck—I don’t mind it anymore.

I like her.

Not just the sharpness of her tongue or the way she looks at me when she’s furious. Not just the ache between her thighs or the way her mouth parts when I say something cruel that she secretly likes.

I like the parts of her she doesn’t even realize she gives me. The quiet ones. The ones she thinks go unnoticed.

And maybe it’s more than like. Maybe it’s too much. And I don’t know what the fuck to do with that. Sex is one thing. I can navigate lust. I know how to play that game, how to use her body to keep myself from thinking too deeply. But this—this need to be seen by her, to be chosen by her when no one else is watching—this is something else.

Something worse.

And I wonder, not for the first time, what I would say to her if we were alone. Would I even let the words leave my mouth? Would I reach for her hand, pull her into the water, press her back against stone and say—mine, if you’ll have me?

Would I tell her the truth? That the bond isn’t chains anymore.

It’s a compass.

And it keeps dragging me back to her.

But the others are here. Laughing. Talking. Breathing down my thoughts like they belong in my head.

I’ve never feared rejection before. Not when I was built to be chosen. To be wanted. By kings and gods and creatures too ancient to bleed. Desire has always been a matter of inevitability—people want what they can’t touch. They crave what doesn’t bend.

But she ruins that for me. Because I’m not untouchable anymore.

Not to her.

And gods, that’s the problem. Because I’ve done nothing to deserve her. I’ve been cruel, strategic, cold. I’ve taken—pleasure, power, space in her bed, in her mind—without offering anything of value in return. I thought it was safer that way. Cleaner. The cost of giving was always too high, so I never paid it.

Until her.

Now I watch her laugh at Silas’s stories and lean her shoulder against Elias’s with that sleepy ease she gives everyone but me, and I feel that lack like a hole punched straight through my ribcage. Hollow, echoing, loud.

I want one of those smiles.

Just one.

The soft ones. The ones that belong to no one but her. The ones she gives so easily to the others. I want to see her look at me like I’m safe. Like I’m not just sharp edges and calculated risk.

I want her to want me without bracing for damage.

Have I earned that?

Gods, I don’t know.

I’ve tried. In the ways I know how. I’ve stood when I could’ve left. I’ve bled when I didn’t have to. I’ve bitten down the worst of my instincts for her. And still, I don’t know if it’s enough. I don’t know if I’m enough. And that—that—is the thing that undoes me more than any blade, any curse, any realm.

The doubt.

The wondering if, in the end, I’m not someone she loves—I’m someone she tolerates. Someone she puts up with because the bond demands it. Because fate chose me for her, but she wouldn’t have.

I hate the way it coils in my stomach when she touches Riven’s hand without thinking. I hate the way it burns when she kisses Elias without flinching. I hate the way she flinches—just slightly—when I reach for her, even now.

Because maybe I’m not redeemed. Maybe I never will be. And if she looks at me one day with that distant softness—the kind that means she’s already moving on, even while standing still—I don’t know what I’ll do.

Because I want her.

Not as a possession. Not as a prize.

I want to belong to her. And I don’t know if she’ll ever let me.

The laughter is too loud. It’s not their fault. Not really. Silas is still going, spinning some story about a cursed ballroom and a failed seduction that probably ends with him in someone else’s pants—possibly his own—and is laughing again. That laugh. The soft, rich one that melts people.

I hear it, and it’s not for me. It never has been.

So I stand. I move. The stone gives way beneath my boots as I step out of the shelter Riven built—his magic still humming faintly beneath the surface, like the ground remembers him. The rain catches me immediately, not a downpour, just mist. A whisper of cold that slides down my collar, sinks into the seams of my shirt, clings to my skin like guilt.

It’s easier out here. Away from them. Away from her.

Because it kills me to stay.

It fucking kills me to sit there and pretend I’m not counting the seconds between when she looks at me and when she looks away. Pretending I don’t notice how she softens for Riven, curls into Elias, lets Silas nudge and needle her into smiling like she was born to be loved.

And me?

I’m the one she watches like I’m a mistake she can’t erase.

I walk farther than I need to. Let the trees close around me, thick with wet leaves and dripping moss. The Hollow is quieter here, older. It presses in like memory, and I let it.

Because pain I can manage. It’s the wanting that wrecks me. I want her. Gods, I want her. Not in the way I’ve wanted others—fleeting, transactional, calculated. I want her in ways that terrify me. I want her trust. Her laugh. Her forgiveness.

And I don’t know if I’ll ever get it. I don’t know if I deserve it.

So I keep walking. Into the rain. Into the dark. Into the silence that doesn’t ask me to speak, or explain, or be anything other than the ruin I’ve always been.

But even here, even now—I can still feel her.

The bond. The heat of it. Faint, steady, stubborn.

She’s behind me. And I don’t know if I want her to follow. Or if I’m afraid she won’t.

I stuff my hands into my coat pockets and stare up at the sky like it might offer me something. A sign. A warning. A reprieve. But it just hangs there—slate gray and soaked through, mist threading through my hair and sinking into the collar of my shirt. It’s cold. Not enough to hurt. Just enough to feel.

Good.

I need to feel something that isn’t her.

I fell in love with the wrong girl last year. That was a first. I don’t even say the word—love. Not out loud. Not where people could hear it and hold it against me. But with Keira… I almost did.

She wasn’t a Sin Binder. That was the appeal. She wasn’t part of fate, wasn’t bound to me through blood or prophecy. She laughed at my cynicism, told me I was full of shit, called me out when I played games. And she left—cheated, actually. Said I was too much and not enough in the same breath.

And gods help me, I didn’t blame her.

But then showed up.

And I hated her.

Not for Keira. That had already burned out by the time walked in, dragging prophecy and magic and unwanted bonds behind her like a storm no one asked for. I hated her because she was mine. Because fate had picked her. Some girl with nothing to her name but fire in her eyes and too much softness in her laugh.

I clench my fists inside my pockets. I shouldn’t feel this. Not for her. Not for anyone. But she’s threaded through me now in a way I can’t untangle, and it’s not just the bond. It’s not magic. It’s not fate.

It’s want.

Real. Ugly. Honest.

And then I hear her. Soft footsteps behind me. Measured. Barely audible beneath the rain and the distant crackle of the fire.

.

I don’t turn.

Not yet.

Because I need one more second—one last breath where I don’t have to pretend I’m okay. Where I can just exist in the ache and the regret and the fucking fury of wanting her so badly it eats me alive.

“You always disappear when you’re about to say something real.”

It’s not angry. Not soft, either.

Just true.

I close my eyes. She always does that—pulls the words out of me without touching. Like she’s already been inside my head and doesn’t need my permission to live there.

I turn slowly. And there she is. Soaked. Barely lit from the glow of the fire behind her. Hair curling around her jaw. Eyes sharp, but not cruel. Her arms are crossed like she’s bracing for whatever version of me I’ll be this time.

And I want to ruin that expectation. I want to say something that doesn’t wound. So I offer the only thing that’s mine to give.

“I didn’t want to love you.”

Her expression doesn’t shift.

I go on.

“I hated that you existed. That fate had the audacity to give me someone I hadn’t chosen. And then you had the nerve to be good. To be better than anyone I’ve ever met. To look at me like I’m worth something, even after everything I’ve done to make you flinch.”

Her brow furrows, and she starts to speak, but I shake my head once.

“I don’t need you to say anything. Not yet. I just need you to know that I never wanted this. And now that I have it—you—I don’t know how to stop.”

The silence holds.

She stares at me for a long time. Unblinking. Measured.

Then she steps forward. And gods—she touches my hand. Just a graze. Fingertips over knuckles. Barely there. But it shatters something in me I didn’t know I was still holding onto.

“Ambrose Dalmar,” she says slowly, deliberately, “did you just tell me that you love me in the most fucked up way possible?”

My pulse stutters. She says it like it’s funny. Like it’s a dare. But there’s something else behind it. Something quiet. Fragile. Hope maybe. Or worse—belief.

I open my mouth. Close it again.

Fuck.

I did.

I fucking did. I told her. Not the way she deserved to hear it. Not with flowers or declarations or the kind of pretty words Elias would string together to make her smile. I told her the way I know how—blunt. Brutal. Bleeding.

I drag a hand through my hair and drop my gaze to the space between us, watching the rain hit the mossy ground like it’s going to offer me a script to fix this.

It doesn’t.

So I look back up.

Her eyes are still on me. Waiting. Not pushing. Just… open.

And gods, I hate how much that hurts.

“I don’t do it well,” I say finally. “Love. Admitting it. Wanting it. I’ve never had to.”

She doesn’t interrupt. I exhale through my teeth, jaw clenched, every word pulled from somewhere that isn’t supposed to exist in me.

“You want sweet? Go find Silas. You want poetry? Elias can trip over his own tongue trying to impress you. I can’t give you that.”

She quirks a brow. “But you can give me emotional ruin and cryptic declarations in the rain?”

I almost smile.

“I can give you honesty,” I say, voice low. “Even if it’s ugly. Even if it’s the last thing you want to hear.”

She takes a step closer.

I don’t move. I don’t breathe. She looks up at me like she’s seeing something new. Something I haven’t shown anyone. And maybe she is. Maybe she’s seeing the part of me that stopped fighting this the moment she looked at me like I was worth saving.

She lifts her hand again, slower this time, palm pressed flat against my chest, right over the heart I pretend doesn’t rule me.

And then she smiles.

Not soft.

Not mocking.

Real.

“That’s good,” she says. “Because I don’t want poetry.”

Her fingers curl into my shirt.

“I want you.”

I swallow hard, watching her face, searching for a reason not to say what’s next. But I find none. No walls. No shield. Just her. Looking up at me like she’s already forgiven things I haven’t even admitted.

I press my hand over hers. Hold it there, between us.

“I’m sorry,” I say.

The words are low. Rough. Like I’ve never spoken them before. Maybe I haven’t. She blinks, startled—not by the apology, but by the fact that I meant it. I lean in just enough for our foreheads to almost touch, the rain whispering around us like it knows to stay back.

“I’m sorry for everything I did to you. For pushing you. For using you. For making you feel like you were nothing when you were the only fucking thing that ever made me feel real.”

She breathes out slowly. Her lashes lower, but her mouth curves, sly and slow, and gods I already know I’m in trouble.

“Wow,” she murmurs. “You almost sounded like a decent person just now.”

I bark out a laugh. “Don’t get used to it.”

Her smirk sharpens. “Oh, I won’t. I know who you are.”

“Do you?”

“I’ve got a running list,” she says. “Emotionally constipated. Condescending. Pretty much a dick most days.”

“You forgot devastatingly attractive.”

She shrugs one shoulder. “You’re alright. If you like that ‘brooding immortal who looks like he might kill you or go down on you, depending on the mood’ kind of vibe.”

I grin. “I am that vibe.”

She steps closer, not pulling her hand away, not breaking the contact—just leaning in until her chest brushes mine, until I can feel the shape of her mouth when she whispers, “And that’s the problem.”

“Why?”

“Because I kind of like it.”

My pulse punches behind my ribs. She tilts her face up to mine, and I don’t move. I want her to come to me. I want her to choose it. Choose me.

And she does. Her mouth touches mine—soft at first, teasing, just a ghost of pressure. A test. An invitation. I don’t make her ask twice. I kiss her like I’m claiming something I never thought I’d be allowed to touch. Like she’s not mine yet, but she could be. If I’m careful. If I’m brutal. If I let her see all the worst of me and still somehow make her want it.

She moans into my mouth and it’s a fucking revelation. Her hands drag down my chest, slow and shameless, before sliding under my coat, gripping my hips like she’s been waiting too long to get here. And I don’t stop her. I let her take. I let her want. Because for the first time since the bond snapped into place, I don’t want to control this. I just want her.