Page 40

I feel like I’ve woken up in the wrong version of reality. There’s something off. Not just off—wrong, in the way reality warps when a dream forgets it’s not supposed to be real. It’s in the way Riven keeps checking the perimeter like he expects something to jump out from behind the hedges. In the way Ambrose lingers too long in the kitchen, making tea he doesn’t drink. In the way Caspian touches my shoulder in passing, like he’s making sure I’m still there, like I might vanish between blinks.

And then there’s Silas and Elias—who have always been weird, but now their weird is…organized. Coordinated. Tactical. They’re never not watching me. Or Lucien.

Because Lucien has gone rogue. He’s… nice.

He asks if I want to walk with him every day now, like we didn’t used to go weeks avoiding each other like the bond was a curse one of us would accidentally trigger. He doesn’t smirk when he says it, either. He doesn’t mock me with words dipped in venom or cold smiles. He just asks. Quiet, simple, and every time he does, I find myself saying yes before my brain can catch up to how strange it feels.

Yesterday, he brought me flowers.

Lucien Virelius. Bringer of blood, ruin, and flowers.

And not even dead ones. Fresh. Hand-picked. Arranged in a spiral like he researched bouquet meanings on the back of some ancient death scroll. When he handed them to me, he looked so serious I thought he was delivering a weapon.

But there was no edge in his voice. No cruelty in the fold of his mouth. Just a single, aching sincerity that felt like a trap dressed up in kindness. And I took them. Because I didn’t know what else to do. Because part of me wanted to believe he meant it. That maybe he was allowed to want things now too.

But he also carries a knife. Constantly. Tucked in his back pocket like it’s a secret we’re both pretending not to notice. When I asked him about it and he said, “Old habits.”

I think he meant it. I hope he did.

But now Silas is asking me if I’ve “noticed how disturbingly symmetrical Lucien’s face is lately,” and Elias just casually asked if I’ve “made any blood oaths with Banana Satan yet.” Which… is not how I expected breakfast to go.

This morning, I caught Orin watching Lucien from across the gardens with a look of murderous curiosity. Which is probably the most dangerous combination of things Orin can feel.

And I know something’s going on. I just can’t figure out what.

Because this house has never been quiet, never been still. But this? This feels like every one of them is waiting for a shoe to drop. Only none of us know which shoe. Or when. Or how many laces it’ll take to strangle the whole fucking lot of us when it does.

Lucien knocks on the door to the library before I can spiral further. And there he is again. Beautiful and unreadable and pretending this version of himself has always existed. The knife’s on his hip.

He says, “Another walk?”

And I nod. Because I’m not ready to ask the real question.

What’s changed? And what happens when the truth comes for us this time?

He laughs at my joke about Mr. Beans clawing Silas’s nipple ring off like it was a personal vendetta, and not only does Lucien laugh, he wheezes—wheezes, like his lungs are weak from actual joy.

Which is suspicious. Concerning. Possibly even apocalyptic.

Because Lucien doesn’t laugh. He doesn't even smile unless it's weaponized. That smirk he perfected like a scalpel, used to slice through me without ever needing a blade. But this—this is a full-bodied, unguarded, breath-stealing laugh. One hand over his mouth like he doesn’t trust it, the other brushing against mine as if he doesn’t trust himself.

And it’s not the laugh that disarms me. It’s the way he keeps doing it. Again. And again. Like I’m something soft he wants to keep.

Like he’s listening.

He asks how Mr. Beans is sleeping at night. Like he hasn’t been under the same roof. Like he hasn’t walked past my door twice a night and paused—I know he pauses, I feel it in the way the air catches in my lungs when his footsteps stop.

I answer anyway. Tell him the kitten curls under my chin like he’s guarding my throat. Tell him that he bites Caspian but purrs when Elias holds him upside down. Tell him that Silas has tried to dress him in seven different outfits and only lost a little blood.

Lucien chuckles again. “He’s got taste, at least.”

“I’m assuming you mean because he doesn’t like Silas.”

“I mean because he chose you.”

The words settle too carefully in the quiet between us, soft enough to bruise. He looks straight ahead like he didn’t say them, like he didn’t mean them to hit as hard as they do. But I’m watching. And I see it. That fraction of a second where something shatters behind his eyes and he builds it back—stone by cold, calculated stone.

I want to ask him if something’s wrong. I want to say what are you doing, Lucien, what are you hiding beneath all this softness, but I don't. Because for once in what feels like a lifetime, this version of him feels earned. Because I remember what came before. The words he spit like acid. The truths too sharp to be forgiven. The night in the cathedral when everything that could shatter between us did.

And yet here he is now.

Asking about my cat. Laughing at my awful jokes. Smiling at the ground like it’s holy just because I’m walking beside him. It’s not lost on me that I like this version. That I missed the version that never existed. That some dangerous, traitorous part of me wants him exactly like this—unguarded, devoted, still pretending he doesn’t know what he’s doing to me.

“I feel like I’m dreaming,” I say quietly. “Like I’m going to blink and you’ll go back to growling at me from across the hallway and plotting my exile again.”

Lucien’s eyes cut to mine. All warmth and war colliding there.

“I was plotting your exile,” he murmurs, voice low, amused, a little dark. “I just got distracted by the fact that I wanted to keep you instead.”

And gods, the way he says it—like he means every word, like that shift happened long before either of us were ready—undoes something deep in my chest.

I glance away before he can see it.

Before he can know I’m slipping. Again. For him.

I’ve never said it out loud. Not to the others. Not even to myself in a way that felt real. But it’s true, and it’s been true since the first day I walked into this cursed, twisted academy and saw Lucien standing at the edge of the stairs like a god carved from winter and war.

I had the biggest crush on him first.

Not because he was kind. Not because he smiled or offered his seat or helped me with my books like some delusional academy fantasy. No. He was awful. Cold. Dismissive. He stared straight through me like I wasn’t worth the breath it would take to speak my name.

And I wanted him anyway.

Because he didn’t lie to me. Not like the others—at first, at least. Caspian wore that quiet grief like armor and offered up politeness like a weapon. Riven was distant, unreadable, until the day he wasn’t. Ambrose... gods, Ambrose burned from the beginning, but I couldn’t tell if it was hatred or hunger. Silas and Elias? They faked charm with such confidence I didn’t even know it was a game until I was already in too deep. But Lucien—Lucien didn’t fake anything. He wanted me gone. And he didn’t pretend otherwise.

It was stupid. I know it was stupid. But there was something about being seen so clearly by someone who had no interest in comforting me that made me feel... real. Like I wasn’t just a binder with a price tag. Like I wasn’t a role they’d been waiting to fill.

Lucien didn’t want me.

And gods help me, that only made me want him more.

“Something wrong?” he asks beside me, watching me too carefully now, like maybe he feels it—this spiral, this confession pressing behind my ribs, this ache that started years ago and never really stopped.

I shake my head and offer a smile that feels like glass cracking under pressure. “No. Just... remembering how much you hated me.”

Lucien doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t deny it. His silence confirms it. But then—

“I didn’t hate you,” he says quietly. “I hated what you were. What you represented. A future I couldn’t control. A fate I didn’t choose.”

His words are measured, but his voice is hoarse, like they cost him something to speak aloud.

“I saw you,” he adds, slower this time. “And I knew—if I let myself want you, I’d never stop.”

My breath catches. Not because it’s sweet. Not even because it’s romantic. But because it’s true.

Lucien never does anything halfway. Not his cruelty. Not his power. And certainly not his love. If he wanted me, he would want all of me. And he would never let go. And here we are now, walking side by side like we haven’t bled for each other in ways we still haven’t named. Like we haven’t both broken things that may never fully heal.

Like we could maybe, possibly, finally... begin again.

If I let him.

If he lets me.

It’s dangerous, what he’s doing. This slow unraveling. The compliments that slide under my skin like satin-wrapped blades. The flowers. The walks. The eye contact that lingers just a beat too long. He used to glare at me like I was the ruin of everything. Now he watches me like I’m the answer to a question he’s never let himself ask.

And that’s the problem, isn’t it?

Because we’re already fucking. We’ve been fucking. There’s no mystery there, no chase. He’s had me—body, breath, heat, the kinds of sounds I only ever make for him. So why is he still looking at me like he’s starving? Why is he acting like he’s trying to earn something now?

What more could he possibly want from me?

The answer curls up like fire in my throat.

Everything.

That’s what he’s asking for. Not sex. Not submission. Not control.

Me.

All of me. The parts that are still healing. The ones that flinch at kindness. The ones that shattered in Branwen’s realm and haven’t quite pieced themselves together again. He doesn’t say it outright. That’s not Lucien. He’s never needed declarations. He moves like a storm—silent until you’re already soaked and drowning.

I glance at him now, his profile sharp as myth, the curl of his mouth soft enough to undo me. He’s not looking at me. He’s letting me watch. Letting me question. And gods, he knows I will.

“Why now?” I ask, voice low, careful. “Why this… change?”

“I don’t want to lose you,” he says.

Simple. Devastating.

I stop walking. The world keeps moving. Leaves scatter in the wind. A crow shrieks in the distance. But I’m still, waiting for the other blade to fall.

“You tried to push me away for months,” I remind him, voice sharper now. “Tried to ruin us. And now you’re picking flowers and pretending it never happened?”

“I wasn’t pretending,” he says. “I was surviving it.”

And there it is.

Not an apology. Not an excuse. Just the truth, cracked and jagged between his teeth.

He turns to face me fully, his expression unreadable but his eyes—gods—his eyes burn with something ancient. Not lust. Not power. Something worse.

Hope.

“I can’t undo what I said,” he murmurs. “What I did. But I can choose differently now.”

“And what are you choosing?” I whisper.

His gaze drops to my mouth. Not possessive. Not hungry. Just reverent. Like he’s trying to memorize the shape of every word I’ve ever said to him.

“You.”

The word hangs there. Undeniable. Unfixable.

The world stops.

Like—stops. Lucien Virelius, First Sin of Dominion, walking talking embodiment of power-will-command-subjugate, kneels. And not in a ceremonial, overly dramatic, "kiss my ring" sort of way. No. He’s just... there. Both knees hitting the earth like the universe finally broke its spine and gave in.

My first instinct is panic. What the hell is happening? Has he lost his mind? Is this some obscure magic side effect no one warned me about? Did Silas spike his tea? My brain spins through every possible reason Lucien would put his knees to the ground in broad daylight, in front of me—until it lands on the one reason I can’t explain away.

He’s not kneeling because he’s weak. He’s kneeling because I’m standing.

“Lucien?” My voice comes out thinner than I want it to, hushed, like I’m scared of cracking the moment in half.

He just… looks at me. Up at me. Like I’m something sacred and dangerous, and he’s both reverent and resigned to the fact that I might destroy him.

“What—what are you doing?” I ask, half whisper, half breathless accusation.

His jaw clenches once, the way it always does when he’s trying to force words through emotion he hates admitting he has.

“I don’t know how to ask you,” he says finally, voice low, rough-edged like gravel under velvet. “Not without it sounding like I’m taking something. I’ve taken enough from you.”

The wind lifts strands of my hair, and I can’t move. Can’t breathe right. He hasn’t touched me, but it feels like he has.

“Then say it,” I whisper. “Say what you want.”

He exhales. Shaky. Controlled.

“I want what they have.” His eyes flick toward the house, toward the others. “I want the bond.”

I flinch. I don’t mean to. But it’s instinct. Not out of fear—never that—but out of shock. Lucien wants to bond.

He swallows hard, and the sound of it makes my stomach twist.

“You were meant for all of us. I’ve known that since the moment I saw you.” His gaze burns into mine. “But I didn’t want fate to decide for me. I didn’t want to be forced into loving someone just because magic said so.”

That word—love—hangs there, a loaded weapon.

“But I do,” he says. “Not because of what you are. Not because you were made for me. I want to bond because you’re you. And I’m done pretending that doesn’t destroy me.”

My knees threaten to give. My fingers tremble. Lucien kneeling. Not demanding. Not commanding. Just offering. And it’s the most terrifying, beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.

“Lucien,” I murmur. “You’re a terrifying man.”

He smirks faintly. “And you’re the only thing that’s ever scared me.”

I smile—small, broken, real. “Then I guess we’re even.”

His lips part like he wants to say more. But I don’t let him.

“I’m not afraid of you,” I whisper. “Not anymore.”

And I’m not.

Because this—whatever we’re becoming—this is what I want too.

I kneel in front of him because he’s Pride. Because I know what it cost him. Lucien Virelius doesn’t bend, doesn’t bow, doesn’t yield—not to gods, not to death, and certainly not to anyone with a heart still beating.

But he did. For me.

And I can’t let him stay there—on his knees like I’m something holy when I’m just a girl who bleeds too easily and loves too recklessly. So I lower myself, dirt staining the knees of my pants, the earth grounding me even as everything else tilts sideways beneath the weight of what this is becoming.

“You don’t have to kneel for me,” I murmur, reaching out to brush a wind-wild strand of hair from his forehead. “That’s your kink, not mine.”

His mouth twitches. Just enough for me to see the hint of a smirk. “You sure?” he asks, low and wicked. “Because I’m having very conflicting feelings about it now.”

“You’re impossible,” I breathe.

“And you’re unbearable,” he says, and his voice shouldn’t sound so soft. It shouldn’t sound like devotion wrapped in velvet and cut from steel. But it does.

His fingers curl slowly around mine. No command. No Dominion. Just his hand, warm and real and trembling.

“Do it,” he says, and his tone doesn’t dare. It begs. “If you’re mine…if you want this—us—then do it now.”

I can feel it between us, humming beneath the skin. The power of a bond not yet made, but already breathing. Already wanting.

Six.

The unthinkable. The forbidden. The inevitable.

My thumb brushes over his palm, and I see it in his eyes—the way he stares at me like I’m already his sin, already the thing that will undo him.

I don’t need to ask if he’s sure. I know he is.

I reach for the knife. Smooth handle. Dull edge. His, of course. It always had to be his. Lucien watches me like I might disappear. Like this could all be a cruel trick cast by whatever gods still exist. And maybe it is. Maybe this is the moment the world shifts and never recovers.

I press the blade to my palm. A small slice. Nothing deep. Nothing dramatic. Just enough. Lucien doesn’t flinch. He cuts across his hand, lets the blood rise in a slow, crimson bloom. When our hands meet, when blood meets blood, it’s like the entire realm sighs into place.

Not a burn. Not a spark.

A pull.

Like something ancient has finally clicked into its socket. Like something dark and divine is satisfied. My head swims. His magic crashes into me like waves over stone, relentless and hungry and so deeply him—commanding and protective, cold and warm in turns, every part of him he never wanted to show me now laid bare through the bond.

Lucien gasps. Not from pain. From clarity.

“Fuck,” he whispers, and then his hand tightens on mine, almost possessive—but not quite. It’s reverent. Worshipful. “You’re in my veins.”

I smile, and it’s not sweet. It’s a warning. A promise.

“You’ve been in mine since the beginning.”

We sit there, bleeding into each other, and I think—this is it. This is the end of what we were. And the beginning of whatever the hell comes next.

I kiss him. It’s not careful. It’s not sweet. It’s not one of those shy things built on maybe or someday or later. It’s a confession. A wound. A war cry. His mouth opens under mine like he’s been waiting for this moment longer than I’ve been alive, like the universe spun a little slower just to get us here. And maybe it did. Maybe every cruel word he ever flung at me, every crueler silence he clung to, was all just foreplay to this—my mouth against his, my hand in his bloodied one, my magic curled in his chest like a lover that had always belonged.

His fingers thread into my hair, and he kisses me like he’s sealing something into place—something irrevocable. Something dangerous. Something we’ll both bleed for, eventually.

I break away just enough to speak. Just enough to ruin him a little more.

“I need to tell you something,” I whisper, resting my forehead against his. “You were last to bond. But you were first to ruin me.”

He goes still.

Stone still.

Like every part of him is braced for the blow he never saw coming.