Page 14 of Touch of Oblivion (Woven in Time #1)

Riven

T he new structure rising from the forest floor is nothing short of theatrical with arched stone columns wrapped in lush green vines, the scent of damp earth and crushed wildflowers still clinging to the air.

Coaxed from the land itself. Spring fae handiwork, no doubt, at the bequest of their king. Taking advantage of their portals to come into shifter lands and create this before disappearing.

The wind cuts through the clearing, brisk without the warmth of the morning light that’s just beginning to awaken. It stirs the loose ends of my hair as I breathe in the possibilities of the morning.

My gaze moves to the shifter king, who somehow always manages to arrive earlier than me, despite my best efforts.

He stands at the edge of the structure with a cigarette pinched between two fingers.

The burning embers at the end are a stark contrast to the approaching dawn.

Smoke coils upward as he slowly exhales.

Ever the silent sentinel, brooding like it earns him virtue.

“You may want to put that out before she arrives,” I offer, my voice edged with judgment.

No response. Not a glance. Not even a breath wasted in acknowledgment.

I can’t resist the bait that rises on my tongue.

My smile curves, slow and sharp. “Or don’t,” I add. “One less rival panting over my darling when she dismisses you as an option.”

That lands exactly as I knew it would.

The cigarette hisses as it’s flicked out and snuffed beneath his heel. “Your darling, huh?” he says as his glowing golden gaze slices toward me. “She didn’t seem to be yours when she chose the wraith.”

Perhaps that would have riled me if I hadn't gone to her room last night and saw firsthand the way she blossomed in my presence.

“She chose him as a safe option,” I murmur, letting the words coil between us. “She wasn’t ready to face what I incite within her, but I think that’s changing after last night.”

He steps toward me with a slow, controlled pace.

“If I hear of you pushing her past her boundaries,” he growls, voice low and lethal, “you won’t be able to outrun me before I snap your neck.”

I let the corner of my mouth lift. “You’d almost be endearing,” I murmur, “if your possessiveness weren’t so predictably primitive.”

“I’m not possessive,” he snaps. “I’m protective of those my animal spirits claim as pack. There’s a difference you wouldn’t understand with your single-minded prey drive.”

I hum, soft and amused. “You would be shocked by the restraint I showed last night, with my prey.”

The silence that follows is charged and delight rolls through me at the thought of a quick skirmish, but then the air shifts.

The forest stills and the temperature drops a degree as shadows unfurl at the treeline, causing me to straighten.

She’s coming.

Just like that, everything else fades from my mind.

Azyric emerges first, solemn as a death sentence, cloaked in black as always. Shadows still lick at his arms, reluctant to release the delectable offering in his hands, which instantly peeves me. His expression is practically carved from stone–perpetually grim, as though smiling might splinter him.

I watch the darkness peel back and reveal the woman who has consumed all of the space in my mind since finding her.

She walks a step in front of his looming presence, her dark cloak trailing like ink across the clearing. The wind catches the edge of it, lifting the fabric in a slow billow.

Then, her eyes find mine.

Not the archways of the structure Sylvin had raised. Not the forest. Not Torryn.

Me .

A feeling I thought long since dead rakes against the inside of my ribs: the need to claim.

My fangs descend without permission, as they did last night. I grit at the effort it takes to retract them.

Light creeps through the forest, illuminating her and worsening my need.

Dark black hair spills around her shoulders in loose waves, catching the pale morning light with a sheen that borders on blue.

I forget how small and fragile she looks in comparison to our size, until I see the difference before my eyes.

She’s delicate in stature, but not fragile.

Slender, yes, but with soft, dangerous curves that speak of comfort and chaos in equal measure.

And those eyes…Hazel and glowing like the edge of dusk. It’s the kind of gaze you don’t just fall into–you willingly drown yourself in it.

I push off the pillar and take a single step forward toward her, a reminder that the wraith didn’t chase me off .

Azyric’s gaze narrows on me, his posture stiffening as it rakes across my face. I meet it with a slow, deliberate smile that’s wholly unthreatening and unbothered.

Yet it is an acknowledgment.

Let him stew in his uncertainty.

Let him burn in his jealousy.

Because for all the shadows he cloaks her in, she still looked for me .

Torryn stands rigid at my side, but the tension radiates from him like heat. His gaze flicks between Wren and Azyric, calculation in every shift.

I watch the thoughts churn in his mind and flash across his face in the most minute ways. A pinch to his brow. The slight turning down of his lips. The tightening at his jaw line.

He’s finally seeing that he isn’t even in the running.

I revert my focus to her with a satisfied smirk tugging at my mouth. She’s closer now, and I drink in the details.

The pale column of her throat as she pulls the hood of her cloak down. The way her lips part slightly when her gaze catches on the structure behind us.

Immediately, my eyes flicker across the border of the clearing, looking for the damned fae who thinks he can win her over with a display of his underlings’ talent. A Winter fae like him could never accomplish this structure.

I can’t detect another being within the vicinity, but it’s not a surprise. The bastard’s late, as always.

She doesn’t stop until she reaches the threshold of our new structure and Azyric plants himself like a wall between Wren and the rest of us.

Predictable. Possessive. Pathetic.

But Wren doesn’t stay behind him. She moves beside him instead, spine straight, eyes scanning the new space like she’s been trained to assess for threats.

She isn’t here to be protected…she’s here to witness .

I wonder if Azyric’s noticed that about her…better yet, I wonder if she has.

The vines wrapped around the stones shiver, as if greeting their king before he appears.

A soft shimmer of glamour peels away like fog dissipating as he steps from the forest’s edge.

White-blond hair swept back in a perfect wave. Tunic undone just enough to frame a chest I have no doubt he thinks is impressive but isn’t. He may be the tallest of us all, but he possesses the least amount of muscle and physical strength. Reliant upon his magic for his battle prowess.

Every step as he approaches feels choreographed. Every smile rehearsed.

When his eyes find Wren, they soften slightly. Just enough to make me want to claw those bright blue orbs from his skull.

As he reaches us, he bows low, polished and precise, to Wren.

“Little echo,” he purrs, the name curling through the quiet clearing.

“It’s Wren,” she murmurs, though the defiance is dulled now.

He continues without acknowledging her words. “I’m shocked your beauty could be enhanced, yet here we are.”

“What a strange way of telling her she was dirty yesterday,” I mutter before my lip curls.

Torryn’s hand lifts to smother a chuckle, garnering Wren’s focus, and to my dismay, she…smiles at him.

I want to dwell in this moment. To dissect every facet of it to understand where her emotions lie in regards to him, yet Azyric breaks my concentration.

“Ilyria came to your border,” he says as he steps closer to Sylvin, his voice flat and void of emotion. The kind of calm that precedes catastrophe. “She brought the terms in a proposal we negotiated already.”

The tension coils tightly.

“But your generals denied her.”

Sylvin takes a step forward until they’re nearly nose to nose. It’s the first glimpse of faltering behind that elegant mask in Wren’s presence.

She takes a step back from them, closer to myself and Torryn.

Is she…afraid of them?

That doesn’t sit right within me, but why else would she back away from them?

“I told them to sign the proposal,” Sylvin says, voice clipped. “I cannot lie.”

Wren stiffens in front of me, and instantly I’m at her side.

I glance down in time to watch the color drain from her face. Her usual poise cracks, her shoulders curling inward. Both hands clutch the edges of her cloak, as if the world beneath her has begun to tilt and she needs a steadying anchor.

Shadows curl behind Azyric. “You are a master of bending the truth,” he snarls at the fae king. “All this proves is that the alliance is a lie. Why pretend our factions can ever unite under one cause?”

Wren flinches. It’s subtle. Barely a twitch, but I see it as clearly as the pulses thrumming in everyone’s bodies.

Her head bows and her lashes flutter–once, twice. It’s like watching her fall away from this moment, as if she’s somewhere else entirely for a breath.

The argument unraveling in front of us becomes meaningless to me as I focus on her entirely.

Gently, I place my hands on her shoulders and draw her further from the conflict. Torryn’s gaze clashes with mine and he gives a single jerk of his head toward the building.

“Take her in there. I’ll make sure these two don’t kill each other.”

Normally I’d retort that I don’t need his permission or orders, but as her shoulders begin to tremble under my touch, I bite the urge back. The last thing she needs is more divisiveness.

I guide her into the structure with careful hands, her cloak brushing my knuckles as we move. The moment we cross the threshold, the air shifts. It’s quieter here, muted as if even the stones and vines recognize that she needs silence more than sound.

I settle her gently into the nearest moss-carved seat, then lower myself to my knees in front of her. Not to bow or beg, but to offer steadiness. To soften my presence and be small, where so many others loom.

It reminds me of last night, but this time I don’t touch her.

Not yet.

“Wren,” I murmur, my voice low and quiet, meant only for her. “Look at me.”

Her eyes lift slowly, golds, greens, and amber all swirling together suddenly stare back at me. Glassy, but not lost.

“Are you alright?”

She nods, but it’s too quick to be honest.

Her fingers are knotted in her lap, knuckles pale and rigid. Her posture is composed, but beneath it, there’s a nervous edge lining her. It’s a quiet tension only someone watching too closely would notice.

“Just tired,” she says off-handedly.

It’s a good lie. Soft and short, but a lie, nonetheless.

I study her a moment longer before tilting my head, voice softer now. “What rattled you, darling?”

She turns her head away after a momentary pause. The move is gentle, like she’s shutting the door with both hands, quietly telling me this is a boundary not to be crossed.

“I’m fine,” she whispers. “It just caught me off guard.”

It.

Whatever it was, it’s still with her. Haunting her in ways even I can’t see. I won’t try to pry answers from her, but I will remain vigilant.

Through the opening of the building I see Azyric shift his focus.

I feel the moment his attention tears from Sylvin and their argument. His gaze lands on Wren, and his entire stance tightens, the smallest adjustment betraying something far less composed beneath the surface.

But he doesn’t go to her–he comes for me.

His approach is silent, shadows curling behind him until he stops just short of me, still on my knees and trying to anchor Wren through whatever storm she’s going through.

“You entered my territory unannounced,” he says while glaring down at me.

The only time I’ll ever allow him to look down at me.

“You stood in my castle.”

Each sentence is a thread pulled tighter.

“You entered her room.”

I don’t react. Not because I lack the skill to retaliate, or the inclination, but because Wren is trembling again. Every predatory instinct in me demands I sink my fangs into his soft throat and rip his spine from its depths.

I breathe once, carefully, and choose a different kind of response. One that puts Wren’s needs in front of my own.

“She could have asked me to leave,” I say, my voice steady. “I would have without hesitation.”

It’s just the truth, and that’s what makes it cut so deeply.

Azyric’s jaw locks. His shadows twitch, rising higher along his arms like they seek something to lash out at.

He opens his mouth again and my hands curl into fists as I slowly rise to stand in response.

Now I look down at him as our chests nearly brush .

I let the movement speak for itself, deliberate and unhurried, every inch of it calm and controlled. I’ve stood before people far more dangerous than him.

My gaze meets his, level and unwavering.

“This isn’t about territory,” I say, quiet but firm. “It’s not about your court, or mine.”

My tone softens, but there’s no gentleness in it, only a restraint I’m barely holding onto.

“It’s about her , and if you can’t see that she’s unraveling in front of us right now, then perhaps you’re not the protector you claim to be.”

The words settle heavily between us, but I don’t look away.

Not until I feel the slightest shift beside me and a heavy breath that trails through the air.

I glance to my side where she sits. Her eyes are no longer unfocused and glassy. No, they’re pinned on us with the burning rage of the sun itself glowing there now.

It’s then that I know no matter my efforts to stop this posturing, we’ve already gone too far.