Ciprian groans. “Am I ever going to live that down?”
“Certainly not.” Alistair tugs Ciprian to his feet and pins him to the wall. “Because we all adored hearing it, and we don’t want to forget.”
Groaning, Ciprian lets his head thump against the wall, his Adam’s apple bobbing in his throat. “Weird kinks. You’re all giving me weird kinks. Celine throws Malach across the room? I get hard. Alistair staring like he wants to literally eat me? Hard again. What’s next? Will Riven’s jittery face while he watches Celine drink water start turning me on, too?”
Celine wipes fake tears from her cheeks. “You live such a difficult life. I’m sorry everything is hard for you.”
Ciprian slips free from Alistair’s grip and tosses his arm over Celine’s shoulder. “That’s what I’m saying.”
We leave the training room, and I keep a close eye on Celine and Riven as we navigate the halls. A glitching face could be a sign that Riven’s binding is wearing thin; it could also mean something is wrong with him. Twitching usually means a shifter is struggling. Strong emotions, fatigue, or lack of control can cause it—so which is it for Riven?
By the time we get to Celine’s room, I still haven’t made up my mind whether to bring it up or not.
She slips into the bathroom to shower, and Alistair and Ciprian decide to search for Malach. I’m aboutto follow them out to ask about dinner—and, if I’m lucky, find some ingredients to make drinks—when Riven clears his throat.
“I think we’d better have this out now,” he says.
I glance over my shoulder and raise one eyebrow. His feet are planted wide and squared off. He’s expecting a fight.
Sighing, I close the bedroom door and face him. “What’s up?” If I play dumb, maybe we can both avoid a confrontation. I can share Celine. We can coexist. I meet his eyes, hoping he’ll take the out I’m giving him and table this conversation untilnever.
But in typical Riven fashion, he does the exact opposite of what I want him to do and scowls. “Don’t pretend, Luca. I know you hate me, okay? It didn’t matter before.” He glances at the closed bathroom door and swallows. “But it matters now.”
Do I hate Riven?I haven’t thought about it in a while. There’s been too much going on. I’ve removed him from our active enemy list. I trust him to keep Celine safe—he’s a deadly fucking bastard. If I hated him, I don’t think I’d be able to stomach it, but he’s a veydra and I’m a basilisk. We were never supposed to be friends.
“What do you want?” I ask. “To clear the air? Hug it out?” I sound like a dick, but I’m genuinely curious how he wants to resolve this. Celine takes long showers, but the hot water will certainly run out before we can work through the societal issues of our home realm. We’re dealing with generations of complicated shifter dynamics here.
“I regret my part in your return to the monster realm,” Riven says. I watch a single band of static roll over the bridge of his nose. A nose that never quite takes shape, no matter how hard I stare at it.
Sighing, I sit my ass down on the couch. I can hear him out. That costs me nothing. “I’m past that,” I tell him. And it’s true.
He was working a job. I get that. Morals aren’t black-and-white to me; I’ve lived in the Fringes for too long to entertain absolutes.When it mattered most, Riven changed his mind, and we wouldn’t be alive without his help.
What bothers me goes deeper. It’s buried beneath layers of generational scarring, and I’m scared to confront itbecause I’m not sure it paints me in a very good light.
I was raised to hate veydran. I now understand that shifters like Riven were tools in the same fucked-up system that abuses monsters like me, but some things are hard to forget... My parents blank stares. The arena. Cages disguised as cabins. Impossible choices.
Shifter history is riddled with pain and fury, but I’m tired of being hurt and pissed off.
“Your binding...” I scrub my hand through my hair. “And I’m not trying to be an asshole here, so please don’t think that’s my intention if I fuck up the delivery, okay?”
Riven nods and sinks stiffly into the chair across from me.
Our knees are only a few inches apart. Mine bounce up and down. I could make them stop, but it’s not worth the effort. Riven’s clearly struggling, too. His bands are out of control now, rolling over his forehead and cheeks constantly. He doesn’t give a fuck about my bouncing knees because he understands.Fuck me.I can’t hate him, can I?
“Do you remember before?” I ask.
“Before they bound me?”
I nod.
He shakes his head and glances away, steeling himself before meeting my eyes. “Veydran are bound one week after birth. I’ve never been anything but this. There’s nothing for me to miss because I’ve always been nothing. No one.”
“Bullshit,” I snap. “What they did to you made it so you couldn’t access your face, but you’re still Riven. They can’t take that from you if you don’t let them.”
He laughs, but the sound is raw. “Riven isn’t even my realname, Luca. If my mother gave me one, I’ll never know it, because they took me from her immediately. I can’t know if she fought for me like your parents did or handed me over without complaint, and wondering is a one-way trip to madness.”
His next glitch peels the amber mask back and reveals the face we saw earlier. I glance around for a mirror, trying to be casual about it. I don’t want to scare his face away before he gets to look at it. But he’s not watching me, anyway, he’s too busy baring his soul.
