“Is that what you tell yourself so you can sleep at night?” He circles me, his voice edged with ice. “That you’re restraining yourself? That you have control? That despite everything, you don’t enjoy me as much as I enjoy you?”
I don’t move. Don’t let him see how deep his words burrow under my skin, setting my heart on fire.
But he does see. He always sees.
“Because if you’re truly in control,” he continues, taking a slow step toward me, the light from the lanterns making his eyes glint like frozen steel, “then you wouldn’t be shaking right now.”
A sharp gust of wind slams through the room, rattling the lanterns and making the wooden walls groan, as if the ship itself is straining under the weight of this moment.
He watches, fascinated, his lips parting slightly, like he’s daring me to lose control.
“What are you so afraid of?” he pushes further, his voice sliding over me like frost. “That you’ll like it? That you’ll lose control? That you’ll kill me?”
His words settle over me like a whisper of fate, and the cabin feels smaller. Tighter.
“Maybe I’m afraid of losing more of myself than you’ve already taken,” I admit, and then I summon my magic again in one violent burst, sending a rush of wind through the cabin, shoving him back just enough to slip past him.
My breaths are ragged as I throw open the cabin door, stepping onto the deck and into the cool night air. The ghostly mist coils around me, and I brace my hands on the railing, forcing myself to focus on the wind, the water—onanythingbut the way Riven’s words are still curling around my mind, sinking into my bones.
Because he’s right. Iamscared.
Not of him.
Not of the hunger.
But of the inescapable feeling that if I ever tasted him, I’d never be able to stop—and that a life without him in it would make me even more broken than I already am.
