Chapter 130: They Come in Two - Riven's POV

The next twenty-four hours were the worst. It had now been six days and still nothing had changed. She still breathed steadily, had a pulse, and the bond was quiet.

And the demon was getting louder.

He didn’t press or push. This was different, something that I didn’t quite have a name for. It was as if he were a predator and testing the fence.

She's close, he kept saying. That same cold impression, arriving every few hours like something that had been set on a timer. She's close to it. The center of it.

I didn't respond. I had learned years ago that responding to it gave it more surface area to work with, more of my attention to fill with whatever it wanted to put there. Then, when he could get a good grasp, he would break free and I would lose myself to him. So, I listened.

He knew what was going on and had access to the vision that the book had put her in. Oh, how he wanted to tell me. Part of me wanted to give in. Part of me wanted to see what she was seeing. I thought that if I gave in that I might accidentally let the demon out and then who knows what would happen to me.

Raze had recovered, but I might not have.

She's close, he said again, then his voice got even lower. She found what he had left behind.

I sat up in the chair.

"What does that mean?" I asked quietly, trying to sort through his feelings.

I was getting impressions rather than words and feelings. The demon normally spoke clearly, but it seemed like he was getting desperate and wanted me to see the vision for myself. So, he did what he did best. Created confusion.

The next feeling I got came through in layers. They felt strange and twisted. It took me several minutes to even sort through what I was feeling. There was grief, though I couldn’t tell who it came from, tangled with something else.

I sat with that feeling for a moment, turning it over. The demon went quiet. And then sometime after midnight, while the room was dark and there was barely any light, Callista’s breathing changed.

Her fingers moved, clutching the covers, then releasing them . I leaned forward, watching her.

"Callista," I said softly.

Her brow furrowed with a small crease between them. I felt the bond surge back to life fully, flooding me with all of her motions. It was then I felt that same grief, along with more emotions that I could imagine.

"Callista."

Her eyes opened in stages. At first, it was slow, then faster, blinking against the darkness until they found the ceiling, then the window. After a moment that felt considerably longer than it was, they found me.

I didn’t move, reach for her, or flood her with questions. I just held her gaze and let her come back at whatever pace she needed. She stared at me for a long moment, long enough that I counted her breaths without meaning to.

Then she released a breath. “I think I know how to break it.”

The demon went absolutely still inside me.

I leaned forward slowly, both forearms on the edge of the bed, close enough that she didn't have to work to see me clearly. "Tell me," I said softly. "Take your time. Tell me everything."

Her eyes stayed on mine, clear and certain despite the roughness in her voice, carrying something in them that hadn't been there before she went under. Something that looked like a person who had seen something very difficult and came back carrying more than they left with.

"All of it," she said, her voice gathering slightly as she used it. "I saw all of it from the beginning to the original way it was cast, to the reasons why.” She swallowed visibly and reached for a glass of water next to the bed. She took it and drank, then set it down. “Our bond is part of the answer, but it’s not all of it.”

“Not all of it?” I asked, my voice cracking.

“We’re going to be okay. I promise,” she whispered.

Before I could respond, she sat up and wrapped her arms around my neck. I sat there completely motionless as she held onto me and cried.

For a long moment, I couldn’t breathe. The relief hit so hard that it was almost painful, sharp enough to hollow me out from the inside. I had sat here for six days, watching her lie there. Six days of wondering if her next breath would be the last. Six days of having the demon whispering at the edges of my mind.

Now she was awake and in my arms, holding on to me as if her life depended on it.

Her shoulders shook against me as she cried, and I slowly lifted my hands to her back as if I were afraid she might disappear if I moved too fast. I held her carefully at first, then tightened my grip.

The bond poured through us in violent waves. There was grief, exhaustion, fear, and love so fierce that it nearly brought me to my knees. Underneath all of it was something older, heavier, as if she had walked through ruins no one else remembered and brought the dust back with her.

“I’ve got you,” I murmured against her hair.

She made a small sound that almost broke me.

Minutes passed before her breathing finally steadied. Even then, she didn’t pull away completely. She stayed close, her forehead against my shoulder and her fingers curled in the fabric of my shirt, as if she needed the physical proof that I was real.

The demon remained silent. That unsettled me more than the whispers had.

Carefully, I pulled back enough to look at her. Her eyes were red from crying, but there was a frightening clarity inside them now. Whatever the book had shown her, it had changed something fundamental.

“You said you knew how to break it,” I breathed.

Her expression tightened instantly. “I do.”

The answer should have relieved me. Instead, dread slid coldly down my spine.

“Why do I feel like there’s a catch?”

Her gaze dropped briefly to the blankets gathered in her lap. “Because there is.”

Of course, there was.

Nothing tied to this curse had ever come without blood attached to it somewhere. I leaned back slightly in the chair, forcing myself to stay calm. “Start from the beginning.”

She nodded once, though it looked difficult.

“They put the demon into an unmated heir, who had lost his fated mate. This way, there wasn’t a cure,” she whispered. “They never planned for the Moon Goddess to create the Moon Marks or for a fated mate bond to come down the line to stop it.”

Inside me, the demon shifted, like an animal lifting its head after hearing a familiar sound.

Callista noticed it too. Her eyes flicked toward me instinctively, toward the thing behind my ribs.

“He was telling the truth,” she whispered. “At least part of it.”

I went very still. “That’s usually how manipulation works.”

“No.” She shook her head immediately. “I mean, before. Before he became what he is now.”

A strange pressure built up in the room. The darkness near the corners suddenly felt deeper, somehow thicker. Instinctively, I reached for the knife hidden beneath the chair cushion beside me, not drawing it, just grounding myself against the familiar weight.

Callista watched the movement.

“He doesn’t like this part,” she said quietly.

The demon gave a low, almost amused pulse through the bond. I felt it like cold fingers dragging slowly down my spine.

“Then he can survive the inconvenience,” I muttered.

For the first time since waking, the corner of her mouth almost twitched, then it vanished again.

“The original ritual that summoned the demon,” she continued, “didn’t summon just one. They come in two.”