Chapter 121 Hundred and twenty six
“Ryder… don’t let go.” The words slipped out of her before she could stop them, quiet but sharp enough to cut through the charged air between them. She hadn’t planned to speak. She hadn’t planned anything. Her voice betrayed her heart first, faster than her reason could catch up.
He froze again, breath caught in his throat, as if her plea had reached the deepest place inside him, the part that had been bleeding since the night they were torn apart. His grip on her arm loosened but didn’t fall away. His fingers hovered at her skin, trembling, as though touching her meant risking everything.
“Sienna,” he murmured, strained and uneven. “You shouldn’t say things like that.”
“Why not?”
“Because I’ll believe you.” His voice cracked. “And I can’t survive believing you if you walk away again.”
She stepped closer, not caring that the wind carried the scent of fire, not caring that the sky above them rippled with an unseen presence, not caring that their world had been split in half. She only cared that he was standing in front of her, torn, hurting, shaking in a way he tried so hard to hide from everyone else.
“I’m not walking away,” she whispered. “Not tonight.”
He looked at her like he didn’t trust his own ears. Like he wanted to snatch the words and hold them against him like a shield. “Don’t promise what you can’t keep.”
“I can keep it.” She reached up slowly, carefully, as if trying not to startle him. “Let me.”
He didn’t move. Didn’t breathe. The silence stretched between them, thick and warm, cushioned by all the years they’d been denied moments like this. She lifted her hand higher, letting her fingers brush the sharp line of his jaw, and his eyes fluttered as though the softness threatened to unravel him entirely.
He inhaled sharply, the sound ragged. “Sienna… don’t.”
“Then stop me,” she said, voice steady, even though she felt like she was shaking from the inside out. “If you don’t want this. If you don’t feel this. Stop me.”
His throat bobbed. His chest rose in a slow, tortured breath.
“I can’t stop you,” he admitted.
“Then don’t try.”
Her thumb traced the edge of his cheekbone, warm against his chilled skin. His eyes shut again, not from rejection, but from surrender. A surrender so fragile it made her heart twist painfully. He leaned into her touch ever so slightly, as if he expected her to pull away any second. As if he expected this to vanish.
“Ryder,” she said softly. “Look at me.”
He did.
And in that single moment, the entire battlefield seemed to fall away. There was no rebellion. No burning city. No goddess twisting fate above their heads. There was only the way he stared at her like he’d been drowning for years and she was the first breath he’d had in too long.
“Why are you doing this?” he whispered. “After everything I’ve done. After everything I became.”
“Because you didn’t become a monster,” she said. “You became lost. And so did I.”
He shook his head, frustration trembling through him. “The curse, ”
“Isn’t stronger than us.”
“It is,” he insisted, voice breaking. “You don’t understand. Every time I get close to you, it tightens. It shows me, ”
“Shows you what?”
“Sienna…” His jaw clenched hard. “It shows me you dying.”
Her breath caught.
“In front of me,” he continued, his voice raw, tortured. “In my arms. Because of me. Over and over again. Every time I reach for you.”
She stepped even closer, her hand sliding up to cup his face fully, forcing him to meet her gaze. “You’re not hurting me.”
“It doesn’t matter,” he rasped. “The curse thinks I will. And if it thinks it hard enough, ”
“It can be broken.”
“You don’t know that.”
“We’ll find a way.”
Ryder gave a broken laugh. “You always sound so sure.”
“Because you’re still here.” She leaned her forehead gently against his. “In spite of everything, you always come back.”
He exhaled shakily. “Only for you.”
“Then don’t run from me.”
“I’m trying to protect you.”
“Then stay.”
His breath hitched. “You’re asking for something I don’t know how to give.”
“You already gave it once,” she whispered. “A long time ago. When you chose me.”
He shook his head slightly, forehead brushing hers as he did. “I never stopped choosing you.”
Her heart clenched so hard she almost staggered. “Then why do you look like you’re breaking?”
“Because I am.” His voice was barely audible. “Because touching you feels like drowning and breathing at the same time.”
“Then drown with me,” she whispered. “Just for a moment.”
He sucked in a breath, shaking from the effort of holding back. His hands hovered at her waist again, fingers curled as if ready to grip her but terrified of crossing the line.
“Tell me to stop,” he said.
“No.”
“Tell me you’re not scared.”
“I am scared.”
His eyes flashed with anguish.
“But I’m more scared,” she added softly, “of not touching you.”
That did it.
His control shattered.
He lifted both hands and cupped her face with a desperation that made her knees weaken. His thumbs brushed her cheeks, his palms warm, his touch reverent and shaking.
“Sienna…” He said her name as though it was a prayer he had no right to speak.
She leaned into his touch, closing her eyes at the warmth spreading through her, the bond humming violently beneath her skin. The closeness nearly stole her breath.
“Ryder,” she whispered.
“What?”
“Don’t let go.”
He didn’t.
He stepped closer until their bodies nearly touched, heat rolling off him like a storm ready to break. His forehead pressed to hers again, tighter this time, almost painful in its need. She felt the way he trembled, every muscle taut, every breath a battle.
“I feel you,” he murmured hoarsely. “Every heartbeat.”
“I feel you too.”
“It hurts.”
“Then let it hurt.”
His thumb stroked her lower lip, slow, hesitant, but with a kind of longing that made her gasp. The bond burst between them in a rush of heat, almost violent.
He whispered, barely audible, “Sienna… tell me what you want.”
“You.”
His breath faltered. “Say it again.”
“You.”
He swallowed hard, eyes burning. “I want you so much it terrifies me.”
“Then take it.”
His fingers tightened on her waist. He pulled her closer, their bodies finally meeting, the contact sending a shock through both of them. She exhaled sharply, gripping the front of his shirt, feeling his heartbeat slam against hers.
“I won’t survive losing you again,” he whispered.
“Then don’t lose me.”
“I don’t know how to keep you safe.”
“You don’t have to keep me safe. Just stay.”
He shook his head slightly, lips brushing her cheek without meaning to, closeness trembling on the edge of something deeper. “You don’t understand.”
“Then make me understand.”
He opened his mouth to speak,
But the sky tore open above them.
A ripple of cold starlight slashed across the burning clouds, and Ryder jerked, pulling her instinctively behind him. The air turned sharp. Heavy. Electric.
“Sienna,” he said urgently, voice dropping, body tensing. “Something’s coming.”
She saw it too.
A dark streak moving across the moon.
A voice curling through the air like smoke.
Her heart stuttered.
Ryder reached for her hand instinctively, gripping it tight.
And the world around them seemed to hold its breath.
Chapter 85
We Never Stopped
“Say it,” she whispered, breath shaking as if the night itself demanded the truth from them.
Ryder didn’t move at first. Didn't blink. Didn’t breathe. He stood in front of her like a man fearing that even the wind brushing between them could break whatever fragile space held them together. His voice rose rough, pulled from somewhere he had buried beneath guilt, longing, and the jagged ruins of every moment he had tried to keep himself away from her. “Say what, Sienna?” he asked, though the question trembled with the weight of a man who already knew the answer and was terrified of hearing it spoken aloud.
She stepped closer. Not enough to touch him, but enough that the air shifted between their bodies, enough that he could feel the warmth of her skin brush the cold edges of his restraint. “That you didn’t stop,” she murmured. “That you didn’t forget me. That you didn’t bury it like you tried to pretend you could.”
He exhaled sharply, as if the words cut deeper than any blade between them earlier. The fire from the burning Citadel behind them flickered across his face, illuminating the raw pain layered beneath the fierce alpha exterior he carried like armor. “I tried,” he confessed, every syllable thick with regret. “Gods, Sienna, I tried. I pushed it down. I drowned it. I ran from it. I tried to kill it. I tried to kill myself with the curse, hoping it would end the pull to you.”
She flinched. “Don’t say that.”
“You told me to stay away,” he said, voice cracking in a way she had never heard from him. “You told the world I was dead to you. And I believed, no, I forced myself to believe it, because if I didn’t, I would’ve run back to you and died at your feet.”
She swallowed hard, the truth of that cutting her open. “I said it to protect you,” she whispered. “Not to lose you.”
He laughed softly, bitterness wrapped in something like awe. “I know that now. I knew it even then, I think. But it didn’t stop the curse from showing me your death every time I tried to come near you. Do you know what it feels like to watch you die in my arms over and over again? To see your eyes fade every time I take a step too close? To hear you breathe your last while I can’t do anything but watch?” He stepped closer, the distance between them stretching so thin it trembled. “It made me afraid of you.”
She blinked. “Afraid of me?”
“Afraid of losing you,” he corrected, voice dropping to a painful softness. “Afraid that loving you meant killing you. Afraid that wanting you meant sealing your fate. Afraid that every time your name crossed my mind, the gods were sharpening their knives.”
Sienna felt the air twist with something ancient, something aching, something that lived between their souls even when their bodies had been forced apart. “Ryder,” she whispered, and her voice carried a tremor she couldn’t steady, “I never stopped either.”
His eyes widened.
“I never let go,” she said, the truth spilling out of her like she’d been holding her breath for years. “I told myself to move on. I told myself I had to be queen. I told myself you were gone. But every night, Ryder... every damned night... I waited for you in my dreams. I searched for you in every shadow. I listened for your voice at every corner of the Citadel. And when I walked the balcony alone, I looked for you in the trees.”
He reached out as if compelled, his fingers trembling, then stopped short, the air shivering as the bond pulsed between them. “Don’t look at me like that,” he whispered. “Not unless you want me to break.”
“Break,” she breathed. “I’m already broken.”
He shut his eyes, jaw clenching as though he were wrestling both his body and his curse. “You think I didn’t come back sooner because I didn’t care? You think I vanished because I didn’t love you?” His voice cracked like something inside him finally gave way. “I stayed away because every vision showed me holding your dead body. Because every time I took a step closer, Lunaris drove the curse through my veins until I tasted blood. Because the gods decided that loving you was the crime I had to pay for.”
“Then let me pay for it too,” she whispered fiercely. “Why are you the only one who suffers for what we are?”
He looked at her then, really looked, and the air tightened, heavy with all the things they had buried under duty, under fear, under lies.
“Sienna,” he murmured, “I never stopped loving you. Not for a moment. Not in the silence. Not in the shadows. Not even when the curse tore pieces out of me to punish me for wanting you.”
Her breath hitched, a soft sound that echoed like a confession. “Then why didn't you come back?”
“Because the last time I tried,” he said, stepping forward until their breath mingled, “I saw you die so violently I thought I’d rip my own eyes out.”
She trembled. “Did you see it now?”
“Yes,” he whispered. “Every step I took toward you on that battlefield was another vision. Blood everywhere. You in my arms. Your voice fading. But I came anyway.”
“Why?” she breathed.
“Because,” he said, lowering his forehead to hers without touching, “I would rather die loving you than live without you.”
The wind swirled around them, almost as if the world itself held its breath. The firelight from the burning Citadel threw shadows that danced across their faces, illuminating the fierce vulnerability that pulsed through their bond. Her fingers lifted, just enough to brush the air near his cheek, and he exhaled like she had touched his soul.
“Ryder,” she whispered, “I’m tired of losing you.”
“You’ll never lose me again,” he said, the vow trembling with something dangerous and beautiful.
“But the curse, ”
“Let it come,” he breathed. “Let it tear me apart. It can have everything except you.”
“And what if it demands me?” she whispered, fear and desire weaving through every word.
“I won’t allow it.”
“You don’t control the gods.”
“No,” he murmured, eyes dark with something fierce, “but I would burn a god for you.”
She shook, a soft sound escaping her as the bond flared, hot and wild, sparking between them like lightning. It wasn’t gentle. It wasn’t calm. It was everything they’d been denied, everything they’d buried exploding to the surface.
“Ryder,” she breathed again.
He swallowed hard, his voice a whisper of agony. “If you ask me to touch you, I will. If you ask me to step back, I’ll try. But if you tell me you don’t love me anymore…” He paused, breath shaking. “I won’t survive it.”
“I could never stop,” she said, and the truth trembled through her like a living thing.
Their foreheads touched.
The world shifted.
The air thickened.
The bond snapped tight, pulsing once, twice, before surging between them like a living heartbeat.
He sucked in a sharp breath. “The bond, ”
“It’s reacting.”
“Sienna, ”
“I know.”
He tried to pull back.
She didn’t let him.
“Sienna, if I stay, ”
“Then stay,” she whispered. “Let whatever happens, happen.”
He opened his mouth,
And the sky darkened.
A cold wind swept through the ruins.
The moon flickered.
The trees bent as if bowing to something unseen.
Ryder’s head snapped upward, breath turning to ice.
She felt it too.
A presence.
Watching.
Hovering.
Ancient.
Vast.
Merciless.
“Sienna,” he whispered, voice dropping into something primal and terrified, “we’re not alone.”
Before she could turn, the shadows thickened behind them,
And a voice drifted through the darkness, sweet as silk, cold as death.
“Well,” the goddess murmured, “isn’t this touching.”