Chapter 146: No, I Won't - Riven's POV

I could hear her screaming my name, but it was so distant that it was muffled. My eyes darted to her face, watching tears stream down her face. She was standing right in front of me, yet so far away mentally.

There was so much love written on her face that it was enough to make something inside of me hesitant. I wanted to stay right here in this moment with her. I loved her.

But then darkness ripped through me and I felt myself slipping away.

Pain flooded me. It was an agony unlike anything I had ever experienced. It tore through every nerve in my body.

I hit the ground on one knee, my hands digging in the dirt.

Someone shouted from the crowd. I glanced up, spotting one of the council members of the tribunal yelling, but I couldn’t make out what he was saying.

I couldn't separate the voices anymore. They all blended together beneath the roar inside my skull.

Mine. Mine. Mine.

The demon's voice wasn't whispering now. He wasn't pretending to be me anymore. He was screaming. The pressure inside my head built until I thought my skull would split open.

I could feel them. All three of them. The paired demons were calling to one another. They were reaching and pulling at each other, fueling their anger and their lust to conquer.

And every instinct in my body wanted to answer.

"No," I growled. “I’m not them.”

The words barely sounded human. My hands shook violently, slowly working up my arms until it was my entire body shaking. Black claws pushed through my fingertips before retreating again.

The crowd stumbled backward. I could taste their fear as it rolled off them in waves. I inhaled, scenting it in the air. It was so thick and delicious that it made my demon laugh.

The realization made nausea crash through me.

No. No. Not them. Not her. I can’t do this.

The bond slammed into me suddenly. Callista. I could feel her pushing against the bond, trying to bring me back from the clutches of the demon. Every pulse was desperate and every ounce of what I felt made me feel her terror.

And somehow that hurt more than the demon did. My vision flickered.

For a second I was standing in the clearing. For a second I was somewhere else entirely. I could see a battlefield filled with blood, fire, and then a throne room.

A man was kneeling before me, screaming as another just kneels. I saw a blade in my hand, aiming right for his heart, but before I could drive the blade, Callista’s face flashed in my mind.

The memories weren't mine. The demon was showing me things and forcing them into my head. This was when he was first summoned generations ago. This was the first pair and the first betrayal.

"Oh," I whispered.

The word came out broken and horrified, because I finally knew why the Moon Goddess marked us.

I heard her voice. “Demons were unnatural to wolves, so I created Moon Marks to destroy them.”

My eyes widened. No other mated couple where one possessed the demon had been Moon Marked.

The realization struck me harder than the demon's claws tearing through my mind. The Moon Goddess hadn't marked us despite the demon. She had marked us because of it.

Another memory slammed into me. Once again, it wasn’t mine. It was his, the demon’s.

I staggered, one hand pressing against the dirt as my vision fractured again.

Moonlight. Silver so bright it hurt to look at.

A woman stood in the center of a forest clearing. Her hair flowed around her like liquid starlight while wolves knelt around her. It wasn’t just one pack. It was all of them.

The world was younger then before whatever happened when demons came into the world.

"The balance has been broken," she said firmly. Her voice was the same one I had heard moments ago. The Moon Goddess. "Power born from darkness can’t be destroyed."

Grief flashed across her face. It was brief but unmistakable. "Only contained."

The scene shifted violently. A man was screaming as blood ran down his body, coating the stones beneath him.

Four wolves knelt around him while silver chains made from moonlight wrapped around their bodies. The power inside him was being torn apart.

I felt the agony of it and the way his soul fractured. One became four. One consciousness became pieces. The demon inside me howled. He was in pain, but he also hated what I was being shown.

My breath caught. "Oh, Fates."

The demon laughed. It wasn't cruel anymore. It sounded exhausted.

Now you understand.

The voice echoed through my skull. For the first time, I wasn't hearing a monster. I was hearing someone broken. Someone who had been screaming for centuries and forgotten how to do anything else.

My chest tightened painfully.

This was the truth he wanted to keep buried. This was the truth that he tried to twist and keep me from seeing. He wanted me to leave Callista so that we’d never stop the cycle.

I looked back at my father, the man who doomed me to this fate.

The wicked grin on his face was all I needed to see.

“This is what you wanted.”

His grin slowly faded as he heard my words through the crowd.

“Begin!”

My head swiveled as the council member finally told us to fight. It looked like he was flustered with a crimson face and angry eyes. How many times had he said it?

I looked at Alric, who was lost to his demon. He wasn’t hearing him either.

Across the clearing, Dorian's entire body shook violently. His hands were clenched into fists so tight that blood dripped between his fingers. His father was shouting something at him, but it was obvious he couldn't hear it.

The demons were drowning everything out. The pull between them intensified.

I felt it slam into my chest. The four pieces wanted to become whole again.

My stomach twisted. That was what my father had done. He didn’t want us dead. He thought he could control what was about to happen to use us as weapons.

The fool.

The memories that I had been shown proved that this couldn’t be controlled. The only one who could was the Moon Goddess.

"Riven."

Callista's voice reached me through the bond.

My head snapped toward her. She stood just beyond the clearing's edge.

My mate. My moon-marked mate.

She was the only thing keeping me tethered to myself. The mark burned hotter as white light spread across my skin.

The demon recoiled, making me freeze. The Moon Mark wasn’t merely protection. It was a prison to contain him and get rid of him forever.

“Fight,” he cried. “Fight them or be killed.”

Something in me snapped. I couldn’t fight them. That would only fuel the demon and they would break free.

“No.”

Scenes of blood flashed through my mind. I could see the slaughter, the way the world would be destroyed if he was free. Everything was red, painted in the blood of the people who died because of someone else’s greed.

“No, I won’t do this.”