Chapter 110 110

Chapter 110 110
SELENE’S POV

Silence doesn’t settle. It lingers wrong, stretched too thin over everything that just happened.
I watch them. Iver hasn’t moved much since I cut it. His shoulders are still tight, breath uneven like his body hasn’t caught up to the absence yet.

Whatever I severed between them… it mattered more than either of them realized. More than I realized. Vayer feels it too, I can see it in the way he stands now. Not weaker. Not vulnerable. Just… separate.

For the first time, they are not instinctively aligned. Not reacting to each other. Not feeding into the same current. Good. That’s the only reason this room is still standing but it doesn’t fix the real problem. My gaze shifts back to Iver.

There’s something in him now, something unsettled. Not just anger. Not just betrayal. I don’t know if it’s instability masked as possession but I’ve seen it before. Last night. The cage. The way he chose control over trust without hesitation. The way it didn’t even feel like a choice to him. And that… that is what I can’t ignore.

Vayer doesn’t argue again. That’s how I know he’s already shifted tactics. He studies me for a second longer, eyes colder now, calculating, then he steps back like this was always his choice.

The absence between him and Iver still hums in the air, unnatural, clean, final. He knows it’s real. I can see it in the slight pause before he turns.

“You’ve changed the balance,” he says quietly.
Then he leaves.

The doors close behind him, but the tension doesn’t. It lingers, heavy in my chest, because he didn’t just lose, he learned.

“You almost killed him,” I say quietly.

Iver’s head turns toward me sharply. “He came for our child.”

“That’s not the point.”

His jaw tightens. “That is exactly the point.”

“No,” I repeat, steadier this time. “It isn’t.”

Because if it were just that, it would be simple, it isn’t. I take a slow step closer, studying him now instead of arguing. “You didn’t stop,” I say. “Even when it stopped being about the twins.” His expression flickers briefly, but there.

“You felt it,” I continued. “The push. The escalation.”

He doesn’t answer because he did, because he knows. My voice lowers. “And you didn’t question it.”

Something in the air shifts again but softer now, not explosive, not violent. Understanding comes slowly, but once it settles, it doesn’t leave. The goddess, not control in the obvious sense this time. Not commands but influence, pressure. A hand guiding just enough to turn instinct into something sharper. Something reckless.

Iver exhales, but it’s uneven. “You think I don’t know when I’m making my own decisions?”

“I think you believe that,” I reply.

His gaze hardens immediately. “Selene…”

“You locked me in a cage,” I cut in, not raising my voice. “Not because I was a threat in that moment, but because something told you I could become one.”

“That was logic.”

“That was fear,” I correct. “And it wasn’t entirely yours.” That lands softly, not dramatically. But deep enough that he doesn’t immediately push back.

I step closer again, closing the last of the distance between us. “You said you don’t have the luxury of guessing with me anymore,” I remind him. “But you’re not even aware when something else is deciding for you.”

His voice drops. “Careful.”

“I am,” I say.

Careful enough to see it, careful enough to understand what that means. If the goddess can push him, then she can use him, against me, against our children. And that is not something I will leave intact. My fingers flex slightly at my side. The bond is there. Not the one I cut between him and Vayer. This one is older, deeper. Threaded into something fundamental. I can feel it now that I’m looking for it, not as a command, not as a leash, but as a constant presence. A connection that shouldn’t be there at all.

Iver notices the shift in me immediately. “Selene.” He warns.

I don’t answer him because I’m not looking at him the same way anymore. I’m assessing, understanding what this is and choosing different outcomes.

“I’m not going to let her use you,” I say.

His expression sharpens. “You don’t get to decide that.”

“I already am.”

The moment stretches thin, fragile, right on the edge of breaking. “Don’t,” he says, quieter now.

It’s not an order, he dares not. It’s something closer to instinct. Too late, I reach for the bond.
It resists immediately, stronger than the one before, anchored deeper, wrapped in something ancient and deliberate. Of course it is. She wouldn’t make it easy. Pressure builds not outward, not destructive but precise. Focused entirely on that single thread. It tightens in response, then it pushes back. For a second, it almost feels like it’s looking at me, then I pull hard. It doesn’t snap cleanly.
It tears.

The effect is immediate. Iver’s breath catches sharp, sudden, like something’s been ripped out of him from the inside. His body locks, not from restraint but from shock, from the sheer absence of something that’s always been there. The air drops with it not violently but completely gone. I release it. The silence that follows is different from before.

Iver staggers just slightly, but enough. His hand braces against the wall, breath uneven, eyes unfocused for half a second before snapping back.

“Selene…” My name comes out rough, not angry yet but disoriented.

I watch him carefully, waiting because this is the part that matters. Freedom or collapse. His power shifts and becomes unstable. It flickers at the edges, no longer guided, no longer tempered by something external. It is raw, unfiltered and dangerous in an entirely different way. But his gaze finds mine fully now. And that… that is enough.

“I’m not yours to control,” he says, voice low, unsteady but real. “Not hers either.”

I hold his gaze. “Good.”

The pause that follows is deafening. Then, quieter, but unyielding: “Now prove it.”