Chapter 115 115

Chapter 115 115
IVER’S POV

The cry cuts through everything. It’s loud and sudden, like something is wrong. I freeze instantly, every instinct snapping away from Selene and toward that sound. My heart stutters once then pounds hard enough to hurt.

The second cry follows, weaker. Fear like I have never known grips me. The air still smells with sex. We haven’t fully taken in the post orgasmic high. We are still naked.

Selene moves before I do, already pulling away, already reaching for the bond that ties her to them. I feel it too the disturbance, the unnatural pull pressing against the edges of our children’s lives.

Something is off. Something is coming.

“Do you feel that?” I ask, though I know she does. Her face tells me everything: panic, fury, something deeper that claws beneath her skin.

Then the air shifts the way it usually does when the goddess is coming. I don’t need to turn to know who stands behind us. The goddess. Her presence settles like a verdict.

“You’ve taken what was not yours to keep,” she says.

Her voice isn’t loud, it doesn’t need to be. Selene steps forward before I can stop her. “They are mine.”

The ground beneath us trembles faintly, reacting to her anger, her fear, but the goddess doesn’t so much as blink. “Nothing is ever truly yours,” she replies.

Another cry cuts through the space, shorter this time. My chest tightens so hard it feels like something inside it might snap.

“Fix it,” I say, stepping in front of Selene without thinking. “Whatever this is… fix it.”

Her gaze lands on me. She looks scared, like she doesn’t know what to do. “There is a cost.”

Of course there is. There’s always a cost. “Take it,” I say immediately. “From me.”

Selene’s head snaps toward me. “Iver…”

But the goddess lifts a hand, silencing everything else. “One life,” she says. “Given willingly… to restore what has been broken.”

The words settle slowly. My mind latches onto them, tries to twist them into something else, something less final, less absolute. “One life,” I repeat, my voice quieter now.

Selene shakes her head before I can even finish the thought. “No.”
But the goddess continues, merciless. “Refuse… and both children will be lost.”

The world narrows, not fades sharpens. Every breath. Every sound. Every second suddenly matters too much. Selene lets out a broken laugh, like the idea itself is too grotesque to exist. “You think I would choose between them?”

“It is not a matter of thought,” the goddess says. “It is a matter of time.”

Another cry, but it’s barely there. My heart stutters. I see it then, clearly, brutally. This isn’t a threat. It’s a countdown.

“There has to be another way,” I say, but even as the words leave me, I know how hollow they sound.

Selene doesn’t even look at the goddess anymore. She’s shaking her head, backing away from the reality of it, from the shape of the choice being forced into her hands.

“I won’t do it,” she whispers. “I won’t.”

Her power lashes out, wild and unstable. The walls groan under it. “I won’t give you my child.”

The goddess watches her unravel with unsettling calm. “Then you will lose both.”

“No!” The word rips out of me this time, loud and desperate. Selene flinches and that…that is what does it.

Not the goddess or the threat. It was Selene. She was breaking. I look at her, really look. At the way her hands tremble. By the way her strength is turning into something reckless, something that could destroy everything if it’s pushed any further. She can’t make this choice. She won’t. They let out another cry. So faint it barely exists. Something inside me goes very, very still.

“Iver…” Selene’s voice cracks now, finally turning to me like I can fix this. Like I have an answer.

I don’t, not one she’ll accept anyway but I have one. And it’s enough, it’s worth trying. I take a step forward. “Wait,” I say.

Selene grabs my arm immediately. “Don’t…”

I cover her hand with mine, steadying it even though mine isn’t steady at all. “It says one life,” I say carefully, my eyes locked on the goddess now. “It doesn’t say it has to be theirs.”

Selene goes rigid beside me. “No.”

The goddess studies me. For the first time, there’s something like interest in her gaze. “A substitution,” she says slowly.

Selene’s grip tightens painfully. “Iver, don’t you dare..,”

“I’m their father,” I cut in, my voice firmer now. Stronger than I feel. “Their life came from mine. If balance is what you want… take it back from the source.”

“No!” Selene’s power surges violently, slamming into me, into everything. “I will not let you…”

I turn to her then and that’s the hardest part. Her, not the goddess or the choice. “Look at me,” I say.

She doesn’t want to. I force her to anyway, cupping her face, grounding her just enough to make her see me. “They need you,” I tell her, my voice low, urgent. “Both of them. Not one. Both.”

Her eyes fill, her head shaking even as she understands. “No… we find another way. We always do…”

“Not this time.”

Another weak cry echoes in the distance. It’s almost gone. Time is gone. “Listen to me,” I press, my forehead resting briefly against hers. “You fight for them. You live for them.”

“And you?” she whispers.

The question almost breaks me but I don’t let it. “I make sure they get the chance.”

Her breath shatters. “I hate this,” I admit, my voice rough. “I hate that it’s me. I hate that it’s now.”

Her hands clutch at me like she can anchor me here by force alone. “You don’t get to leave me,” she says, anger bleeding through her grief. “You don’t get to decide this alone.”

“I’m not,” I say softly. “I’m choosing them.”

The goddess steps closer. “Do you offer this willingly?” she asks.

Selene shakes her head violently. “He doesn’t…”

“I do.” The words come out steady. The bond between us thrums violently, reacting, resisting, like even it refuses to let this happen.

Selene lets out a broken sound, her power spiraling dangerously. “I will tear this world apart before I let you take him…”

I pull her into me, holding her just long enough to feel her, real, alive, here. “Then don’t waste it,” I murmured against her hair. “Don’t waste what this gives you.”

Her fingers dig into me. “Iver…”

Another cry comes yet again, this one steadier, stronger. I close my eyes briefly. Relief hits me so hard it almost brings me to my knees. I pull back just enough to look at her one last time.

“Take care of them,” I say. Her answer is lost somewhere between a sob and a refusal. I don’t let myself hesitate.