Chapter 120 Hundred and twenty five
“Ryder… don’t.” Her voice trembled in the cold air, the last thread holding her together as the world burned around them. She didn’t shout it. She didn’t command it. She whispered it like a memory she was terrified to lose, and the sound stopped him far more effectively than any blade could.
He froze mid-strike, the edge of his weapon catching the faint glow of the fractured moon above them. Smoke curled behind him from the fallen courtyard, fires licking the broken stones, but his eyes, wild, haunted, hungry, slowly lifted to hers.
“Sienna,” he breathed, as if he had spent a lifetime starving for her name.
Neither moved at first. Not the guards cowering on the edges of the ruined plaza. Not the wind carrying ash between them. Not even the pulse beneath their skin that remembered what they refused to speak aloud. The only movement was the slow, uncertain lowering of Ryder’s blade, as if surrendering cost him more than blood.
“You came back for this?” he asked, his voice low, almost unsteady, as though he feared the answer more than any enemy. “To fight me? After everything?”
She shook her head, but her feet carried her one step closer, and that single motion felt like a thousand choices crashing at once. “I came because I thought you were gone. And I couldn’t breathe.”
He exhaled sharply. Not relief. Not pain. Something rawer. Something that tore at him from the inside.
Sienna’s fingers tightened around her own weapon, though she wasn’t holding it to fight. She held it the way someone holds something that kept them alive through too many dark nights but was suddenly useless now. She let it fall, the steel hitting the ground with a dull clang.
Ryder flinched. Not from the sound, no. From what it meant.
He stepped toward her, then stopped halfway, as if any closer would break them both. “Don’t do that,” he warned, voice roughening. “Don’t throw yourself open like that. Not with everything hunting us.”
“Everything already did,” she said. “And you weren’t there.”
His jaw clenched. He turned away for a moment, staring at the cracked stones beneath his boots. She watched the battle play across his shoulders, the urge to flee, the urge to hold her, the fear of what he’d become.
“Look at me,” she whispered.
He didn’t at first.
Then he did.
And the world seemed to narrow to the space between them.
His eyes softened, the fury draining out of them until only exhaustion and longing remained. “I never wanted to fight you,” he said quietly. “I just wanted you safe.”
“And I wanted you alive.”
The distance between them felt like a lifetime, yet she took a single step forward. He mirrored her without thinking. The courtyard was silent except for their breathing, unsteady and uneven.
“Sienna…” His voice cracked on the final syllable. “Tell me this isn’t another dream. I’ve had too many.”
“It isn’t a dream,” she said, though her own voice wavered. “It’s just us. Finally.”
His shoulders dropped, the weight he’d carried since the curse took hold collapsing under the sound of her words. He lifted one hand, slowly, cautiously, as though touching her without permission would shatter what little control he had left.
“I thought I lost you,” he admitted.
“You did,” she answered, her voice a whisper. “And I lost myself.”
He swallowed hard, the truth striking deeper than any wound. She watched his throat work, watched the tremor in his fingers as he lowered his hand again, afraid to finish the motion.
It was Sienna who closed the gap.
She reached out, her hand brushing against his wrist, the lightest touch, yet enough to make him inhale sharply. The bond surged in response, not loud, not violent, just a deep hum, like their souls recognizing each other after too long in the dark.
His eyes darkened with something dangerously close to hope.
“Sienna… if I touch you, I won’t be able to stop.”
“You already started,” she whispered.
His breath shook.
She traced a line up his forearm, slow and fragile, and his eyes fluttered shut as if the gentleness hurt more than a blade. He leaned into the touch, every wall he’d built cracking.
When he opened his eyes again, the battlefield fire reflected in them, but so did she.
“You shouldn’t be here,” he murmured. “You shouldn’t come near me. Not when the curse wants you dead.”
“I’m not leaving.”
“You have to.”
“I won’t.”
“Sienna, ”
“No.”
The word was quiet. Firm. And something inside him broke.
He moved. Not wildly, not violently, just stepped forward until his forehead almost touched hers, their breaths mingling, their bodies trembling from everything they’d been forced to become.
“I never stopped loving you,” she said suddenly. The truth fell out of her, unplanned, unstoppable. “Not once. Not for a heartbeat.”
His eyes widened. The confession hit him harder than any enemy strike.
“Sienna…”
“I need you to hear me,” she insisted. “I need you to know I didn’t stop. Even when I told myself to. Even when everyone said you were gone. Even when it hurt.”
He inhaled sharply, the sound breaking into a quiet, almost pained laugh. “You’re going to destroy me.”
“You already destroyed me,” she replied, but her voice softened, trembling with something warmer. “And I still came back.”
Lightning cracked across the broken moon above them. Ryder’s gaze flicked upward, then back to her, torn between fear and desire.
“You said you didn’t stop,” he whispered. “But I tried. I swear I tried.”
“I know.”
He blinked fast, as if trying to steady himself. “I tried to stop loving you. I tried to cut the bond. I tried to kill every part of me that still reached for you every night.”
“And it didn’t work.”
“No,” he said, breath unsteady. “Nothing worked.”
She stepped closer until their chests brushed. His heartbeat thundered against hers, refusing to slow, refusing to let go.
“Ryder,” she whispered. “Look at me.”
“I am.”
“Then hear me. You don’t have to run anymore. You don’t have to fight me.”
He shuddered. “I don’t know how to stop fighting.”
“Then let me show you.”
He closed his eyes again, the weight of those words trembling through him. When he opened them once more, his expression had shifted, still tortured, still fractured, but no longer running.
“Sienna…”
“What?”
“If I kiss you, ”
“You won’t stop.”
“Exactly.”
“Then don’t start with a kiss.”
His breath caught.
And the bond surged so strongly he exhaled like he’d been struck. His hands hovered inches from her waist, trembling, waiting, needing, permission.
“Ryder,” she murmured. “Put the blade down.”
He dropped it.
The steel hit the ground.
And the moment it did, everything around them shifted.
The wind howled. The fires dimmed. A shadow rippled across the fractured moon.
Ryder stiffened. “Sienna, ”
She felt it too.
Something watching.
Something old.
Something divine.
The air thickened, heavy and electric. Ryder grabbed her arm and pulled her against him instinctively, his body shielding hers without thought.
“Sienna,” he whispered, voice tight. “We aren’t alone.”
She looked up.
A dark ripple moved across the sky.
A whisper, soft as breath, curled down from the heavens.
And her blood went cold.