Chapter 157 Hundred and sixty
Chapter 157 Hundred and sixty
“Sienna… open your eyes,” Ryder whispered, his voice thin, strained, almost fading into the cold air of the ruins. He stood several feet away, leaning against a fractured pillar, his breaths uneven, his chest rising too slowly. She didn’t turn at first. Her palms were pressed to the cracked stones of the old Moon Temple floor, absorbing the pulse beneath them , a pulse that did not belong to stone, nor earth, nor time. It was something older, something that answered only to her.
“I said open them,” he repeated, the sound rasping from him like a plea wearing the clothes of command. That was always how he spoke when he was terrified. It wasn’t the force in the words , it was the softness beneath it.
Her eyes lifted.
Silver.
Not the faint shine she had carried since childhood. Not the glow the goddess had once awakened. This was different , deeper, brighter, like moonfire had claimed her vision. The color radiated outward, spilling into her skin, brushing her cheekbones with cold shimmering light. Ryder inhaled sharply, and his knees buckled for one dangerous second before he forced himself upright again.
“You shouldn’t push yourself,” she murmured. “You’re barely, ”
“Don’t say it.” His voice cracked. “Don’t say I’m fading. Don’t give it power.”
She rose to her feet with a slow, measured grace that felt as if the world itself shifted around her. The air rippled when she exhaled. Beneath her boots, the ancient sigils carved into the temple stones brightened, recognizing her presence before she even summoned anything. Her fingers curled slightly, and the markings responded with a soft hum , power that felt like a second heartbeat inside the ruin.
Ryder stared at her as though seeing her for the first time.
“You’re changing,” he whispered.
“No,” she answered gently. “I’m becoming what she made me.”
The ruins trembled as if agreeing.
He ran a shaky hand through his hair, jaw tight, breath trembling. “That’s what terrifies me.”
She almost smiled. “You never feared me before.”
“You weren’t a goddess before.” His voice broke again. “You were just… you.”
She stepped toward him slowly, deliberately, her power swirling behind her like a expanding halo. The silver glow drifted from her arms, her fingertips, her throat. Ryder forced himself not to step back, though every part of him wanted to collapse, to sink into the ground, to surrender to the weight of the curse dragging at his bones.
He held his place.
He always held his place with her.
“All right,” she said softly, stopping one step away. “Then let’s start.”
“Start what?”
“Control.”
He blinked at her. “Control?”
“My power,” she whispered. “Before it controls me.”
The temple responded instantly. Light surged up the broken pillars, racing along cracks in the floor, revealing symbols hidden for centuries. Her hair lifted slightly, silver at the ends where it used to be auburn. Ryder reached out as though to touch it, then froze, fingers hovering in the cold air.
“I’ll hurt you,” he said quietly.
“You won’t.”
“Sienna, ”
“You won’t,” she repeated, firmer.
She extended her palm.
Ryder stared at it, breath shallow. Every instinct in him , human, wolf, cursed divine vessel , screamed not to touch her. Lunaris’s shadow mark was still burning across his spine, a constant reminder that Sienna’s existence was both salvation and poison to him.
And yet…
He reached for her.
Their palms touched.
Light exploded.
He cried out, shoulders slamming back into the stone. The contact ripped through him like a storm, tearing through sinew, through muscle, through the curse that wrapped around his ribcage like barbed wire. Sienna gasped too, knees bending under the sudden flood of his pain and her power merging for a single, impossible second.
“Let go,” he choked.
“No,” she breathed. “Not this time.”
Her power wrapped around his, bright and sharp and painfully alive. She wasn’t suppressing him , she was stabilizing him, surrounding the rotting edges of the curse and holding them at bay. The floor shook harder, dust falling from ancient beams overhead.
“I can’t, ” His voice shredded as he dropped to one knee. “Sienna, stop, you’ll burn through yourself, ”
“This is what I should’ve done the night she marked us,” she whispered. “I should’ve reached for you. I should’ve held you.”
Their joined hands glowed like molten silver.
He bowed his head, sweat trailing down his temple, breath staggering. “I don’t deserve you.”
“That’s not your decision,” she snapped softly. “It’s mine.”
Power wrapped deeper into him, sealing cracks, easing the tearing inside his bones. Not healing , she wasn’t strong enough for that , but slowing what was killing him.
Enough for him to breathe again.
Enough for him to lift his head.
Enough for him to whisper, “Sienna, you’re frightening me.”
She closed her eyes, inhaling as the power flowed through her, brighter and colder than anything mortal. “Good,” she said. “Because I’m frightening myself.”
The shockwave surged around them, sending loose stones skittering across the temple floor. The air thickened with luminescent dust, swirling around her like a storm that chose her as its center. Ryder pushed himself upright, shaking, using the pillar for support.
“Again,” she said.
He coughed, clutching his ribs. “What?”
“Again.” She lifted her hand once more. “We do it until I control it.”
“You’ll tear yourself apart.”
“Then catch me when I fall.”
He stared at her, eyes raw, voice low. “I always do.”
The second time they touched, the ruins roared.
The floor vibrated under them like a living creature, reacting to Sienna’s command. Runes flared white-hot beneath their feet. Her silver glow intensified, wrapping around Ryder, forcing his body to respond, to stay anchored in the physical world instead of slipping into the spirit realm that kept pulling him.
Ryder gasped, then growled, then gasped again.
Sienna held steady, even as sweat soaked her back, even as her knees buckled under the strain. She refused to break contact. She refused to let him fall. She refused to let the curse take him one breath earlier than fate demanded.
“Sienna,” he rasped, “enough, ”
“No,” she whispered, voice trembling through clenched teeth. “Not until you stop disappearing in front of me.”
By the time she pulled her hand away, they were both shaking violently.
Ryder collapsed first, chest heaving, vision blurred.
Sienna caught herself on the altar stone, panting hard, silver still flickering in her irises.
The temple grew silent again.
Silent… except for the heartbeat.
Not hers.
Not Ryder’s.
The one beneath the stone.
The one that pulsed in answer to her awakening power.
Ryder lifted his head weakly. “You heard it too.”
“Yes.”
“What do you think it is?”
She didn’t answer.
She simply stepped closer to the altar, laying her trembling palm over its cracked surface.
The pulse grew louder.
Stronger.
Hungrier.
Her breath hitched.
“Ryder…” she whispered, voice thin. “I think it’s waking up.”
And the heartbeat answered her name.