Page 48 of Stolen Star

“You look like a child at Christmas,” Riven observes, amusement warming his voice.

“This is all so... different,” I say, not even bothering to hide my wide-eyed wonder. “The Summer Court, the Winter Court, even the Wandering Wilds—they all still felt connected to my world. But this...” I gesture at the passing scenery. “This feels like I’m on another planet.”

Riven doesn’t respond at first.

When I glance over, he’s staring out the opposite window. Not at the view, but through it, as if he’s seeing something far beyond what’s there.

His expression is calm, but too still. The kind of stillness that usually means he’s bracing for something—or brooding about something.

“Are you okay?” I ask, touching his arm.

“I’m fine.” He gives me a tight smile. “Just recalibrating a lifetime of instinct telling me to avoid climates that get warmer than ice water.”

I laugh softly, relieved by the humor, but also noticing the tension in him that doesn’t fully ease.

“Just think of it as thawing out decades of stubbornness,” I offer with a small smile, although as I study himand feel the ache quietly pulsing in the deepest part of our bond, my love for him is suddenly laced with something else—protectiveness.

He needs me. I’ve known it since he sacrificed himself in the Cosmic Tides, but ever since he killed his guards in the clearing, there’s been something different about him. Something that makes me want to reach for him and promise him that I’m here for him no matter what, that I love him unconditionally, and that together, we can get through anything.

“Careful, Starlight,” he warns, his silver eyes flashing with the sort of wild desire that makes my body feel like it’s about to be set aflame. “If you keep looking at me like that, I might thaw completely.”

My breath quickens, and I’d be on his lap kissing him in a heartbeat if we were alone. Instead, I call on the ice magic I now share with him, trying and failing to cool down.

“Is that a threat or a promise?” I ask, scooting closer to him, needing him to know I’m here for him. “Because right now, I’m hoping it’s the second.”

Thalia glances over at us from her place in the passenger seat and frowns. “This is a journey to the Pyros Vault—not to your honeymoon destination,” she says, although from the way she rolls her eyes, I have a feeling she’s nottotallyannoyed at us. “How about youfollow through on that dethawing promise later? Inprivate?”

“A valid request,” Riven says to her with a knowing smirk. “After all, I suppose it would be unfair to distract my wife with my charm until after we’ve faced the life-threatening danger.”

Thalia nods in satisfaction, but for the rest of the drive, I stay curled against Riven like I’m afraid he’ll vanish if I blink. After losing him in the Cosmic Tides, I don’t think a day will go by that I’m not grateful that he’s here—solid, breathing, andmine.

But beneath that gratitude lies something else. Fear from the part of me still wonders how long he’ll stay that way—the part of me that haunts me every night in my dreams.

At the thought of the cruel version of myself from the nightmare, I lean closer into Riven, letting him ground me in the reality of the present. He pulls me tighter, saying nothing, but I feel it through the bond: that fierce, aching devotion that wraps around me like a vice. It’s so overwhelming in its intensity that it almost hurts to breathe.

Just as I start to drown in it, he eases off—enough to let me catch my breath, but not enough to pull away. But it’s too late. I already know. What he feels for me is more than love. It’s an unspoken language of its own, one that whispers to me in heartbeats and pulsesthrough him with every breath he takes. It’s all-consuming, almost feral in its protectiveness, and deeper than anything I’ve ever known.

“You feel it, don’t you?” He lowers his voice, brushing a gentle kiss to my forehead. “The way it keeps growing, like a storm I can’t control.”

“Do youwantto control it?” I ask, since now that I’ve felt the magnitude of its intensity, I wouldn’t blame him if he did.

“No,” he whispers, and when his eyes meet mine, the world shrinks to the space between us. His gaze is a gravity I can’t fight—silver, storm-dark, and locked entirely on me. “You’re the only thing that makes sense to me—the only thing worth keeping. All I want anymore isyou.”

My breath leaves me all at once from the desperation in his voice—from the way it feels like he needs me tounderstand, to accept his unrelenting, all-devouring love as a law that can never be undone.

Words aren’t enough. At least, not any that I can find. So, I reach for his left hand, turning over his palm and tracing the letters onto the scar of frost and starlight I once carved into his skin:I love you.

His breath hitches, and he leans in—just barely. A fraction of a breath. A slow, aching tilt of his head. Close enough that if I move half an inch, our lips will touch.

He doesn’t close the gap, but he wants to. I see it inthe way his jaw flexes, in the flicker of doubt and need in his eyes, and in the frost patterns he’s creating that are crawling up my arms.

Instead of a kiss, he brings my hand to his heart, holding it there as if he’s imprinting its steady rhythm into my soul.

I’m here,the gesture seems to say.And I’m not going anywhere.

I’m lost in the silver depths of his eyes when Thalia clears her throat, yanking us out of the moment.

The temperature in the car drops by several degrees. I’m not sure if it was my doing, or Riven’s. Likely both.

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