And then I reach out and press my hand to his, just over the beer bottle, just long enough to feel the heat of him, the thunderstorm in his veins.
“I don’t say anything I don’t mean,” I whisper. “Not to you.”
He doesn’t move. Doesn’t look at me.
But the bond between us stutters.
And then steadies.
He drinks again, but slower this time. Riven doesn’tdovulnerability. Doesn’t even look it in the eye. But he’s letting me sit here, letting me feel the full weight of what it means to be hollowed out by loss and still trying to be angry enough to survive it.
He thinks I don’t notice the way he’s breathing harder now. Not from rage. From holding it in. From not letting the grief claw its way to the surface where I could see it. Where it might make him human instead of the weapon he keeps trying to be.
And I get it. Gods, I do.
He lost them.
Lucien. Orin. The only two he ever let close. The only ones who didn’t try to mold him into something quieter. Easier. Lucien was the chaos under control, and Orin was the silence Riven could scream into. They're gone—and they didn’t even say goodbye.
And now he's here. With me. With a six-pack and too much silence and a rage he doesn’t know where to put.
So I say the worst possible thing.
“Well,” I mutter, tilting my beer bottle toward the pillar, “at least they didn’t ghost you over text.”
Riven’s head jerks toward me so fast I almost choke on the sip I was taking. His brow furrows like he’s trying to figure out if I just lost my mind or if I’m trying to pick a fight.
I glance sideways. Give him my most innocent look. “Too soon?”
He blinks. Stares. And then—then—his mouth twitches. Not a smile. Not really. But close enough that it punches something deep in my chest.
“You’re the worst,” he mutters, dragging his hand over his face, but the edge in his voice has dulled. “You really are.”
“You’re not the first person to say that today,” I say with a sigh. “You’re probably not even top three.”
He makes a low sound, almost like a laugh but smothered beneath years of growling through his emotions instead of expressing them. His hand brushes mine again, deliberately this time.
“Ghosted over text,” he says, shaking his head. “Gods, you’re annoying.”
“But effective,” I grin, and for a second, it feels like the weight around us lessens.
Only a little.
But still.
Because that’s the thing with Riven. You don’t get declarations. You don’t get softness wrapped in bows. You get cracked bottles and glances that burn more than they should. You get pain buried beneath sarcasm. You get the way he doesn’t move when I stay close.
And that’s enough. It has to be.
A breeze stirs the grass around the pillar, that weird warp of magic still humming in the background like a warning bell we haven’t learned how to hear yet. But it’s distant now. Drowned beneath the hum of two people sitting close and pretending they’re not broken in the exact same places.
“Thanks,” I say, voice softer now, the humor fading into something rawer.
He doesn’t ask what for.
But I feel it in the bond anyway—his answer.
You don’t have to thank me for staying.