“You were born here?”
“No,” Cassian said, not unkindly, but with a tone that made it clear he was choosing his words. “We were taken in. Years ago.”
Riven frowned. “By Thane?”
Cassian nodded.
That needled at something in Riven. “Why?”
Cassian studied him for a long beat, as if weighing how much to share. “Because he saw us bleeding in an alley and didn’t look away.”
Riven’s brow furrowed. “That doesn’t sound like him.”
Cassian shrugged. “You don’t know him.”
“He doesn’t strike me as the ‘rescue stray kids’ type,” Riven said. “More like the ‘spot a weapon in the wild and bring it home to polish’ type.”
That, surprisingly, made Cassian smile. “Maybe. Maybe he saw what we could become. But he’s never tried toownus. Never judged us, either.”
“For what?”
Cassian’s silver gaze flicked sideways. “For what we are. Half-breeds.”
Riven’s stomach tightened. It wasn’t an uncommon slur. Not in the Seam. Not in the Houses. Some bloodlines were considered purer than others. More elven, less human. Riven had never given a shit, but he’d seen how brutal the world could be to anyone who didn’t fit neatly into a box.
“I didn’t know,” Riven said quietly. The twins looked full elven, unlike Riven, who looked wholly human, the magic that coursed through him the only evidence of his heritage.
Cassian shrugged again, more careful this time. “Most don’t, until they do. And when they do, they treat us different. But Thane never has. Not once.”
That silenced Riven for a long moment. He stared down at his boots, sweat dripping from his jaw, breath starting to even out.
“I thought people like him only cared about strength.”
“Oh, he does,” Cassian said, walking past him toward the door. “But he doesn’t think blood defines it.”
Riven didn’t follow right away. He stayed leaning against the wall, trying to reconcile that image of Thane—cold and brutal, with blood on his hands—with the one Cassian had just handed him. A younger Thane, kneeling in a gutter, offering two kids a way out.
It didn’t make sense. And yet, that was Cassian’s reality.
The worst part? He wanted to know more, about Thane. He wanted to ask Cassian a dozen questions about who Thane had been back then. Who he was now. But that was dangerous, because every piece of Thane he uncovered made it harder to hold onto the hatred that kept him sane.
Riven shoved off the wall, grabbed the towel, and followed Cassian out.
He wasn’t done bleeding for answers.
Together they walked into the locker room. The room was sleek and utilitarian—industrial stone walls, matte black lockers, and ambient lighting low enough to feel like a den. The showers lined the far wall behind frosted glass dividers, steam curling in lazy tendrils over the tops.
Riven’s heartrate picked up, because this room was very similar to the shower the night before.
Cassian peeled off his damp shirt without ceremony, revealing a sculpted torso—long lines of sinew and lean muscle.His back bore old scars, thin and silvery, barely visible under the sheen of sweat. Riven tried not to look.
Failed.
Cassian was stunning in a way that made Riven’s chest tighten—angular features, high cheekbones, full lips, and a body that walked the line between dancer and predator. Wet strands of dark hair clung to his neck as he tossed the shirt aside and unfastened the ties of his training pants.
Riven swallowed and forced himself to look away, but not before getting an eyeful of a thick cock and heavy balls hanging between Cassian’s legs. He yanked off his own shirt with a little too much aggression. His skin was flushed and overheated, muscles twitching from exertion. He shoved his clothes into a locker and stepped into the nearest empty shower stall.
Water blasted from the ceiling like rain as the motion sensors triggered. The temperature was perfect. Riven braced his hands against the wall and let it pound down on the back of his neck, trying to clear his head.
