“I can get more.”
“You don’t have time either.”
There was a tremble in the silence that followed. Kaya looked up at him finally, tears glinting in her eyes. “Riven, please—”
She didn’t need to say more. He knew her. Knew she couldn’t hold down a job. Knew the gambling had only gotten worse, evenwhen she promised it wouldn’t. She wasn’t cut out for House work. Not the kind they assigned to debtors.
He wanted to scream. Instead, he closed his eyes, jaw clenched tight, and said, “Then take me.”
The elf raised a brow. “You’re not the one who owes the debt.”
“I’ll pay it for her,” Riven said. “Whatever it takes.”
The woman studied him for a long moment. Then she pulled out a sleek comm device, turned away, and spoke quietly into it. Riven didn’t hear the words, just the cadence—crisp and professional, like she was ordering a room cleaned.
Kaya grabbed his arm. “Riven, thank you. Thank you, I swear I’ll make it up to you—”
He didn’t answer. Couldn’t. His heart pounded so hard it hurt, and all he could think was how this would be one more mistake he’d regret.
The elf turned back.
“The House accepts your offer. You’re to come with me. Now.”
Chapter 2
House Virellien’s estate wasn’t perched on a cliff like in the old stories. It was nestled behind mirrored walls and guarded gates in the heart of Marrowlight—a neighborhood so clean, so clinical, it looked half a breath away from sterile. In places like this, silence was part of the architecture. Rich people didn’t need noise to prove their power. They just breathed it into the walls and let it echo.
The car pulled through a private gate, which whispered open without a sound. Even the air smelled expensive: ozone and white flowers, cut with the faint tang of security wards and fresh pavement. The driveway curved through a minimalist garden sculpted with sharp-edged hedges and black granite statues that gleamed like obsidian bones.
When the car stopped, a thrall in a sleek suit opened the door, gave a tight nod, and stepped back. Not a word.
Riven got out.
His clothes didn’t fit this place—cheap jeans, scuffed boots, a shirt washed too many times to be anything but soft and faded. No bag, no backup. Just his heartbeat and the sense that every step he took was being logged by someone behind mirrored glass.
The front doors opened before he reached them, that same seamless coordination. Someone always watching.
Inside was worse, cold gray stone floors, polished concrete, clean modern lines. The art looked like it belonged in a museum—oversized, austere, untouchable. The air was still, temperature-controlled and unscented. The ceiling soared two stories high, all glass and sharp edges, built to impress without inviting warmth. Power lived here, not people.
The thrall led him down a long hallway in silence, shoes whispering over the floor. No one else was in sight. They stopped outside a door paneled in blackwood and smoked glass. The thrall stepped aside, vanishing the second the door closed behind Riven.
He didn’t have time to breathe before the door on the opposite side of the room opened again.
He felt it before he saw him—controlled tension curling through the air like pressure before a storm. It was not just magic, though that was there too. Something heavier. Intention. A weight of will.
And then Thane Virellien stepped into the room.
He was taller than expected, broader too, not the kind of lean, silken predator Riven had imagined when people whispered about the Beast of House Virellien. No, this was a man built for damage. Every inch of him radiated purpose, not performance. He wore tailored slate-gray slacks and a dark shirt with the sleeves rolled up to the elbow, revealing tattoos that twisted along one forearm in angular, uncompromising lines. The shirt’s collar was unfastened, exposing a sharp-cut throat, the hint of more ink just beneath. There was no jewelry, no excess, just control.
His silver-gray eyes landed on Riven like the cut of a blade. He didn’t speak at first, just studied him in silence, as if weighing what had been brought in and deciding whether to keep it.
“So,” he said at last, his voice low and even, the kind that slipped under your skin before you realized it was there. “You’re the substitute.”
Riven stood his ground. “She wouldn’t have survived this.”
A slight curl touched Thane’s mouth, not quite a smile. “And you think you will?”
“I didn’t say that.”
