The voice broke through the storm in his head. Riven turned to find the Beast watching him again, eyes half-lidded.
“No shit.”
“And yet you’re staring like you want to put your teeth in me.”
Riven’s breath caught. Heat flared low in his gut. That bastard grin spread across the Beast’s face again, slow and wicked.
“You think you’re so untouchable,” Riven muttered. “But I know your type.”
“Do you?”
“You think because you have power, it makes youright. But power’s just power. You use it, or it uses you.”
The Beast stepped closer. One pace. Two.
Riven held his ground.
“I don’t give a fuck about being right,” the Beast said softly. “I want to be obeyed.”
And there it was—that gut-punch twist of attraction and fury. Riven clenched his jaw. Hewantedto hit him. Or kiss him. Maybe both.
“Go to hell,” he muttered.
The Beast leaned in close, breath warm at Riven’s ear. “You’re already there.”
Chapter 4
The Beast—Thane, Riven reminded himself, though the title still fit better—didn’t press closer. Didn’t grab, didn’t threaten, didn’t gloat.
He just watched him.
Riven felt painfully exposed under that gaze. It wasn’t just because Thane was half-naked. It was because Riven could tell the man was cataloguing him. Noticing things, filing them away.
It made him feel like prey. And not in the way he enjoyed.
“So,” Riven said, forcing sarcasm, “you drag me into your lair and strip off your shirt for what? A show of dominance?”
“I was hot,” Thane said flatly.
Riven stared.
Riven scoffed, but it was too sharp, more bark than laugh. “Right. The infamous Knife of House Virellien getswarm.”
Thane turned his back to him without answering. His body was just as unreadable from behind—broad shoulders, spine like a drawn line of tension. Even his scars seemed purposeful, and stars, there were a lot of them. Pale lines and jagged ridges, crisscrossing skin that looked carved from marble.
Riven hated how his gaze caught there. On the dip at the base of Thane’s spine, the subtle flex of muscle as he reached for a black shirt draped over a dresser.
Thane moved like a man who didn’t care if you were watching—but knew you would.
“You can sleep here tonight,” he said. “The door locks from both sides. You won’t be disturbed.”
Riven’s eyes flicked to the heavy obsidian door. “Except by you, I guess.”
“I won’t touch you until you ask.”
Not a threat. Not quite a promise, either. Just…certainty. Thane pulled the shirt over his head in one fluid motion, the fabric dragging over the thick line of his chest. Riven looked away too fast and too late. His mind clung to the way those muscles moved, the shadows between collarbone and pectoral, the faint sheen of sweat catching against inked skin.
He clenched his jaw. He’d seen beautiful bodies before. He’d stolen from some. Shared beds with a few. This was nothing.
