“It’s real,” Riven said quietly. “You were right. They said the Hollow Hand has waited too long to let things fall apart now. They were arguing about how risky it was, but they’re planning something. Something big.”
“And the man who helped you escape?”
“I don’t know his name. He said he was with House Virellien. Deep cover. Helped me get out, got me to a car with preloaded coordinates. Said he had to stay behind to protect his cover.”
Thane ran a hand through Riven’s hair, brushing it back from his face. The gesture was unexpectedly tender, fingers lingering against his scalp.
“You did well,” Thane murmured. “Too well. You scared the shit out of me.”
Riven’s breath caught. “You were the one who found me?”
“Yes,” Thane said. “You were almost at the gates, collapsed against the bars. The guards called me. I told them if they so much as breathed on you, I’d end them.”
The heat in Riven’s chest spread out like sunlight under his skin.
“I needed to know,” Riven whispered. “About the Hollow Hand. About what we were really facing. I thought…I thought if I could be useful to you, then maybe—”
“You are,” Thane said sharply. “You are useful. But more than that, Riven, I—”
“I’m not ready for you to leave,” Riven interrupted, reaching up, reckless with exhaustion and longing. He slid a hand over Thane’s abdomen, down to the bulge beneath his belt. “Not yet.”
Thane’s breath hitched, cock stirring under Riven’s palm. “Fuck,” he muttered, catching Riven’s wrist again—but not pulling it away.
Riven squeezed lightly. “I want you. I want to feel you.”
“There will be plenty of time to satisfy your cock-drunken lust, darling,” Thane murmured. “But right now, you need rest.”
Riven groaned in frustration. “I’ll rest when I’ve had you again.”
Thane leaned down and kissed him—longer this time, deeper. A claiming kiss, and wasn’t just possession anymore. There was something raw underneath it, something unspoken.
When Thane finally pulled away, Riven was gasping for air, lips bruised and heart hammering.
Chapter 50
Riven moved before he could second-guess it—hands sliding up Thane’s chest, pulling him down against the bed.
To his surprise, Thane let him.
Riven climbed over him, straddling his hips, watching as Thane settled beneath him with that insufferable calm, that cool, knowing amusement.
The fact that he was the one taking control now felt like a fever dream.
But Thane didn’t stop him.
Didn’t command, didn’t take.
Not yet.
Instead, he leaned back on his elbows, letting Riven look. Letting him want.
And gods, he did.
Riven’s fingers moved to the buttons of Thane’s shirt, undoing them one by one. He found the dark ink beneath crisp fabric—elegant, dangerous tattoos that wound across his chest, sweeping down his ribs and disappearing beneath the waistband of his pants.
He pushed the shirt open, and his breath caught.
Thane’s body was a work of art. Hard muscle beneath gilded skin, broken only by old scars and inked symbols—somebeautiful, some brutal. Script in ancient elvish curled over his ribs, a dagger inked in black ran along one side of his chest, and a serpent wound around his hip, its open mouth dipping below the line of his trousers.
