Lykor’s eyes widened at the admission, but he didn’t interrupt.
Drawing in a breath around the lead in his chest, Jassyn raked a trembling hand through his curls. “As one of the first elven-blooded, the council bound me to…repopulate the race. Forced me into contracts. For decades, the females blurred together.” His breath hitched, every lungful a battle, the past pressing down on him like a collapsing sky. “There was no end. I lost track—I lost myself—when things got worse.” The words tumbled out faster than he could rein them in, each one a fracture in his brittle composure.
“Farine…” The name curdled on his tongue. Jassyn faltered, bile rising in his throat. “She—she made me… With so many… Just for their entertainment.” He squeezed his eyes shut, as if he could shove the memories back into the shadows where they belonged.
“They forced themselves on you?” Lykor’s question was a rumbling storm, each syllable quaking beneath the surface.
When Jassyn dared to meet Lykor’s eyes, he found them burning—twin embers aflame in the darkness, smoldering with fury.
“They hurt you?”
Too exposed, Jassyn focused on the ground. He nodded, toeing the snowy rocks beneath his boots.
“Sometimes physically,” he admitted, voice hollow. “Sometimes just through…humiliation.” A bitter laugh scraped his throat. “What they made me do… It never felt like I was serving the greater good.” He braced his palms on the boulder, the wind tousling his curls. “And I know it’s nothing compared to what you endured—”
“Who?” Lykor’s demand boomed like thunder. “Who did this to you?”
Jassyn shook his head, refusing to meet Lykor’s burning gaze. “It doesn’t matter,” he said quietly, staring up at the stars—distant witnesses to a shame he’d never outrun. “They’re a world away now.”
A screech of metal and the sudden crack of shattering ceramic pierced the night. Jassyn’s eyes snapped to Lykor’s gauntlet, shaking around the remnants of his mug. Steel grated as he squeezed even tighter, grinding fractured shards across the stone.
“I want their names,” Lykor snarled, voice seething with guttural promise, shadows rising around him. His eyes blazed, a storm of fire. “All of them. Every single one who laid a hand on you.” His fangs extended, glinting like ivory daggers in the starlight. “I won’t rest until I bring you each of their fucking heads.”
Lykor’s fury circled like a beast poised not to strike, but to protect—to protecthim. The sheer ferocity of it had Jassyn going still. A part of him wanted to give in, to let Lykor’s wrath shoulder the weight of his suffering.
But it wouldn’t change the past.
“Revenge won’t help me forget,” Jassyn whispered, meeting the inferno in Lykor’s stare.
Jaw working silently, Lykor’s brow furrowed, as though he warred with the idea that anyone would reject vengeance. For amoment, Jassyn thought he might rip open a portal and storm to the capital right then and there.
Before he thought the action through, Jassyn placed a hand on Lykor’s cloaked arm.
A single touch. He just wanted to thank him for caring but didn’t know how to voice it.
Lykor stiffened, gaze snapping down to Jassyn’s palm.
Fearing he’d overstepped, Jassyn quickly withdrew.
Lykor’s chest heaved, fangs retracting as he rapidly blinked away the tempest raging in his eyes. The fiery edge of his anger dimmed, embers cooling down to coals.
Slowly, Lykor searched Jassyn’s face. “You’re…different than me,” he murmured, his voice losing its harsh bite. When he shifted, the sides of their thighs bumped.
Jassyn froze, his heartbeat ricocheting in his throat. The slight press of Lykor’s knee against his own sent a charge through him, swift as lightning skimming water.
But the warmth blooming around the touch didn’t drag him back into memory’s shadows. It could have, after everything, but the contact felt like support rather than a breach of boundaries.
The realization hummed through Jassyn like a second pulse—hecouldpull away. The choice was his.
This wasn’t anything to linger on. He’d shared casual touches that didn’t send him spiraling—embraces with Serenna, playful jostling with Fenn, and more familiarity than he’d prefer from the prince. But this felt different. Deeper, with less. Like it could be something more.
Drawn by some inexplicable pull, Jassyn let the back of his hand graze Lykor’s. Featherlight—almost imperceptible—yet his heart lurched at the deliberate action.
Lykor’s arm flexed beneath his cloak, but he didn’t retreat behind the fortress of his armor. Instead, he exhaled a shaky breath, making Jassyn wonder if the unbreakable warrior—whohad just vowed to tear the capital apart—felt just as fragile in this moment.
Perhaps brokenness wasn’t an ending, but a prelude to rebirth. Even in ruin, the shattered pieces could realign into something stronger—something whole.
Heart thundering, Jassyn risked a glance, worried he’d ventured too far.
