“I omitted,” he corrected. “I needed to be sure you weren’t the threat.”
“And when you were sure?”
“By then,” he said softly, “it didn’t matter who saved who. We were already in it.”
I stared at him.
He had been my shadow even before he became my partner. He had been hunting me, watching me, and saving me since the moment the first drained Calysteri body dropped.
“You were there,” I whispered. “Riverforge. The morning we found Talia Merrin.” The warehouse. The frost. The sharp pain in my shoulder that made Dane look at me.
“I was tracking the Shard,” Riven said, turning back to face me. “The ACD notified Korenth that a piece of the device had been left at the scene. They sent me to watch the police.”
He touched his own chest, right over the scorch mark.
“I was in the rafters when you walked in. And then… I felt it. Like a hook. A pull so strong I nearly lost my footing. I didn’t understand it. I had never felt anything like it in my life. I needed to know what you were.”
He stepped closer, his voice dropping.
“The assignment was my design, Selene. I forced Marcus to put me on your case.”
My eyes widened. “You handpicked me.”
“I leveraged the ACD,” he corrected. “I told Darian I needed to keep an eye on the MCIU’s investigation. I told him you were a loose end.”
He stopped in front of me, close enough that I could smell the rain on him again.
“I lied. I needed to be close to you. I needed to figure out why every time you walked into a room, the quiet inside me finally broke.”
I stared at him.
He manipulated the police, the ACD, and me, just to get close enough to solve the riddle of his own soul.
And in the end, he was willing to burn for it.
“You’re a piece of work, Ashborne,” I whispered. The anger had vanished, and something warmer took its place—something terrifyingly steady.
“I’m a survivor,” he said. “And I intend to keep you one, too.”
He held out a hand.
“The journals gave us the history,” he said. “But what we need is a strategy. If we’re going to stop Korenth, we need to stop reacting and start planning.”
I looked at his palm—calloused, with long fingers. These fingers snapped a neck to save me and held mine when I healed him.
I reached out and took it.
“Then let’s get to work.”
TWENTY-NINE
Selene
Riven and I were still standing in the dim light of my living room when a fist hammered against the front door, rattling the frame in its casing.
“Selene! Open up!”
Riven tensed instantly, his posture shifting from exhaustion to defence. I waved him down.
