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Ryneth closed his eyes and smiled to himself. He wanted Daven again. He always wanted Daven. Some part of him had stopped pretending there would ever be enough.

Carefully, Ryneth lifted Daven’s arm and turned in his hold, slow enough that the prince only shifted deeper into the pillow.

He took him in. Blond hair wrecked from sleep. Thick brows. Long lashes against warm skin. That beautiful mouth, parted slightly, still dangerous even at rest.

A faint mark lingered at the edge of Daven’s throat. Ryneth’s doing.

A warm, pleased feeling moved through him. He leaned in and pressed a soft kiss to Daven’s forehead before slipping quietly out of bed.

Daven made a low sound in his sleep and reached for him, fingers dragging once over Ryneth’s stomach like even half-asleep he meant to pull him back.

“Greedy bastard,” Ryneth murmured. Carefully, he slipped out from under the sheets. The first full step made him wince hard enough to hiss. “Fuck,” he muttered, smiling anyway.

His body ached everywhere that mattered. Deep between his thighs. Low in his hips. That faint burn from being used by someone who knew exactly how to make him beg.

Ryneth paused, then looked back at Daven still sprawled in the bed. He had barely shifted. One arm still lay thrown across the space Ryneth had left behind, and his mouth was parted, hair a mess, the sheet still low on his hips like he had wrecked Ryneth under a storm and passed out satisfied with himself.

Which he probably had.

Ryneth stood there a little longer than he meant to, looking at him. The man who had changed everything.

A few weeks ago, Helion had been a trap. Daven had felt like danger with a beautiful face, a cruel mouth, and too much power in his hands.

Now Ryneth stood in his room with Daven’s marks on his throat, his own marks on Daven’s skin, soreness between his legs, and the quiet certainty that if anyone tried to take this from him, he would tear the city apart with his bare hands.

The bond pulsed low and warm under his skin, enough to make him breathe out through a smile.

He bent to gather his clothes from the floor, found his trousers, found one boot halfway under the chair, then stopped when he saw one of Daven’s clean black shirts hanging over the back of it.

Daven’s.

He reached for it without thinking. The shirt slid over his skin, carrying Daven’s clean scent. He left the buttons half-done, the hem hanging low over his thighs.

“Mine now,” he murmured, smiling to himself as he padded out of the bedroom barefoot, moving slower than usual because his body still ached.

The thought hit him a second later and made that smile deepen.

It wasn’t just the shirt. It was the bed, the coffee, the music playing somewhere in the background, Daven’s strong body holding him tight in the dark, all of it settling around him like something dangerously close to home.

It was ridiculous.

And it felt dangerously close to happiness.

Sunlight spilled through the glass, laying pale strips across the wooden floor. The penthouse still looked polished and expensive, but this morning it felt warmer somehow, lived-in in a way that made the quiet settle around him instead of closing in.

He padded into the kitchen and slowed.

A few weeks ago, he might have looked at the polished counters and thought Daven barely used the place. Now he knew better. He’d caught him here more than once after the academy, leaning against the island with coffee in one hand and his multi-slate in the other, or halfway through making something he acted far too pleased with when it turned out edible.

This morning, the signs were easy to spot. A folded towel. Flour dusted across one corner of the counter. Half of a cut citrus fruit beside a knife.

Ryneth smiled to himself and headed for the coffee machine.

Fresh tiganos waited on the counter beside the cups, so someone had already been by. The sight of them made him snort softly.

Maybe Daven had been telling the truth. Maybe poor Vandor really had been stuck with morning tiganos duty just because the prince didn’t like him.

Ryneth shook his head, smiling to himself as he poured the coffee.