Semua Bab Her Enemy, His Curse: Bab 21 - Bab 29

Ari:I was already bleeding by the time they called his name.My lip split somewhere in the second round, and the skin along my knuckles peeled raw from deflecting too many blades not meant to be parried with bare hands. It didn’t matter. None of it mattered—not compared to what was coming.Lucian stepped into the ring like a shadow torn from the bones of night. Silent. Controlled. Dangerous in that still way that made the air feel thinner just because he was there.I hadn’t looked him in the eye in weeks. Not since that night in the woods.But now—now I didn’t have a choice.He faced me without flinching.The murmurs in the training hall died off as he drew his weapon. He didn’t say a word. Didn’t offer a nod, smirk, or taunt. Just that silence—the kind that rang in the ears long after it passed. And gods help me, I felt it like a scream.I fell in love with the sound of him before I even realized it—the way his silence howled louder than God's, the way he looked at me like I was the

Ari:His forehead pressed to mine, our breath tangling, shared, and uneven. I could feel the tremble in him—the control coiled too tight, the edge he hadn’t let anyone else see.“Ari,” he said again, rougher this time.I didn’t let him speak the rest. My hands found his jaw, then his throat, then the front of his shirt, and I pulled hard. He caught me before I could fully rise, his mouth claiming mine in a way that burned through my marrow. His kiss wasn’t tender anymore. It was everything he hadn’t said. Everything he thought he couldn’t want.And gods, I wanted it too.The bond flared again—like a second skin, like fire beneath the surface—and I felt it when he lost the war with himself, like a shiver in the atmosphere.He stood, dragging me with him, our mouths still devouring each other. My back hit the nearest wall with a thud, a cool stone biting through my thin shirt, and he was already pressing into me, pinning me there with the weight of his body, his need, his fury, and hi

Ari:The scent of steel clung to me.Not blood. Not sweat.Steel.Unforgiving. Cold. Familiar.The blade lay beside me now, useless as my limbs, as my voice. I had stopped swinging long before the others arrived. Stopped moving altogether, crouched on the mat like a broken thing, trying to remember how to breathe.I heard them before I saw them.Boots scuffed against sand. Quiet conversation. The kind that always stopped the moment I was in earshot. I didn’t look up. Let them pass around me like wreckage they didn’t want to acknowledge.No one asked what happened.No one offered a hand.They moved around me like I was a ghost.I got to my feet slowly, every muscle aching, my hands raw beneath the wrappings I’d torn from my pack. My hair clung to my neck, my chest heaving with the aftershocks of what I’d done—who I’d let in—and what it had cost me.Lucian was nowhere to be found.But that wasn’t new.He was always leaving.And still, somehow, he’d made a home inside me.I didn’t have t

Lucian:The echoes of my howl still clung to the cliffs when I stood.Not entirely shifted, nor fully man.Somewhere in between.My skin felt too tight, too hot—like my own magic didn't know where to sit without her to anchor it. My hands trembled, claws half-formed. My teeth were sharp beneath the press of my tongue. I could still taste the blood I hadn't spilled.I didn't wait for orders.I didn't wait for strategy.I didn't wait for comfort.I turned from the cadets, from my best friend Fenton, from everything that wasn't her—and stalked into the broken husk of the command building. The shattered bones of a desk lay in splinters beneath me. A wall bore the imprint of something scorched. Not fire—sigil-burn.I knew that kind of magic. Ancient. Illegal. Rift-borne.I knelt beside the mark, my hand hovering just over the residual heat still pulsing from the ground.Spellfire. Tethering magic. A trap set to recognize her.She and no one else.It hadn't gone off by accident.They had wan

Lucian:Arielle barely breathed.But she did breathe.That was the only reason the world hadn't shattered beneath me.I held her tighter, arms around her like I could transfer my strength into her bones. Her blood soaked my chest. Her magic — flickering and faint — brushed my skin like a fading ember.But it was hers.She was still here.Still mine."Stay with me," I whispered, voice shredded raw.Her fingers twitched weakly against my collar. That was enough.I didn't look at the bodies I'd left behind.Didn't need to.The sounds they'd made — choking, cracking, pleading — had already been memorized by the part of me that didn't forgive.The part that was wolf.A torch burned low in the corner. The walls bled. Not with blood but with whispers etched in a language no one should speak.The realm had felt me arrive.And it hated me for it.I shifted Arielle in my arms — one beneath her knees, the other behind her shoulders. She didn't fight me, only leaned into my chest, her breath shal