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“Easy,” a deep voice soothed from behind me. I startled towards the sound.

Helion sat under the window, back leaning against the wall, shirtless and entirely at ease. He was covered in blood, yet there was no wound in sight.

His head was tipped back, dark lashes hooding eyes that watched me with lazy amusement. Candlelight caught the brutal angles of his face before spilling lower, gilding the broad expanse of his chest and every wicked line carved into his stomach.

My traitorous gaze followed.

Helion wasn't built like Rythos. Where my monster was brute strength and violence, Helion was something sharper. Lean muscle stretched over a body made for speed, every line of him elegant enough to disguise how lethal he truly was.

The silver flame marking his ribs gleamed.

Gods, he was devastating.

And judging by the slow appearance of that fucking dimple, he knew exactly where I was looking. But I was to exhausted to hide my gaze.

My fingers drifted to the birthmark nestled between my breasts, the touch so light it barely disturbed my skin.

The first time I'd seen the silver flame etched across Riven's ribs, I'd wondered if he was haunted like me. But I had mistaken the darkness that had lingered in the corners of his smile, whispering that he carried ghosts of his own.

I'd thought we were two fractured souls wandering the same haunted path, stitched together by wounds neither of us could name.

But he had never been haunted.

He had been hiding.

Riven was nothing more than a beautiful lie, lovingly woven around a god patient enough to wait until I'd trusted him before tearing it away.

My fingers curled against the mark, wishing I could tear it out of my skin.

Venom grew in my gaze as I reminded myself of who he really was.

He wasn’t my friend. He wasn’t the man that had become a soothing warmth in a life of coldness.

His smile slipped from his face like the tide retreating from the shore, drawn away by the undertow of every feeling I left exposed for him to drown in.

He was the god who had stolen me from my wedding and chained me to his side beneath vows I didn’t want.

The god who had stepped between me and Astaroth with blood on his knuckles, only to force me to endure every scream of his punishment through the bond until I no longer knew whose agony I was drowning in.

He had distracted me with what I mistook for kindness, while quietly wrapping chains around my throat.

My lip curled into a snarl, and I dragged my gaze away from him. Monsters had always known how to wear beautiful faces.

I tried to push to my knees, but dizziness claimed me and rendered me useless. My power was all but drained, leaving me an empty husk of weakness.

“Rough night, huh?” A single dimple appeared, the corner of his mouth quirking in a half-hearted smile that didn’t reach his eyes. Eyes that churned like storm clouds ready to unleash on the world.

I narrowed my eyes at him, sleep still clinging as stubbornly to the edges of my mind as the ghost of the pain I’d endured all night. The effort alone made my temples throb.

He tilted his chin towards the washroom. “I’d get cleaned up if I were you. We don’t have long until the guards will fetch us.”

My eyes dropped to the blood smeared over his body.

“Take your own advice.” The words came out broken, my voice shredded into a hoarse whisper from hours of screaming.

His mask slipped, washed away beneath a tide of bone-deep exhaustion until nothing remained but anguish and regret.

I buried the ache deep inside my heart, sealing it behind walls even the bond could not breach. Even the most beautiful lies learned how to wear grief.