Nyra looked at the bow in his hand, then at Riven.
“Today, you’re learning archery.”
“Archery?”
Riven nodded.
“You’ve learned hand-to-hand combat, how to handle multiple opponents, tracking, and basic survival. A weapon that lets you fight from a distance is the next step.”
Nyra took the bow from him and examined it.
“I’ve never used one before.”
“I know.”
She looked at him suspiciously.
“How?”
“Because if you had, you’d know how to hold it.”
Nyra glanced down at her hands.
She was, apparently, holding it incorrectly.
She looked back at him with a pout.
“You could have just said that.”
“I did.”
“No. You insulted me first.”
“I stated a fact.”
She rolled her eyes.
“She looks so cute when she pouts” Tristan said in his head.
Riven smiled.
He pointed toward the open clearing.
“Stand there.”
Nyra walked to the position he’d indicated.
Riven handed her an arrow.
“First lesson. Don’t think about shooting.”
She frowned.
“Then what am I supposed to do?”
“Learn the weapon.”
Nyra looked at the bow again.
Riven explained how to position her feet, where to place her fingers, how to hold the bow without gripping it too tightly, and how to draw the string smoothly instead of forcing it.
Nyra listened carefully.
After a few minutes, she positioned herself.
Riven studied her stance.
“Not bad.”
Nyra looked at him.
“Already?”
She smiled.
“Maybe I’m a good student.”
“Don’t get ahead of yourself.”
She laughed.
Riven showed her how to nock the arrow.
“Now draw.”
Nyra pulled the string back.
Her first attempt was slightly uneven.
“Relax your shoulder.”
She corrected it immediately.
“Better.”
“Like this?”
“Yes.”
He watched her carefully.
“Now focus on the target.”
A wooden target stood several metres away.
Nyra stared at it.
“Don’t focus on where you want the arrow to go,” Riven said.
“Focus on the center. Let your body follow your eyes.”
Nyra took a slow breath.
Then released.
The arrow flew and struck the outer section of the target.. Find the original chapter at g.com.
Nyra’s POV:
Riven walked up to me, stepped closer, narrowing the gap until there wasn’t a single whisper of air left between us.
“Hold the bow this way,” he murmured.
His large, warm hands slid slowly over mine, aligning my grip on the riser before his fingers traced up my arms to help pull back the heavy string.
The heat of his broad, tattooed chest pressed firmly against my back, trapping me in a cocoon of muscle and ink.
He lowered his head, his dark brown curls brushing my temple as his lips grazed the shell of my ear.
“That’s how you hold it. Relax. Breathe in and out.”
I tried my absolute hardest to focus, but my brain was short-circuiting.
One of the most breathtakingly handsome men I’d ever laid eyes on was practically wrapped around me.
The fact that Riven was my mate only made it worse.
Every hyper-reactive cell in my body was screaming that I had the absolute right to turn around and devour him.
I silently prayed for self-control.
I wanted nothing more than to grab this demi-god by the neck and crash my lips against his.
The ancient mate pull yanked at my soul, testing every ounce of my restraint.
‘Focus, Nyra, hehe,’ Eira’s voice teased in my mind.
The damn minx was practically dancing with excitement, soaking in the anticipation of the sheer naughtiness brewing between Riven and me.
My heart hammered against my ribs, making a single logical thought impossible.
“Now, release it, Nyra,” Riven whispered, his voice a low, gravelly vibration that sent a violent shiver down my spine.
His lips brushed my skin as he spoke.
Gosh, the way my name rolled off his tongue was sinful.
“Eira, send help.” Eira just laughed.
‘Who’s being the perv now?’
“Shut up!” I snapped internally.
I let go of the string.
The arrow flew straight and true, hitting dead center.
A perfect bullseye.
I lowered the bow, staring at the vibrating shaft in the middle of the target, but my triumph was short-lived.
Riven hadn’t stepped back.
He was still anchoring me in place.
Slowly, I turned my head to look up at him, our faces inches apart.
He was waging his own war.
I could see it in the tight set of his jaw and the way his eyes flickered erratically between deep black and smoky grey.
Tristan fighting him for control, begging to give in to the bond.
“Nyra…”
The entire forest seemed to go still.
Warm sun rays pierced through the canopy, dappling his sun-bronzed skin and intricate tattoos in a golden glow.
Riven squeezed his eyes shut, exhaling a ragged breath as he whispered my name again, like a prayer and a curse all at once.
“Gawd help me,” I thought.
Eira only giggled in response.
Riven’s hands slid away from the bow, his long, ringed fingers wrapping around my waist, pulling my hips back against his.
“Tell me to stop, Nyra,” he rasped, his voice thick with a dark, heavy desperation.
“Tell me to move away while I still have a minuscule of reasoning left.
Who in their right mind would tell a man like this to stop?
Certainly not me.
Before he could breathe another word, I threw my hand around the back of his neck and pulled him down.
Our lips crashed together.
Riven stiffened in pure shock for a fraction of a second, but then a low growl rumbled in his chest, and he took over entirely.
The kiss was a collision of unspoken thoughts and pent-up desire.
It was possessive, deep, and utterly breathless, demanding everything we couldn’t voice out loud.
When our lips finally parted, we were both gasping for air, our foreheads resting against each other.
We stared into each other’s eyes, the gravity of what just happened settling between us before identical, breathless smiles broke across our faces.Riven broke the silence, his voice a rough, amused whisper.
“Wow.”
“Yeah,” I breathed, my fingers still tangled in his dark brown hair, “Wow.”
Riven’s gaze dropped back down to my lips, his hands tightening on my waist.
“Well… I guess archery lessons are officially over for the day.”
We reluctantly broke apart to pack up the gear, but the air between us remained thick, charged with the ghost of that kiss.
I tried my absolute hardest to act normal.
It wasn’t working.
At all.
Every time I reached for an arrow, my fingers trembled slightly.
I could feel his gaze tracking my every movement. New chapters come out on g.com first.
Riven wasn’t doing much better either.
He kept clearing his throat, his usual lethal composure completely fractured.
Over the past few weeks, Riven had memorized every single one of my habits.
He knew the exact way my brow furrowed when I was concentrating, the fierce way I argued when I thought he was wrong, and the stubborn refusal to back down when training got brutal.
He had watched me grow stronger with every passing day.
Somewhere along the way, protecting me hadn’t just been a task anymore.
It had become the only thing he looked forward to.
The kiss hadn’t been planned, but as he hoisted the heavy bow over his broad shoulder, there wasn’t a single shred of regret in his stormy grey eyes.
Yet, he didn’t push.
He knew I had a purpose that went far beyond a fated bond, and he respected that.
Whatever happened between us, he was letting me set the pace.
He picked up the last of the gear and looked down at me, his expression softening.
“Ready?”
I cleared my throat, forcing my voice to remain steady.
“Yeah.”
We started the trek back toward camp.
The forest canopy filtered the afternoon light, but my mind was stuck on the heat of his hands on my waist.
After a few minutes of agonizingly loud silence, I glanced up at his sharp profile.
“Riven?”
“Hmm?”
He didn’t look over, but his chest rumbled with the sound.
“Thank you.”
“For the archery lesson?” An amused smirk tugged at the corner of his lips.
I smiled softly, looking ahead at the trail.
“For everything.”
Riven paused for a fraction of a second, his heavy boots crunching against the dry leaves.
He looked down at me, his gaze intense.
“You don’t have to thank me, Nyra.”
“I know,” I murmured, picking up my pace just a bit to hide the blush creeping up my neck.
“But I wanted to.”
He didn’t reply, but he closed the distance between us, his shoulder brushing mine as he walked beside her.
For the first time since we met, the silence between us didn’t feel like a battleground.
It felt comfortable.
That night, the camp was dead quiet.
I sat cross-legged beside the crackling fire, staring blankly into the dancing orange flames.
Without thinking, my fingers drifted up, my thumb lightly tracing the contour of my bottom lip.
The memory of his lips against mine sent a sudden, traitorous shiver right down my spine.
I immediately snapped my hand down to my lap.
‘You liked it,’ Eira’s voice purred in my mind, absolutely dripping with smug satisfaction.
I let out a heavy sigh, tossing a small twig into the fire.
“You’re never going to let this go, are you?”
‘Absolutely not.
He’s delicious, Nyra.
Deny it all you want, but your heart rate doesn’t lie.’
A reluctant laugh escaped my lips.
I looked past the firelight, staring into the dark tree line where Riven had gone to keep watch a little before he leaves for his cabin.
The kiss had changed something between us, but it hadn’t erased my reality.
It hadn’t changed the burning rage locked inside my chest or the blood-soaked mission ahead of me.
My parents were still dead.
Mara was also dead.
The council was responsible for tearing my life apart, and I had promised myself I would tear down heaven and earth to uncover the truth.
I couldn’t afford to be weak.
I couldn’t afford a distraction.
But as I looked back at the embers of the fire, feeling the faint, reassuring pulse of Riven’s presence through the bond…
I realized something else.
Maybe I didn’t have to walk through the dark entirely alone.
Maybe there was room for him, too.