Chapter 7: Leech and Loyalty
Lior
I'd smelled the human the minute I traded words with Riven. At first I thought he was just passing through, some stray. But he lingered. When the moment was right, I took him out.
I don't regret it. Pawn or willing participant—he didn't deserve to live. What mattered was making sure Riven stayed safe.
By the time I returned to the Night Kingdom, the market hummed under the thick night: cloaked figures slipping between stalls, lanterns throwing dim halos over black cloth and sharper faces. My kind moved like smoke; guards bowed as I passed. Darkness was home. It tasted like authority.
Mike, my right hand, met me halfway down a side corridor, eyes narrowed. "I got something," he said without preamble.
"What is it?" I asked as we turned into a darker passage and stopped.
"My prince—just like you feared—there's a leech inside the castle grounds." His voice was low, clipped.
"A leech?" I frowned. "Who?"
"No confirmation yet," he said. "But I'm watching everyone. Zay came in late last night...says he was hunting in the bushes."
"Hunting?" I echoed. "Typical excuse."
"That's all he said." Mike shrugged. "On the Bloodbound side, our man is keeping an eye on Riven. There are more enemies than usual over there."
"I suspected someone followed him in the forest today," I told him. "It was a human."
"Then it's a pawn," Mike nodded. "They're sending pieces to draw lines."
I let that sit like a cold stone in my gut. "Keep watching. Continue your patrols. Report anything unusual."
"As you command." He bowed and melted back into shadow.
I walked on, boots silent on the stone, thinking about threads that had been pulled tonight—knife throws, marks that burned, and a lead that might bleed both worlds dry. Protecting Riven was no longer only about mercy. It was strategy.
***
Riven
The Bloodbound Kingdom welcomed me with a slap of cold air. Some faces sharpened at my approach—fear, suspicion, old prejudices pretending to be civility. I pushed through it, locked my door, and shrugged off my jacket.
The shadows were restless. I thought they'd settled, but when sleep took me they rose loud enough to be voices.
I drifted into a forest that was wrong—still, dead, no birds, no streams. A voice said, Welcome, and I turned.
He stood there again—the man who'd watched me without speaking. He never spoke in the waking world; in sleep he came with a presence like wind before a storm. He looked like me, like a mirror with old wounds. I suspected—uncomfortably—that he was a reflection of my father, or a memory shaped like him.
"Why am I here?" I asked.
"To show you the way," he said.
"I don't need my way shown."
"Yes you do. This connects to the future." He stepped closer, voice low and urgent. "Your enemies coil like snakes. They are closer than you think."
I narrowed my eyes. "Mate with your mate fast," he said bluntly.
"Never," I snapped. "He's a man."
He chuckled, not unkind. "You were paired with him for a reason. You free him; he frees you. You need each other."
"You sound like a sermon," I muttered.
"Listen, son," he said, and something in the voice softened. "We will stand by you. But your eyes will remain closed until you have mated with your mate. Your enemies plan your downfall. Protect what is yours."
He paused, leaning in as if sharing a blade's edge of counsel. "To kill a snake, cut off the head. A man's greatest happiness is his family. A man without one is only a shadow of himself."
The words struck me in a place I'd kept tightly folded. I woke with the taste of dust and the echo of that last line stuck behind my ribs.
What was that? I asked the room, half-expecting an answer. Silence answered back.
Outside my window, the Bloodbound Kingdom breathed cold and distant. Inside, the shadow of what I'd seen lingered. Enemies were closer than I had guessed. Fate had already begun to move its pieces.