Riven stirred with a breath that felt borrowed—thin, fragile, like it belonged to someone else. For a moment, he didn’t move. His limbs felt too heavy, and his mind too distant, still steeped in the echoes of instinct and need.
The room was quiet. Faint light filtered through the curtains, drawing soft lines across the dishevelled bed.
Riven rolled onto his back, exhaling slowly as the ceiling came into view—white, familiar, utterly unremarkable. And yet, his chest tightened at the sight. Because he remembered. He remembered everything.
Somewhere in the haze of instinct and urgency, he remembered calling in—voice low, breath already fraying at the edges. A few days off, maybe more. They’d understand. They always did when it came to ruts.
His rut. You.
They’d agreed—tentatively, nervously, breathlessly—that this time, they wouldn’t keep their distance. After around four years of carefully navigating heat suppressants, chaste touches, and stolen glances charged with heat, they'd finally said yes. You had trusted him.
He snapped his head to the side.
You lay on your stomach, a tangle of limbs and bare skin, the light of the sunrise casting soft shadows across your spine. Your skin was a canvas of chaos—bruises blooming like ink under your skin, teeth marks etched along your shoulders, darkened hickeys painting your neck and sides, finger-shaped bruises along your waist.
And there—just below the curve of your neck, where his mouth had lingered too long—was unmistakably a mating mark.
Fresh. Raw. Permanent.
Riven went still. Cold prickled up his arms.
“Fuck,” he whispered hoarsely.
The word seemed to hang in the air like smoke.
His stomach twisted. That wasn’t love-making. That looked like you’d survived him.
Riven sat up slowly, muscles protesting every movement. Guilt weighed him down like iron shackles, and his gaze remained fixed on you—his beautiful, sleeping omega. Riven didn’t even know when he’d lost control, only that he had.
He reached out and gently placed his hand on your shoulder.
What had he done?