Sylri didn't hesitate.
Her mouth crashed into mine, but I didn't let her lead. I seized her jaw with one hand and deepened the kiss until she whimpered against my lips. There was nothing tender about it. This wasn't affection. This was force. I bit her bottom lip, just hard enough to make her breath catch, then pulled her head back so I could see her face.
"You're not in control here," I said, my voice low and rough.
Her eyes narrowed, but she didn't argue. She only shifted her hips and ground herself against me, slick and ready, like she wanted to prove otherwise.
I grabbed her by the waist and dragged her against my cock. Her heat smeared over me, wet and pulsing. There was no buildup. No teasing. Her body begged for it, and I gave it what it needed.
My grip on her hips tightened until I knew it would bruise. She reached between us and wrapped her fingers around me. Her stroke was slow, defiant. I watched her mouth part as she felt the size of what she was about to take.
"Do it," I ordered. "Ride me. Show me what your arrogance is worth."
She rose slightly, breathing hard, then slammed herself down onto my cock in one motion.
We both hissed.
She was tight and deep and scorching, her walls clenching like she didn't want to let go. But I didn't wait for her to adjust. I thrust up into her hard, punishing, and her head snapped back with a cry.
"You want power?" I growled. "Then earn it."
She gritted her teeth and started to move. Not with grace. She ground down on me, rough and wild, her rhythm jagged as I forced her to take every inch. Her hands dug into my shoulders. Her nails scratched. She tried to set the pace, but I didn't let her.
I grabbed a fistful of her hair and pulled her back, forcing her spine to arch, baring her throat. I bit the skin there, sharp enough to mark her, and she gasped again.
"Keep going," I said. "Don't stop until you break."
Her hips rolled faster. I bucked harder.
Our skin slapped. Sweat dripped. The Core surged inside me, alive and clawing its way through my blood. Her glyph blazed across her back. Mine burned against my chest. Each thrust sent fire up my spine.
She started to lose rhythm. Her moans got louder. Desperate.
"Is that it?" I asked. "Is that all the Blade has to give?"
She clenched around me, her body tightening like a bowstring pulled too far.
And then she shattered.
Her scream tore from her throat. Her body convulsed, writhing on top of me. Her hands clawed at my chest. Her legs trembled. Her cunt squeezed me so tight I almost saw white.
The Core whispered inside my skull.
Lustbound Core: Bond Surge Reached
Thread Two Strength: Amplified
Combat Trait Unlocked: Reflex Bind
Vital Feedback Imprinted
I didn't last after that.
Her climax tore through me like lightning through soaked earth. I gripped her hips and thrust up into her, deep and brutal. My release hit in hard pulses, spilling into her with a groan that didn't sound human. It was too raw, too stripped. Like something inside me had torn open and poured itself into her.
The Core fed on it all. On my surrender. On her submission. On the violence of our pleasure.
I stayed buried in her, panting, body shaking from the intensity. I could feel her pulse throbbing against mine where we were still joined. Her back was damp beneath my palms. Her breath ragged. Her skin burned where our glyphs touched.
And yet, I didn't let go.
I held her there, inside the aftermath, because I liked the way it felt. The weight of her. The heat. The proof of what I had taken. What she had given. What the Core had claimed through both of us.
We collapsed eventually. Twisted in the grass, our bodies slick with sweat and sex. Her head rested on my shoulder. Her hand drifted to my chest, fingers brushing the glowing mark as if it called to her still.
The Core's hum was steady now. Not loud, but insistent. Like a second heartbeat, stronger than the first.
And then I felt something. Not from Sylri. Not from within.
From the tether behind us.
Something cracked.
Riven.
She hadn't spoken. She hadn't moved. But the thread that linked us had weakened. The pulse I'd felt every moment since the cave now stuttered. Faltered. Strained. Her presence inside me didn't vanish. But it dimmed.
Like a hand slowly slipping from mine.
And I didn't reach to stop it.
Sylri didn't stop. She pressed a kiss to my jaw, slow and deliberate, then whispered against my skin.
"That ache you feel? She'll live. You needed this."
And I believed her.
Even as the Core responded.
Tether One: Emotional Strain Registered
Sync Stability: Declining
Warning: Dual Thread Feedback Detected
Sylri rose first.
She stood with quiet precision, her body bare and unbothered, reaching for her leathers. Without a word, she wiped my release from her thigh with the back of her hand, as casually as someone brushing off dirt with no shame.
Her spine stayed straight. Her movements were clean and practiced. She dressed as though she had done this before and would do it again. No tenderness. No backward glance.
She looked toward the trees, not at me. As if the forest and its shadows mattered more than the bond we had just forged.
And maybe, for her, they did.
I stayed on the ground for a moment longer.
Not because I needed to recover. My body didn't ache. It burned. The Core throbbed beneath my skin, pulsing with heat and control. Every muscle felt coiled, every nerve alive. This wasn't exhaustion. This was rebirth. I was stronger now. Sharper. Faster. Whatever Sylri had done to me, it had worked.
I dragged a hand through my hair, sweat cooling against my skin, and let a slow grin pull across my face.
She hadn't taken anything from me. She had given me something I didn't even know I was missing.
I didn't feel empty. I felt ready.
When I sat up, the Core surged with me, its energy coiling through my chest and down my arms like liquid flame. I flexed my hand once. Fire curled around my knuckles in tight ribbons, perfectly controlled, eager but obedient.
I rose to my feet and reached for my shirt, but I didn't rush. I didn't need to. There was nothing fragile left in me.
Sylri stood nearby, adjusting the straps of her armor like she hadn't just ridden me until the world broke apart. Her expression was composed, cool as ever.
I looked her over and let my smile deepen.
"That all you've got?" I asked, cocking my head just slightly. The smirk in my voice was impossible to miss.
She didn't laugh. She didn't soften. But the corner of her mouth twitched.
"There's more. If you can keep up."
I chuckled low in my throat. "Trust me. I'm just getting started."
I felt like a god.
And I wanted more.
Then I turned and saw Riven. She hadn't moved.
She stood exactly where she had been, wrapped in her cloak like armor, her hair tangled from wind and sweat. Her eyes met mine across the clearing. There was no fire in them. Just stillness.
The kind of stillness that doesn't shout. It waits. Waits for you to recognize what you've done.
And maybe I did. Somewhere beneath the Core's thrum, beneath the adrenaline and the aftermath of Sylri's bond, I felt the echo of it.
But I didn't look away.
I was too high. Too sharp with power. Too wrapped in what I had become to feel guilty for it.
"You felt it," I said, stepping toward her. "The Core is stronger now. I'm stronger."
She didn't flinch. Her eyes didn't soften. But something in her expression cracked, like a mask starting to slip.
"And is that all that matters to you now?"
Her voice wasn't loud. It didn't rise with anger. It sliced low. Clean. Sharper than Sylri's blade ever had.
I frowned, the tension in me coiling. "What's that supposed to mean?"
"You know what it means."
I ran a hand through my hair. The frustration flared again, just under the surface.
"You told me to understand the Core. To control it. This is what that looks like."
"This," she said, and the word landed like a stone, "isn't power. It's hunger."
"It's both," I said. "And I won't apologize for wanting more of it."
Her jaw tightened. I saw it in the set of her shoulders, the way her fingers curled under her cloak.
The mark on her back glowed faintly. Not bright like it once had. Dim now. Flickering. Like a flame starving for air.
The tether between us pulsed weakly. Not dead. But strained.
"You didn't even hesitate," she said quietly.
And I could have stepped forward. I could have softened the blow, reached for her hand, reminded her what we had shared in the cave and beneath the trees.
But I didn't.
"I didn't have to."
That was the truth.
The Core had spoken. And I had answered. Not blindly. Not out of lust. But because I saw the path forward. Clear. Powerful. Unstoppable.
She nodded once.
Just once.
Her face didn't shift. But something behind her eyes gave way. A quiet collapse.
Then she turned.
Only a single step.
But it felt like a severing.
Sylri didn't speak. She simply crossed her arms and watched the space between us stretch. And I stood there in the middle of it, glowing with the Core's power, stronger than I had ever been, and more alone than I expected to feel.
Riven didn't walk far. She stopped at the edge of the clearing, her back still turned to me. Her shoulders stayed straight. Her posture didn't sag. But the tether between us pulled again. Not with violence. With retreat. I felt it curl inward, softening its reach, like she was trying to contain it before it brushed against anything raw.
My chest ached. Not from regret. Not entirely. It ached from the bond. From the Core's rhythm shifting ever so slightly between us. From the knowledge that I could still feel her, but she was trying not to feel me.
I stepped toward her. One pace.
She didn't turn.
"You don't understand what it feels like," she said. Her voice barely rose above the hush of the trees. "Being inside your skin while you give yourself to someone else."
I stopped. Her words didn't wound. They ignited.
"I didn't choose this bond lightly," I said. "And I didn't choose you lightly either."
"Then why does it feel like I was a beginning," she asked, "and not a part of the rest?"
The quiet returned. It wound through the clearing and caught between our bodies like smoke.
Behind me, Sylri shifted her weight. She didn't offer comment. Her presence was unmoved. Not impatient. Not cruel. Just finished. Her attention was already turning to the trees. Her body had given the bond. Her mind had moved on.
I stared at Riven's back, searching for something true to say.
But the right words didn't come.
So I said nothing.
And the silence between us became the only answer.
When she finally turned, her face had changed. Not hardened beyond recognition. But closed in a way it hadn't been before. A quiet distance had settled into her eyes.
"Whatever comes next," she said, "don't lie to me. If the Core leads you to someone else, don't keep me close while you pull away."
"I'm not pulling away."
"Then stop standing still."
She walked past me, her shoulder brushing mine without pause.
And I let her go.