The air shifted. Thickened. Heavy silence closed in like a storm breaking overhead.
Rowen’s throat worked. Robin’s shoulders tensed.
And Riven… Riven did not move. His gaze locked on them, calm, unblinking, the first stir of his pheromone curling into the air like heat rising off stone. Controlled. Precise. Dangerous.
He stepped closer. His fists slowly uncurled. His shoulders loosened. And then—he let go.
It wasn’t loud. It wasn’t violent. It was inevitable. Five years of exile, silence, and buried fury, compressed into a single release.
His dominance hit the room like a pressure wave.
The temperature spiked. The air grew metallic, electric, clinging to skin, flooding lungs.
Rowen flinched first, his knees dipping before he forced himself upright again. Robin’s breath hitched, his
