Meanwhile…
Malvor had Yara pinned playfully against a sapphire-studded column, one arm braced above her head, the other curved lazily around her waist. Her body was warm and pressed against his with the ease of long-forgotten promises, her lips tasting of ocean slick cocktails and something faintly tropical and wicked.
This was not new.
It was muscle memory.
He had kissed her in a hundred rooms. Pinned her against trees that sang and balconies that vanished. They had laughed their way through gods-only feasts and tangled under enchanted waterfalls. Their chemistry had never been in question—predictable, reliable, wild within its own well-worn parameters.
Yara was the ocean: beautiful, boundless, and wild.
But Malvor? Malvor had learned her tides too well to ever drown in them.
"You have gotten better at this," she murmured, breath hot against his throat as her fingers slid down the buttons of his shirt, one by one. Her nails skimmed his chest beneath the fabric, teasing with the promise of pressure. "What is her name again? The mortal who made you interesting?"
He smirked lazily, pressing his hips slightly closer as his lips skimmed her jaw. "My lips do not give secrets, Tide Temptress."
She laughed, rich and musical, like waves crashing over marble, shattering and reforming again. "Mm, but your mouth does," she said, tilting her head to kiss him again.
And he let her.
Why not?
This was safe. Predictable. It did not matter that it was a performance; they both knew the script.
Her teeth caught his bottom lip just enough to make him hum, and her hands slipped under his shirt, pushing it off his shoulders as if claiming a victory. He shrugged it halfway off, letting the thin fabric hang at his elbows as her hands skimmed his bare chest, nails dragging down his ribs in a familiar rhythm.
She was lithe and hot and dangerous in all the ways he used to crave.
They kissed again.
Harder this time. Familiar. Addictive.
But even as his hands roamed, even as her tongue slid teasingly against his, Malvor was aware, deep down, that he was not really here. Not all the way. He was laughing on instinct. Touching by routine. This was not passion. This was echo. An echo of something that used to thrill him, now dulled by comparison.
Because now, he knew what it felt like to crave someone who looked at him like he was impossible.
To want someone who did not need to play.
Still, he was just drunk enough to let it happen. Just tipsy enough to let Yara arch against him with theatrical grace. Just far enough from her, the woman who had undone every rhythm in his life, to fall back into old, worn ones.
Yara moaned against his throat, her fingers tangling in his hair, and for a moment, he closed his eyes and let it wash over him. The heat. The weight. The ease.
He did not notice the tension in the air shift. Not right away.
Did not hear the whispered ripple of magic at the far edge of the club, subtle, distant, but laced with intent.
Did not feel the bond between himself and Annie flicker, just for a second. Muted. Strained. Dimmed like a lantern underwater.
Yara kissed down his chest, lips grazing the hollow of his collarbone, and he let her, until something in the air tugged.
A pulse.
A jolt in his chest like a string being pulled too tight.
Malvor blinked, brows furrowing slightly.
Yara did not notice. She had his shirt fully undone now, sliding it down his arms as her mouth wandered lower, her laughter breathy and bright against his skin.
But Malvor had stopped moving.
Something was off.
Not loud. Not obvious.
Just… wrong.
He turned his head, the world around him suddenly sharper. Louder. The music too bright. The shadows too long.
And then he felt it again.
A thread pulling from somewhere far off, desperate, flickering. A wave of emotion that slammed into him all at once: fear, confusion, need.
Annie.
His breath caught.
Yara's hands slid across his stomach, but he stepped back suddenly, his palm catching the column behind her for balance. "Wait," he said, voice lower, urgent.
Yara blinked up at him, stunned. "What?"
But he was no longer looking at her.
His shirt slipped from his arms to the floor.
His smile was gone.
It was not dramatic. Not with thunder or light. It was quiet.
But it hit him like a freight train.
The bond.
Gone.
Where there had always been something, always, a quiet hum of emotion, that ever-present thread of feeling, thought, presence, there was now nothing.
It was like stepping into a room and realizing your own heartbeat had stopped.
Yara blinked up at him, confused. "Mal?"
But he was not listening. His mind reached out desperately, instinctively.
Annie?
Nothing.
No warmth.
No mischief.
No sarcasm. No flutter of teasing or soft undercurrent of affection.
Just silence.
Cold. Empty. Frightening silence.
He staggered back like he had been hit, ripping himself away from Yara, who made a surprised sound as she caught herself against the pillar.
"What the actual hell?" she demanded.
He did not answer. Could not.
Panic clamped down like a vice. Not just fear, terror.
He shoved his fingers through his hair, turning in a slow, frantic circle.
"Annie…" he breathed aloud this time. His voice cracked.
He tried to portal to her.
It failed.
A wall. A block. Something old and divine and vicious.
His eyes flared with divine light.
Yara stepped forward, her expression darkening. "Malvor, what is going on?"
He did not hear her. His mind was already spiraling.
She's gone. She's blocked. Something is very wrong.
He did not think it.
He knew with every fiber of his being.
And suddenly, the room around him, the music, the lights, the dancing gods and glowing sea, the whole illusion of fun and flirtation, it all shattered.
And Malvor, the God of Chaos, had never felt so disoriented… or afraid.
Not for himself.
For her.
For Annie.
And gods help whoever was responsible.
Because Malvor would burn the world to ash to get her back.