His Trouble Maker

Chapter 135

JESSICA

“Ah!”

64

55 vouchers

I hit the concrete hard, knees first, cheek after–his fingers still clutching the root of my hair like he’s not ready to let go, like the floor isn’t enough, like I belong beneath it. I can still smell the cages on me–hot metal, heat–rutted fur, shit and bile and birth, and something underneath all that, something that smells like

me.

I don’t scream. I don’t whimper. I just dry–heave against the floor until something pink threads out of my throat and the taste of silver makes my gums throb. Theo finally lets go, fingers slow, like he’s peeling a prize off the meat.

“Be good,” he hums against the shell of my ear, voice low like prayer, like fucking. “You’re not alone anymore, Jess.”

My breath stalls. My stomach folds in on itself. I twist, gagging, bracing on one elbow, and my eyes drag toward the far corner-

He’s here.

Riot.

Slumped. Chained. His face is swollen on one side, slack on the other. One arm’s bent wrong, the other limp in his lap. His eyes-

God, his eyes are open. He’s watching me.

Riot coughs, low, wet, like something inside him’s dying slower than it should. I crawl to the farthest corner, away from the stench of his ruined breath, the sound of my own heartbeat fucking me raw.

“W–What..happened to him?” Trembling, I ask, not showing him any fear.

Theo squats low, gloved fingers curling under my jaw, lifting my face until I can’t pretend I’m not staring at Riot’s ruined chest rising in thin, rattling swells, every breath a confession of failure.

“He wouldn’t kneel,” Theo murmurs, thumb pressing hard into the hinge of my jaw until it pops. “He thought he could keep you clean. Like you were ever anything but a feral little slit begging to be filled.”

throat spasms around a sob

chains to creak, for one hand to drag itself along his thigh. trying to

that smells like the back of a throat swallowing screams. “He kept you alive. He kept you sacred. But there’s nothing sacred left

over the seam of my lips, smearing the

9:34 Thu, Sep 4

Chapter 135

64

55 vouchers

close my mouth when he pushes them in, pressing over my tongue until I gag and

he was satisfied, Theo shoved me into the floor

a sound like meat tearing, like holy ruin, and it cracked something behind my

man that ruined me and yet, looking at him right now makes me want to call the moon goddess

screamed no, because his chains were still rattling, because his pulse was

say, my tongue thick with

Pityless, soaked in rot, slick with all the things we’d become to each other in the dark: heat–bonded, death–bound, two beasts suckling on the same

twitch, a jolt. His chain scraped the wall with a hungry little kiss and my whole spine convulsed like I was

through something collapsing in his chest. “Jess–no. Don’t–don’t let

piss–stained concrete, breath seizing because

me, a pulse low in my belly giving me away, heat like

myself on forearms, on elbows, my cheek splitting open again against the

“Riot, please,”

had taken everything else and left me full of

even if his voice was trying to save me and when my fingers touched his ankle, bare, filthy, hot with fever, I felt something howl behind my teeth–not a scream, not a sob, but heat, raw and holy, like Riot’s dying body was a god and I was

terrified,” he

meat of his

he said, softer now, a ruin cracking in the wind. “You don’t know

Chapter 135

55 vouchers

to pretend I did, because the only thing worse than knowing was not

into the wreck of his jaw.” I need to know