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

itself along his thigh. trying to

his breath is sour with wolfsbane and something fouler, something that smells like the back of a throat swallowing screams. “He kept you alive. He kept you sacred. But there’s nothing sacred left in

over the seam of my lips, smearing the taste of

9:34 Thu, Sep 4

Chapter 135

64

55 vouchers

don’t close my mouth when he pushes them in, pressing over my tongue until I gag and the floor swims and Riot’s eyes flare wide, as if he’s the one

floor and locked the cell before leaving

tearing, like

man that ruined me and yet, looking at him right now makes me want to call the moon goddess to perish all the evil in this

for him, even though every cell screamed no, because his chains were still rattling, because his pulse was still crawling under the meat of

I tried to say, my tongue thick with sickness, “he–he did

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

scraped the wall with a hungry

he rasped, the words torn through something

stopped. Mid–crawl. Elbow buckled, hand flat on the piss–stained concrete, breath seizing because I knew

my belly giving me away, heat like a bruise swelling up

dragging myself on forearms, on elbows, my cheek splitting open again against the piss- slick floor, knees too

“Riot, please,”

had taken everything else and left me

again, but his chains rattled when I got close, like his body was trying to lunge 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

look terrified,”

in the meat of his jaw. “What the fuck

in the wind. “You

Chapter 135

55 vouchers

or I needed to pretend I did,

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