Chapter 135

Chapter 135

JESSICA

“Ah!”

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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.”

a sob

one hand to drag itself along

of a throat swallowing screams. “He

my lips, smearing the taste of his skin of

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Chapter 135

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he pushes them in, pressing over my tongue until I gag and the floor swims and Riot’s eyes

Theo shoved me into the floor and locked the cell before

tearing, like holy ruin, and it cracked something behind

him right now makes me want to

every cell screamed no, because his chains were still rattling,

tried to say, my tongue thick with sickness,

dark: heat–bonded, death–bound, two beasts suckling on the same desecrated myth. I should have turned away. I should

wall with a hungry little kiss

something collapsing in

Elbow buckled, hand flat on the piss–stained concrete, breath seizing because I knew what

giving me away, heat like a bruise swelling up behind my navel. “I just

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

“Riot, please,”

else and left me

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

look terrified,” he

fingers curling in the meat of his

said, softer now, a ruin cracking in the wind. “You

Chapter 135

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I thought I did, or I needed to pretend I did, because

my fingers harder into the wreck of his

Riot laughed.

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