His Trouble Maker

Chapter 139

JESSICA

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“I’m fucking sure…we’re in some dungeon,” Riot spits, or maybe swallows–it’s hard to tell with how wet his throat sounds, how it catches around every word like he’s choking on the ghost of his own packmates, on blood he hasn’t tasted yet but is already dreaming of.

I crawl closer, jaw aching from grinding boiled tendon between my teeth, the last scrap of cooked meat I’d hoarded from the tray Theo’s thing shoved under the bars.

I don’t bother chewing anymore, I just press the half–soft lump between his lips with two fingers and say, “Eat,” like a command but quieter, guiltier, because I know I’m feeding him to keep him alive.

His lips tear the meat, but they graze my knuckles first, and it’s not reverent—it’s desperate, wolf–starved.

We’ve been kept locked in here for many days now.

“Don’t you fucking waste that,” I mutter, and his eyes slit open, as if he’s still not over himself from being the one in command.

“You got a plan, omega?” he croaks, sarcastic, the O like a leash tightening around my throat.

“Yeah.” I lie.

“Liar.”

“Still better than dying in a cell like an unfucked bitch.”

“Who says I haven’t been?” he grins, blood between his teeth.

I grin back. It feels wrong talking to him with these things when weeks later I would’ve slashed his throat with my own claws.

We sit like that for a second–me kneeling, him crumpled, the meat gone, the air thick with mold and skin, and even the torches flicker like they’re too tired to burn properly. His chains drag when he shifts. I catch the sound and store it, memorize it.

“He watches us,” I say, Riot doesn’t respond. Just chews the meat again in his cheek, long since cold. “He wants me obedient. Wants me small.”

“You are.”

“I could be smaller.”

“That’s not funny.”

“I’m not laughing.”

bars. The tray’s still there. Scraps of gristle. I look at my reflection

9:35 Thu, Sep 4

Chapter 139

back. Hollow eyes. Pupil

give him what he wants,” I whisper, so

brow twitching

him a show. Omega and

a cough, a laugh,

“He’ll never buy that.”

“He already has.”

meat–grease and my

and stares at me. “What are you

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where the stone reeks of old piss and blood and the place his

chest. The skin there is hot. Boiling. Wrong. He hisses but

“What?” he croaks.

sweat and blood and the sick–sweet shine of healing too slow to matter.

want to break him,

gut. I slide my knee between his legs and lean in,

me fall in love with your rot?” I grind against him—once, hard, slow–my breath stuttering with real need. “You want him to

“Jessica-”

I kiss him like it’s a vow. Like it’s betrayal. Like I’m spitting in Theo’s open

game,” I whisper against Riot’s jaw, before I feel the cell cracking open and then hands, fists, steel–wrapped grip around my hair, my throat, my spine. I’m yanked backward so violently I think my

his chain screaming against stone as I’m ripped from his lap like

filthy little tongue off

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Chapter 139

Theo.

Got you.