Chapter 141

JESSICA

I need them to submit to me.

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The metal bars hold the worst of them–no, the best–the farthest gone, the already half–born again, their skulls too wide, teeth all wrong, milk–sour drool and wrists rubbed raw from how long they’ve tried to fuck the air. One’s moaning. Another’s biting the floor.

But some are loose. Some are crawling.

I feel it before I see it: Logan.

He’s just sitting, knees up, elbows slung over them, blood drying on his temple. When his gaze hits mine, I stop crawling.

“Logan,” I whisper.

My knees burn. My wrists are shaking.

Logan’s eyes never leave mine.

I’m breathing through my mouth. Can’t close it. There’s heat in the pit of my back like something’s been summoned and it’s crawling toward the womb.

“Logan,” I whisper again, this time not soft.

He twitches.

Yes. Yes. That’s it.

I feel one of them sniff the back of my ankle. Another hisses, fists balled like a pup denied milk. But Logan- Logan is watching.

“Get up,” I say.

“You’re not real,” he whispers, but his body doesn’t back away. His shoulder leans like it’s nosing a den.

I lurch upright on my knees and he fucking groans. “I’m real, Logan. This is me. We have to-”

“No!”

“No!”

He’s panting now. Fingers clawing at the cement. Shit.

“I’m real, Logan. I’m the only thing real down here. Look at me.”

He can’t stop. His mouth’s open. Drool–or spit–or something worse–slack at the hinge, shoulders buckling

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Chapter 141

like they want to break into paws.

His jaw snaps once, twice, like he’s testing it for fangs.

“Jess…?”

not supposed to be here,” he gasps, and that second I realized

tell him, and I don’t care that

low. Almost canine. He’s close but still it’s

whimpers. “I can’t–I

can figure

too long. If I don’t

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hot on the skin above my knee, one hand twitching against the floor like it wants to dig, claw, nest, breed. He’s half–changed, half–ruined–ripe. His hips keep twitching forward like they want to mount something, anything, but his

let the

I say, looking

I crawl past him.

dragging low like a beta on leash, one hand still sliding up my calf, keeping contact like it’s the only thing anchoring

at

you want to

She bares her teeth.

pants behind me, hand between his own legs

“Open them,” Logan growls.

“I am.”

“No. Unlock them.”

I know what he

girl–cage. The latch is simple. Rusted. Wants a handprint and a promise. I press my bloodied hand against

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Chapter 141

Click.

The girl doesn’t bolt.

She kneels,

:

fucking thing,

She smells Logan.

He growls.

“Not yet,” I whisper.

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Logan says, voice half–gone. “They’ll smell it. Outside. The way’s open, Jess, I saw it,

many do we

many as

drops, they start to shift. The feral ones don’t

unlock three more cages and already the air’s full of fur, of musk, of screams that end in howls. Their bodies swell past the limits of skin and scream and scar. One boy’s jaw splits sideways before it reforms, teeth triple- rowed. Another girl

I say,

they think I’m the door itself. Logan kicks the bars open before I do. He’s not shifting. Not yet. Not with me here. His chest is heaving, veins high in his throat, his hands still clawless but itching like his skin doesn’t

says, “we gotta

he can already see it. The exit. Where the air changes. Where it stops smelling

But I don’t move.

Because I remember Riot.

this time. His voice is

I say,

not leaving

Run. You have to

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Chapter 141

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