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…?”

here,” he gasps, and that second

to me,” I tell him, and I don’t care that my

close but still it’s so hard to

whimpers. “I can’t–I can’t

okay, we can

wait too long. If I don’t move. If I don’t submit the right

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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 eyes are locked on me and

let the

unlock them,” I say,

I crawl past him.

one hand still sliding up my calf, keeping contact like it’s the only thing anchoring him to this plane. Behind us, the crawlers groan, scenting movement. One snarls

at the

want to go out?”

She bares her teeth.

pants behind me, hand between his own legs now, stroking without looking

“Open them,” Logan growls.

“I am.”

“No. Unlock them.”

know what he

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,

:

crawls out like a good fucking thing, head bowed,

She smells Logan.

He growls.

“Not yet,” I whisper.

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The way’s open, Jess, I saw it, it’s down

do

as we

The feral ones don’t wait–bone cracking, tendon snapping, legs bowing like they’ve remembered how to

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.

I say,

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 want to

he says,

looking back at the hallway like he can already see it. The exit. Where the air changes. Where it stops smelling like meat and starts smelling like

But I don’t move.

Because I remember Riot.

bark this time. His voice

say,

leaving without

Run. You have

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Chapter 141

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