His Trouble Maker

Chapter 145

JESSICA

“Are you fucking insane?”

:

64

55 vouchers

My voice tore up my throat, raw and soaked as I surfaced, coughing lakewater and blood into the dark.

He-

Riot-

He fucking threw us in. He threw us in.

My fingers scraped his chest before I could see him, before I could even breathe right. My legs kicked under me, too heavy, too cold, water slapping up my spine, and still I shoved at him, slapped at his shoulder like that could undo it, like I wasn’t already screaming inside.

“You think this is funny?” I snarled, coughing. “We’re soaked, we’re stinking, we’re fucking reeking like heat- rut prey–every pack from here to the ridge is gonna catch this stink off the air-”

The water was freezing.

The sky was bleeding into light.

Day’s coming and if we don’t move, if he doesn’t let go, if I don’t get this fucking heat off me, they’ll see.

They’ll know.

They’ll find us here in the open, wrecked and wrecking, stinking of heat and rut and shame.

“Fuck-”

I slipped again. My elbow cracked off something sharp, and the lake tried to take me a second time. Riot lunged, grabbed my wrist–too fast, too hard–and dragged me up before I could sink.

“Don’t–fucking touch me-”

He didn’t let go.

He gripped under my arms, hauled me sideways, hands tight in places they shouldn’t be, his breath hot in my ear as he dragged me toward the edge, over stone, over mud, my legs useless, my hips grinding into sharp rock and broken roots. “Riot!”

“Stay still,” he muttered, voice low and hot right in my car. “You’ll thank me in a second.”

He settled me down–too carefully for someone who’d just ruined me–his hands firm on my thighs, his knee between mine as he lowered me back against the flat of a rock slick with moss and lakewater.

“There,” Riot breathed, his hand still on my leg, still too close. “Still cold?”

9:37 Thu, Sep 4

Chapter 145

64

55 vouchers

myself, palms pressing back against the stone, breath shaking. He was watching me too close. Too amused. Too fucking proud of

“What now?” I whispered.

up. Not at me. At the sky. Pale and ugly, cracking open with dawn.

His voice was quiet now. Different. Not the rough, rutting snarl from before. Lower. Bruised. “Watch the light

sharp and hoarse.

and lakeweed with it until his palm

a good one,” he said. “But you’re alive. We’re both

The cold was biting now. “When are

like he wasn’t sure if I was

dragged your sorry ass out of that pit,” I added, my voice breaking on the last word. “Don’t think

a laugh.

the chattering in my teeth. “Like a kicked

like stone against stone in the open dark. It echoed. Stupidly loud, like he wanted the gods to hear it. Like the whole damn forest hadn’t just

at him. Mud clung to

“You’re insane,” I muttered.

still laughing. “You

“You were drowning.”

“You were bleeding.”

stared at

lake stink and smoke across the shore. I shivered harder, biting down against the rattle in

I said, glancing at my

9:37 Thu, Sep 4

Chapter 145

give you one

“Gross.”

time. “Thank you for saving

64

55 vouchers

around the thud of my heart like it thought

the space between my teeth and my ear, the sound all snarled and spit, no human softness, and my hips betrayed me for

a bite that wouldn’t let go, holding me under, and then thing

voice a low, hooked

leak for me. For shoving you down when you tried to

grazing, teeth marking, until the apology turned almost obscene

for wrecking you.” His mouth dragged along my neck–hot, wet, hunting–until his teeth found the place he used to bite when

wanted to be the thing your heat kept calling back, even when I

wanted the bite before I did. “I should rip

lifted slow, black–gold and wolfshot, and I felt it before I saw it–his weight shifting, the room shrinking,

the edge of my jaw, rough, warm, too fucking familiar. “You love him,” he

were a breath apart now.

wants him… and I should

slow like he wanted to

me,” I

eyes dropped to my lips, black–gold, fucked, starving. “I would’ve

chest tipped, heat pulsing low where it shouldn’t. I was marked. Promised. Grayson’s. But my body didn’t care. My wolf didn’t care. She was tipping forward like she wanted Riot’s mouth more than the

9:37 Thu, Sep 4

Chapter 145

“Riot… we shouldn’t.”

“Yeah…

64