JESSICA
“Mmm…mmm…mmm<b>…</b>”
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“Hmm…hmm…hmmmm…”
My arms ached first. A pulling tension in my shoulders, wrong angles and strain, wrists held above me. Shackled. The metal bit every time I moved, grinding into open skin. I tried to shift, to nt my feet, but they barely touched the ground. Just enough for bnce, not enough for control.
My knees gave. The chains caught me before the fall.
Pain bloomed across my corbones, tendons pulled too tight. I sucked in air–sharp, damp, sour–and choked on it.
“There she is,” came the voice.
“Get the fuck away from me.” My voice cracked halfway through it–dry, hoarse.
He didn’t respond. Just kept humming. Closer now.
“I swear to god, Riot, I will rip your heart out with my teeth-”
“You should hear yourself,” he interrupted softly, like I was some wild thing he was coaxing closer. “Still so much fight. Even like this.”
A fingertip–just one–slid along the inside of my arm. From elbow to armpit. I jerked. The chains rattled. The cuff bit deeper.
“Don’t touch me.”
He sighed. “But you’re so pretty when you squirm.”
His breath hit my jaw next. Warm and steady. I could almost see the way he tilted his head, watching the way I trembled.
“What do you want?” I spat. “To watch me rot? Or just jack off to the sound of me crying?”
He didn’t flinch. He didn’t stop.
If anything, he stepped closer.
“I want to keep you.”
“You’re insane.”
Probably
He sounded amused. Goddess! I’m so terrified. I wanted to cry and beg him but I knew the bastard had been keeping his mask for so long. I should’ve known he had a bigger agenda when he asked me to be assigned under him.
“You know what the problem is with you, Jessica?” he murmured. “You keep pretending you’re not exactly where you belong.”
Tjerked back as far as the chains would let me, wrists screaming. He followed.
His chest pressed against mine–not hard, not fast. Just there Impossibly steady. Unmovable.
“I belong away from you,” I hissed.
“But you look so beautiful in chains,” Riot said, like it was fact. Like he’d always known. “I think you were made for this.”
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His hand dropped–dragging down my throat, across my sternum, calloused and dry and intentional. Not grabbing. Not groping. Just knowing. His knuckles brushed between my breasts. I flinched.
He smiled.
“Stop–stop it-”
“Why?” he whispered. “Because you’re scared?” His lips grazed my cheek, voice a velvet noose tightening. “Or because this feels better than being ignored by your precious Alpha?”
I went still.
His chuckle was soft and mean. Like he felt the moment he got under my skin. “There it is,” he said, voice molten. “That little twitch. That little drop in your breath. The moment you think of him.”
Grayson.
God. Don’t say his name.
1 bit my lip until I tasted blood.
“Don’t worry,” Riot continued. “I’ll carve him out of you. Eventually.” He nosed along the edge of my throat, inhaling like a dog scenting something sweet. “You’ll scream my name instead.”
“Fuck you,” I breathed.
“You will<b>,</b>” he said, simply. Like it was already a memory. “Your alpha’s corpse is barely cold. His father’s blessing is warm. Five days, little wolf. Five days and you’ll belong to me. And when I wear the crown…” he paused, breathing in against my jaw, “you’ll wear my mark. My cor. My knot.”
I spat on him.
Itnded. Right cheek.
“Filthy little thing,” he purred. “You’re already inside me.”
I tried to turn my face, but his fingers hooked under my chin, dragging me back.
“I want you to remember this, pretty girl,” he whispered. “This is thest time your body disobeys mine.”
I thrashed. The chains nged hard. My wrists screamed, blood slick around the cuffs. I barely had footing. My toes scraped against the stone, trying to find purchase, power, dignity–anything.
He watched it all. Patient. Fascinated.
could fuck you right now,<i>” </i>he said. “String you up and split you open on my cock until your legs forget how to close.”
I shuddered. Bile crept up my throat. I wanted to die.
“But i won’t. Not yet<i>.</i><i>” </i>
He moved behind me. I heard leather. Buckles. The sound of metal dragged against stone. His hand ghosted down my back, over my abs, not quite touching just tracing
“But I will <i>make </i>you ask for it?
“I’ll bite your fucking tongue off before I ever
“Oh no,” he cut <b>in</b><b>, </b>amused. “You’ll use your tongue On your knees, pretty Eventually. But not yet. No…” He sighed, mack regretful. “First, I need to peel you first”
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He came back to the front. And this time he held something.
A knife?
No.
A mirror.
Small. Cracked. Framed in tarnished silver. He held it up to my face.
“Look.”
I didn’t.
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“Look.”
He grabbed a fistful of my hair and yanked.
I saw myself.
Sweat–slick. Blood on my mouth. Dried tears. Pupils blown wide. A corbone turned purple–blue<i>. </i>My lips swollen, cracked. The beginnings of what I knew would be a bruise around my throat.
“Do you see her?” he asked softly. “The one who thought she was a fighter?”
I didn’t answer.
He tapped the mirror.
“This is thest version of you who thought you had choices. Say goodbye to her.”
“I’ll kill you,” I whispered. “I’ll wait years if I have to. I’ll tear you apart piece by—”
He leaned close. Pressed the mirror to my chest, just over my heart. His other hand palmed my throat. Not choking. Just iming.
“I hope you try,<i>” </i>he whispered. “That’ll make it sweeter when youe apart begging for the hands you swore you’d cut off.”
I will try.
I will keep trying.
Until I know what really happened to Grayson.
Until I drag the truth out from their mouths-
with teeth if I have to.
I swear to the goddess,
I will ruin everyone who ruined us.
One by one.
“Still can’t understand why both of you are so obsessed with her.”
That bitch!
I growled, the sound raw and feral in my throat as Aria stepped into the cell No
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No–no, that wasn’t confusion on her face. That wasn’t concern. That wasn’t shock.
She already knew.
My pulse spiked so fast I felt sick. The mirror in Riot’s hand caught the light and fractured it across the stone walls like a warning.
“You…” I whispered, more to myself than to them. My knees buckled slightly. “How long?”
Aria just smirked. Tilted her head like I was a dog yapping at her heels.
“You really thought you were special, didn’t you?” she said. “Poor little stray. So full of bark. So easy to break.”
I couldn’t breathe.
How long?
How long had she been part of this?
They’d been in this together. All along.
She crouched beside me now, eyes gleaming. “What does it feel like, Jess?” she murmured, almost gently.
Then she yanked the chain.
White–hot pain ripped through my shoulder, tore a scream straight from my throat. My head dropped forward, teeth bared, breath heaving.
Ariaughed.
“Grayson is gone. And now your fate?” She leaned in, voice sugar–slick and poisonous. “Sealed with Riot.”
I didn’t know what snapped first–my pride, my sanity, or thest thread of hope I’d been clinging to.
“WHAT IS IT WITH YOU?!” I screamed.
It echoed off the stone, cracked and raw.
“Do you want to wear his ring or his blood?” I spat, chest heaving. <b>“</b>Is that it? You want to be the queen of whatever the hell this is, as long as he keeps looking at you?”
Aria’s smile didn’t falter.
She just stood up slowly. Smoothed the folds of her silk blouse like I hadn’t just tried to rip her apart with words.
“No, sweetheart,” she said, eyes glinting. “I want you to live just long enough to understand that
“H–He’s alive…”
Aria tilted her head at my broken whisper, mock pity dripping from every line of her perfect face.
“Oh. You didn’t know?” she said softly. “Oops<b>.</b><b>” </b>
My stomach dropped My heart stopped.
Alive
Grayson was alive.
I surged forward, the chain snapping <b>taut </b>around my throat, dragging me back down with a cruel tter. The cor choked off the scream in my lungs. I wed at the floor, shaking
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He’s alive.
And they’d let me believe he wasn’t.
“You lied,” I rasped. “You-”
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Aria crouched again, not a single hair out of ce. She dragged a sharp, manicured nail down my cheek. “But you know what, Jess? I’m working on him.”
I lunged. The chain snapped again, slicing against my skin. Useless. Brutal. “You bitch!”
“I got him tied up like this somewhere too. Just a bit of convincing and he’ll eventually mark me.”
“You think you were the only one he whispered promises to?” she said, tilting her head. “The only one he looked at like that?” She clicked her tongue, mock sympathy rippling through her voice. “You poor, stupid girl. He was always going to be mine.”
I shook my head, barely able to speak through the rage choking me. “You’re lying.”
Her eyes glittered. “Am I?”
She pulled something from her coat pocket–a thin silver ring, dented, scratched. Familiar.
Grayson’s.
“He dropped this when he stopped fighting.” Aria held it just out of my reach, like a trophy. “You should’ve seen the look on his face when I told him
where you were. What Riot’s done to you.”
I stared at the ring. My breath turned ragged.
“He begged, Jess.” She crouched again, her voice now a vicious whisper. “Begged me to stop it. To trade ces. Cried like a dog.”
“You’re lying-”
She grabbed my jaw, forcing my gaze up. Her nails dug into my skin.
“He broke for you,” she hissed. “And soon, I’ll break what’s left of him for me.”
And then she smiled.
“You should thank me, really. I’m the only one making sure you two end the same way–on your knees.”