JESSICA
“Are you fucking insane?”
:
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My voice tore up my throat, raw and soaked as I surfaced, coughingkewater 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 pping up my spine, and still I shoved at him, pped 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’sing 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 theke tried to take me a second time. Riot lunged, grabbed my wrist–<i>too </i>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 ces they shouldn’t be, his breath hot in my ear as he dragged me toward the edge<i>, </i>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 t of a rock slick with moss andkewater.
“There,” Riot breathed, his hand still on my leg, still too close. “Still cold?”
9:37 Thu, Sep <b>4 </b>
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I braced myself, palms pressing back against the stone, breath shaking. He was watching me too close. Too amused. Too fucking proud of himself.
“What now?<b>” </b>I whispered.
His gaze flicked up. Not at me. At the sky. Pale and ugly, cracking open with dawn. Still pink around the edges like a wound refusing to heal.
“We wait.” His voice was quiet now. Different. Not the rough, rutting snarl from before. Lower. Bruised. “Watch the light change. Hope no one catches the scent.”
Iughed, sharp and hoarse. “That’s your n?”
Riot leaned in, hand skimming up, dragging mud andkeweed with it until his palm rested against my side, just under the curve of my breast.
“It’s not a good one,” he said. “But you’re alive. We’re both alive. That’s worth something.”
I looked at him, lips trembling, shoulders shaking. The cold was biting now. “When are you going to thank me for saving you?”
His brows lifted, slow, like he wasn’t sure if I was joking or delirious.
“I dragged your sorry ass out of that pit,” I added, my voice breaking on thest word. “Don’t think I forgot how you screamed.”
He huffed <i>a </iugh. “Screamed?”
“Whimpered,” I corrected, grinning through the chattering in my teeth. “Like a kicked pup.”
Riot tipped his head back, the sound he made was full–throated, real–ugly, roughughter that cracked 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 tried to kill us.
I blinked at him. Mud clung to his jaw.
“You’re insane,<i>” </i>I muttered.
“Could say the same for you,” he shot back, stillughing. “You jumped in after me like you were fucking immortal.”
“You were drowning.”
“You were bleeding.”
We stared at each other.
The wind shifted, colder now, draggingke stink and smoke across the shore. I shivered harder, biting down against the rattle in my teeth.
“I’m gonna lose a toe,” I said, ncing at my feet–raw, scratched, purple under the dirt. “Maybe three.”
9:37 Thu<b>, </b>Sep <b>4 </b>
“I’ll give you one of mine.”
“Gross<b>.</b><b>” </b>
Riot smiled again, quieter this time. “Thank you for saving me, Ash.”
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My lips parted, stupid, my chest caving in around the thud of my heart like it thought I could pull more air past him if I opened wider. “Well…”
“I’m sorry,” he ground into the space between my teeth and my ear, the sound all snarled and spit, no human softness, and my hips betrayed me for it, twitching toward his heart.
His stare locked on mine like a bite that wouldn’t let go, holding me under, and then thing that raked over the wet inside of my ear – “I’m sorry for everything.”
voice a low, hooked
“I’m sorry for being the bastard who cut you open just to watch you leak for me. For shoving you down when you tried to stand. For the names I called you because I liked the way they made you smaller.”
His breath rolled over my jaw, wet and heavy, his lips grazing, teeth marking, until the apology turned almost obscene in how close it sat to my pulse.
“I’m not sorry for wrecking you.” His mouth dragged along my neck–hot, wet, hunting–until his teeth found the ce he used to bite when I whimpered.
“I wanted the taste of your fury. I wanted to make your legs tremble just from the memory of me. I wanted to be the thing your heat kept calling back, even when I wasn’t near. I’ve marked you, filled you, ruined you, because I needed you crawling through every fucking step like you still had me inside.”
My neck bent before I could stop it–chin up, throat bare. Stupid. Weak. Pack–trained. My spine wanted the bite before I did. “I should rip your tongue out,” I breathed. “Riot…I love Grayson. I really do.”
His eyes lifted slow, ck–gold and wolfshot, and I felt it before I saw it–his weight shifting, the room shrinking, breath thick with the scent of my betrayal.
“I know baby,” His hand found the edge of my jaw, rough, warm, too fucking familiar. “You love him,” he said again, like tasting the words might make them rot.
Our lips were a breath apart now. My breath hitched. Chest stuttering.
“Your wolf wants him… and I should ept that, right?”
His thumb dragged over my mouth, slow like he wanted to feel it stutter.
“You ruined me,” I whispered.
Riot’s eyes dropped to my lips, ck–gold, fucked, starving. “I would’ve loved you harder than him, Jess.”
My breath caught. I didn’t pull away. I should’ve. My spine bent, 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 mate who bled for her.
9:37 Thu<b>, </b>Sep 4
“Riot… we shouldn’t.”
He gulped. “Yeah… we shouldn’t.”
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I looked up, and gods–he looked feral, yes. But also wrecked. Yearning. Twisted up in every inch of me like it hurt just to breathe.
“Say the word,” he whispered. His hand slid down my arm, slow, dragging heat and promise. “Say the word, and I’ll walk out of here and nevere back.”
He was trembling.
So was I.
There’s no doubt I love Grayson. I do. I’m his. I chose him. But Riot’s scent hit and it was over-
My lungs locked. My knees almost buckled. Every inch of me leaned in even as my jaw locked around the word no, even when shame clung to my ribs like something dying.
I could smell him. Feel him. Hear that ragged breath like he’d been holding it all day just to survive this
moment.
“You don’t know what you’re doing to me,” I whispered, and the words came cracked, not warning, not plea- just wreckage.
“I do.”
Riot’s voice was all ruin. Hoarse. Frayed. That savage hold–your–breath restraint where the shift is crawling under the skin, where the only thing keeping him human is the way I’m trembling.
“You think you’re the only one dying here?”
He stepped back. Just a little.
But not enough.
Not enough to stop the heat from wing back up my spine.
Not enough to stop my body from reaching – without permission, without shame, like it forgot who I belonged to.
He flinched. Or maybe I did.
I could smell him
didn’t heal.
–
fuck, I could taste him, still, dayster, weeks, pressed behind my teeth like a bruise that
“Don’t look at me like that,” I whispered.
He did.
“Don’t-”
9:37 Thu, Sep 4
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His fingers twitched at his side. Like he’d moved before he meant to. Like his body had already made the decision.
“Say the word,” he growled. “Say it now. Because I swear—”
His jaw cracked. He was shifting under the skin and I felt it – bones creaking, heat building.
“If you don’t, I’m going to fuck this up so bad they’re going to feel it in hell.”
<b>9:37 </b>Thu, Sep 4