Chapter 180
JESSICA
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“If I don’t mark you, someone else will.” His voice is raw, ground down to its bones. “If you don’t choose me they’ll tear you apart.”
Kade mutters something sharp under his breath, but it barely registers. My eyes don’t leave the tree line, the place Grayson vanished into–and now returned from–his shirt torn, blood soaking through, his shoulders braced like he’s still fighting ghosts out there.
Riot.
He was here.
“Are you okay?” I step toward him, fast, hand catching his jaw before I can stop myself, tilting his face into the light. “Thank the goddess,” I breathe, chest shuddering, though I don’t know if I’m saying it for him or for me.
“I can handle him.”
My relief curdles into
anger.
“You’re bleeding.” My voice shakes, sharp edges cutting. “Handling him looks like this? You disappear into the woods, come back soaked in blood, and I’m supposed to just–just what? Pretend this is fine?”
His eyes cut to mine, dark, heavy. “Jessica.”
I bare my teeth in a smile that doesn’t reach my eyes. “Don’t Jessica me. You vanish into the woods with your psychotic brother and come back promising to put your mark on me like I’m some prize you’re trying to guard.” I step closer, shoulders squared, refusing to back down. “You don’t get to scare the hell out of me and then act like I should just bow my head and say thank you.”
“Shut up,” he said before shutting me out with his lips.
When he rips away, I’m left gasping, my lips swollen, my pulse out of control. My head says punch him. My body says more.
“Don’t-“I choke, trying to steady myself. “Don’t you dare use me like that.”
His eyes are black around the edges, wolf straining. He doesn’t answer me. He looks over my shoulder, straight at Kade, and gives him a single nod.
I whip my head around. Kade’s leaning against a tree, arms folded, smirk sharp enough to draw blood.
“You two are always this entertaining?” His gaze crawls over me. “Or is this just for my benefit?”
“Go to hell,” I snap, even though my throat feels tight.
Grayson steps half in front of me, giving me another kiss. “I’ll see you later.”
Chapter 180
10 voucher). Later? That’s it? He kisses me, silences me, throws me behind him like some fragile thing, and then later?
By the time I find my voice, him and Kade are already gone.
“Fuck you, Grayson!” I shout into the trees before I storm back toward the house. I don’t even care if he’s bleeding out somewhere–I’m just happy he’s damn breathing. But him always doing this to me? Leaving me in the dark, kissing me quiet, tossing me scraps of half–truths—it’s getting fucking tiring.
I drag a shaky hand through my hair, pacing the small space. My wolf claws at me, restless, snarling, demanding I tear out there and hunt down the answers myself. But I shove her down. Hard. I promised Grayson I’d behave.
Behave. Like I’m some pet on a leash.
My laugh comes out sharp, bitter. “Yeah, real convincing, Jessica.”
Why is Riot here? And why does he look like he lost it again?
I bite my lips and the next thing I know, I’m already out in the woods, trailing Riot’s scent.
I drop to my knees, palms pressing dirt, nose to the ground. Blood. His? Someone else’s? I don’t know.
I close my eyes, listening. “Riot? Are you….still here?”
“Show yourself,” I whisper, though my voice shakes. “If you’re going to stalk me, at least—”
A chuckle cuts me off.
“Little Jessica.” My name drips from the shadows, shredded raw in his throat. “Still sniffing after things that’ll kill you.”
A shiver skates down my spine. I push up from the dirt too fast, my knees nearly buckling, but I bare my teeth anyway like I’ve got claws sharp enough to gut him.
“Come out,” I snap, even though my stomach’s twisting. “W–Where’s Pierce? Where is my brother?”
Silence.
“Riot,” I choke again, softer, desperate. My chest aches with it. “Please!”
And then, low by my ear, close enough that my skin prickles-
“He’s dead.”
“You bastard,” I hiss, voice cracking. “If you touched him–if you did anything to him-” My threat breaks apart, dissolves. My knees threaten to give again but I lock them, teeth grinding so hard my jaw aches.
A chuckle, thin and shredded, drifts through the trees. I spin, but there’s nothing. Only shadows shifting, like they’re in on the joke.
“Stop hiding!” I scream, the sound raw enough to tear my throat. “Face me!”
Chapter 180
My wolf hurls herself against my ribs, howling, demanding we chase him down, but there’s no trail, no weigh in the air. Just that copper tang of blood, growing fainter by the second.
He’s gone.
Like he was never here at all.
I stand there shaking, fists balled, eyes burning, until my lungs won’t hold another breath. Then the truth cuts me open in a way his voice couldn’t.
If he’s telling the truth… if Pierce really is-
“No.”
One second I’m in the trees, the next I’m slamming through the door.
Grayson barely has time to turn before I’ve got him by the throat and pinned to the wall.
His eyes flash–shock, then wolf–but I don’t let him speak. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Jessica-”
“Don’t!” I slam him harder into the wall. “He said Pierce is dead. Do you hear me? Dead! And you–you keep me away?”
His wolf surges. In a blink I’m wrenched off my feet, my back cracking against the opposite wall as his hand clamps around my wrists and pins them high above my head.
“Enough,” he snarls, eyes black.
I buck against him, legs kicking, but he cages me in, thigh shoving between mine. “That’s my fucking brother, Grayson!”
“Pierce is not dead,” he grits out, so close his breath scorches my skin. “Do you hear me? Not dead. Riot lies, Jessica. He lies because he knows you’ll bleed for it.”
“He wouldn’t say it if-”
“He would say anything,” Grayson cuts in. “He’d tell you the sky’s burning if it meant watching you run into the fire.”
I slap him across the face, hard. “You always lie to me too!” My nails dig into his chest jerking him back, shoving him from me. “All the time! You think I don’t see it?”
He staggers, just a hair, then grabs my wrists again, twisting, forcing me toward the wall. My boots skid across the floor. “I don’t lie!” he roars, voice raw, wolf–edge under every word.
“You do!” I spit, kicking at his shin. My teeth grit, jaw aching. Every instinct screams fight or flee, but my blood is fire, my lungs are tearing, my wolf is roaring under my skin.
He slams me into the wall again, knocking the air from me. “Stop squirming, Jess!” His hands dig into my
8:17 Sun, Sep 14
Chapter 180
shoulders, hard enough to bruise.
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I shove back with everything I have, knocking him a step off balance, and then–he’s back, closer, chest to chest, face inches from mine.
“Do you even hear yourself?” I rasp. “Do you hear what you’re saying to me?”
His chest rises and falls violently. “I hear you. Every word. Every fight. What do you fucking want to know?
“WHAT DOES.RIOT.WANT?”
Grayson holds my gaze for a heartbeat longer, fingers brushing my jaw. He licks his lips slowly, a sigh curling from his chest like smoke. “Tomorrow is the full moon,” he murmurs, low, dangerous. “He’s making sure… I’ll mark you.”
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