Chapter 107
Jessica
Grayson has always loved me.
I think he forgot to mention how he also can’t keep his stare to himself.
The truth is, the reason why I’m always disobedient with him is not really because I hate him.
Sometimes, he sneaks behind my brother’s back just to spit an insult into my ear.
Most of the time, I catch him watching me from across the room like he’s imagining how I’d taste if he stopped pretending
he was good.
And I think I took that stare as proof–proof that he hated what I am.
So I humiliate myself more just so I can tease him more.
Being hated by him is fun when I was younger.
I liked the way his jaw clenched. The way he snapped when I smiled at someone else.
The way he always said no but never walked away.
He’d corner me and growl like an animal and say the most disgusting things and I’d drip for him like I was born to be ruined by his voice.
I never admitted it.
I used to think I was taunting him.
But maybe I just wanted to be ruined.
By him.
Only him.
-And now it’s different. Now everything’s splitting apart and I don’t recognize my voice when I scream. I can’t even trust the
words in my mouth because half of them aren’t mine. They taste like rot. Like him. Like Riot.
I think something’s in me, crawling up through my blood, trying to unmake me. I think Grayson knows. I think that’s why he looks at me like I’m already gone.
But then his hands shake when he touches me. His voice breaks when he says my name. And when he ties me down and stares like he hates himself for what he has to do–it makes me happy.
Because if I die in his hands, at least I’ll die his.
I know what I must look like right now. Half–feral. Hair matted. Wrists bruised from the belts he wrapped around them to stop me from slashing someone open. Mouth cracked from screaming. Eyes wrong. My brother won’t look at me. Pierce
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flinches every time I breathe.
“Jess…”
*Jess…open your eyes!”
He looks so worried.
My feral alpha looks so worried right now.
With all my strength, I force them open.
It takes everything. Every ragged thread of who I used to be just to lift my lids. The light knifes into me. My breath catches. My body jerks like it doesn’t belong to me anymore. But I find him. I always do. Grayson. Hovering above me like he’s the one dying. Like this is killing him worse than it’s killing me.
“Hey,” he whispers.
His voice breaks.
I want to tell him to stop looking at me like that. That it’s okay and it’s going to be okay. That he better not shed tears for me. My lips tremble as I struggle to reach for his face.
Why do I feel like it’s the last time I’ll ever see his face?
I think I fell in love with Grayson before I even knew what it meant. Before I knew that love could feel like this–like a fever, like drowning, like chains I never wanted to break out of.
He’s the reason I keep coming back, even when I don’t know who I am anymore. He’s the reason I fight the voice in my head that says let go. Because if I let go, I let go of him.
And I’m not ready.
I’ll never be ready.
I want to scream it at him–I love you. I love you. I fucking love you and you don’t get to look at me like I’m slipping through your hands and you were never enough to stop it.
You were always enough. You’re the only one who ever was.
But my voice is gone. All I can do is breathe. All I can do is bleed in his arms and pray he hears me in the way I look at him now. Please, Grayson. Please know I loved you.
“Are we far yet?!”
It’s almost funny to hear fear in my brother’s voice.
“Jess-“Pierce again, rawer now, pleading. “Jess, please-”
I want to tell him it’s okay. I want to tell him I forgive him for not loving me the right way. For never seeing the parts of me that needed it most. For calling me selfish when all I wanted was to be held.
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Chapter 107
But I can’t move my mouth. Can’t even turn my head. Can’t blink without feeling like I’m tearing the skin off my face.
I hope when I don’t make it, he’ll accompany Grayson to their drinking session. I hope they won’t cry that much.
I close my eyes and feel the power of the wolf inside me now. But it’s not mine. Not really. It’s bigger. Wrong. Its heartbeat doesn’t sync with mine. It snarls every time Grayson touches me and then purrs when I think of Riot, and that’s how I
know it’s not mine.
1 feel invaded.
Infected.
Piece by piece, muscle by muscle, memory by memory–until I can’t tell which thoughts are mine and which ones are the thing inside me.
I blink, barely. Just enough to see a shadow moving above me–Grayson’s face, but smeared and flickering, like I’m seeing him through water. I think he’s speaking. I can’t make out the words. My ears are ringing again. Too much blood in my
mouth.
Then something warm lands on my cheek.
Again.
And again.
Wet.
Falling.
Grayson. Is he crying? Oh, my poor baby Grayson. I didn’t know he could cry. I didn’t know I could still make him cry.
And I hate that I love it. Hate that I’m this wrecked and still greedy for him.
Still wanting him to crawl closer and kiss the blood off my face. Still aching for his hands even though I know I’m going to die with his name in my mouth.
If he begged me to live right now, I’d do it. Not for me. For him. Just to see him come undone a little slower. Just to feel what it’s like to be his. Really his. Not teased, not threatened.
Just marked. Ruined. Claimed.
“Stay with me, Jess–stay with me, baby, don’t fucking leave me, don’t-”
I cough. Once. Hard. Black seeps out of my mouth. It drips down my chin. I feel it pool at the hollow of my throat. I can’t lift my arm to wipe it off.
Grayson does.
He wipes it gently with the edge of his sleeve, but his hand is shaking so bad it makes me feel cold just looking at him. He’s trembling. My alpha is trembling.
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Chapter 107
I try to say his name. Try to form the sound. But nothing comes out.
So I just stare. And hope he sees it in my eyes I never got to say it. Not when it mattered. Never whispered it between clenched teeth in the dark. Never wrote it down. Never begged him to say it back.
But maybe he knew. Maybe it’s always been there. In the way I disobeyed him just to see his jaw clench. In the way! smiled at other men just to feel his stare scorch my skin. In the way I let him hate me because I knew it meant he felt me.
1 was never looking for love. I was looking for his.
I think I found it too late.
I’m dying. But that’s okay.He’s still holding me like I’m worth saving. That’s enough. That’s enough for me. Atleast, I’ll become his trouble maker Luna.
Atleast, I became his.
AD
