Chapter 105
Chapter 105
GRAYSON
I need to tie her up.
I need to fucking tie her up because I won’t be able to hold her down for much longer now.
Jessica is still trying to ripClaim Me or Kill Me me apart when I tore some of my shirt to tie down her wrist. I feel so guilty doing this to her but I can’t think of anything else.
“Stay. Fucking. Down.”
“Make it stop,” she chokes, voice high and raw and wet with whatever’s left of her humanity, “please, Grayson–it hurts–he’s inside me-”
Islam my hand over her mouth, not to shut her up, but because if she says his name again I’m going to lose the last thread of restraint I’ve got left and fuck her so hard this whole cabin comes down around us.
Her arms are stretched above her head, wrists bound tight to the post with the belt I yanked off in a panic, legs pinned under mine as she thrashes and sobs and curses me with my name.
I keep going anyway.
“Kill me,” she gasps when I let her speak, “before I hurt you–before I become-”
When I am done, Nook at her and I can barely forgive myself. She’s tied like an animal in the post, breathing my name and begging me to kill her. Jessica’s claws are out and that means she can barely control herself too.
I kneet in front of her and look at what’s left.
Her pupils are wrong. Too wide, too bright. Her mouth is still trembling.
“You don’t get to ask me to kill you,” I whisper, voice thick, low, shaking. “Fight it Jess. Fight it for me, baby. Please.”
She’s sobbing now, teeth gritted, arms shaking above her head like she wants to tear the restraints apart and gut me.
“Then claim me,” she says, voice split open with pain. “Please, Grayson–please–just claim me, mark me, do something before he–before it-”
She’s not crying anymore.
She’s panting. Open–mouthed, eyes wild, wrists bound and bloodied against the post.
It hurts me seeing her like this.
Jessica is begging me for the one thing I can’t fucking give her, begging me with her whole body, soaked and shaking and perfect in her ruin. She doesn’t even realize what she’s saying. She doesn’t understand that if I mark her now, it might destroy her.
“Why can’t you mark me?!” she screams.
“Jess-”
“No!” she thrashes, hips jerking under mine, wrists bloodied in the restraints. “You don’t really love me, Grayson. You never fucking did.”
“Don’t.”
“You love her.”
The word slices me in half.
1/4
09:43 Tue, 26 Aug
Chapter 105
“You love Aria.”
No. No, no, fuck- She doesn’t believe that. She can’t. It’s just the poison, Grayson. I kept telling myself that to myself.
But my body reacts anyway.
My hands slam into the mattress on either side of her, knuckles white, jaw grinding so hard I think I taste bone. Her chest heaves. Her eyes glint, spiteful through tears. Her thighs twitch open wider and I hate her for a second, I fucking hate her for knowing exactly how to kill me.
“You really believe that?” I growl. “You think I loved her?”
She nods. Smiling now. Sick, shattered. Beautiful like wreckage.
“You’re still hard for her,” she spits. “Still dreaming of her mouth. I bet you fuck me with your eyes closed just to pretend-
I grab her by the throat, not giving her a chance to talk. “Don’t you fucking doubt my love for you Jess.”
She writhes under me, face twisted, throat working under my grip.
“You don’t love me,” she gasps. “You never loved me—you just want to own me-
I kiss her to shut her up.
”
She gasps into me and I take it, take everything–her breath, her whimper, the venom in her voice–eat it down and shove my tongue into her mouth like I’m fucking her with it. Her lip splits against my teeth and she jerks, snarling, hands fighting the restraints like she’d claw my face off if she could. I kiss her harder. Deeper. Until there’s no space between us but the heat and the blood and the lie she just spat in my face.
She doesn’t believe it. She wants to. Wants to push me until I break her in half just to prove it.
So I will.
I grind my hips down, losing all the control not to fully claim her.
My hips press into hers, cock thick and aching, barely held back. My hands are shaking where I’ve got her pinned, one at her throat, the other bracing her hip like I’m about to snap her in two. She’s writhing under me, furious and desperate, soaked, her body begging me even while her mouth throws knives.
She’s mine.
But I can’t take her.
I feel it in every fucking cell–that line I’m about to cross. That point where it won’t be dominance, it’ll be destruction. And I want it. God, I want it. Want to tear the belt off and shove inside her, bite her, brand her, fuck her until she forgets how to say his name. I want to make her come so hard she sobs my
name and bleeds.
But I stop.
I tear my mouth off hers and shove myself off the bed like I’ve been burned, stumbling back with her taste on my tongue and her blood in my mouth. I’m shaking. I’m hard. I’m wrecked, She’s panting on the mattress, wrists stretched, chest heaving, sweat and spit and defiance pouring off her skin like a war–drum.
She looks ruined.
And all I’ve done is kiss her.
“Fuck,” I snarl, dragging both hands through my hair, turning away, breathing like I’m going to shift if I don’t calm down. My claws are pressing against my skin, threatening to break. I want to punch a hole through the wall. I want to rip Riot’s scent out of her molecule by molecule.
Behind me, her voice cracks. “Why won’t you touch me?”
2/4
09:43 Tue, 26 Aug M
Chapter 105
I can’t answer.
Because the answer is I would kill you with how much I want you.
I left Jessica like that.
Tied to the fucking bed, wrists raw, legs shaking, mouth still wet with mine. I don’t untie her. I don’t look back. If I do, I won’t leave. I’ll finish it. I’ll fuck her so deep she forgets her own name and then I’ll mark her without caring what it does to her. So I walk out instead half wild, hard as hell, every muscle in my body wired to explode. I slam the door behind me and lean against the outside of the cabin like the wood can hold the goddamn monster
- in.
It can’t.
My claws are already out. My pulse is a riot. I dig my hands into the dirt like I could bury it all–the need, the fury, the sound of her begging me to love her like I haven’t been trying to not destroy her since the moment she looked at me with those glass–cutting eyes.
She doesn’t get it.
She thinks this is rejection.
It’s mercy.
And I fucking hate her for needing it.
I pace the tree line like an animal. Theo and Pierce better get back soon, because I swear to god if I’m left out here with the memory of her writhing under me, I’ll burn the whole forest down just to have something to kill.
Theo comes out of the trees first. Limping. Face streaked with something dark. His shirt’s torn at the collar, and there’s a cut across his cheekbone that’s already clotting. Pierce is behind him–arms scratched to hell, jaw locked, breathing like he’s still mid–shift.
They look like they’ve been through a war.
So do I.
“Grayson,” Theo says, slow, watching me like I’m a lit fuse. “Where is she?”
I don’t answer right away. Just rub the heel of my hand over my mouth, trying to erase the blood from my lips. Hers. Mine. Doesn’t matter.
“She’s inside,” I say. “Tied up.”
Pierce stiffens. “What?”
“It’s not what you think.”
It is, but not how they’d say it. Not how they’d see it.
“She was shifting Losing it. I had to stop her.”
Theo’s eyes narrow. “Did you touch her?”
I stare at him. “I didn’t mark her”
“That’s not what I asked.”
“I didn’t claim her, Theo.”
“But you wanted to.” Pierce’s voice is dead flat. He looks like he hasn’t slept in days. “You reek of her. You walked out here like you were about to tear a hole in the fucking sky.”
3/4
09:43 Tue, 26 Aug M
Chapter 105
I step closer. My shadow cuts across both of them like a blade.
“I didn’t fucking touch her.”
Silence. No one bekeves that. Not even me.
Theo sighs and wipes a hand down his face. “We found tracks. Rogues in the trees. He’s close.”
My jaw locks. “How close.”
“Half a mile, maybe less.”
Of course he is.
We have to get out of here,” I say, already moving, blood running cold. “Find another hideout.”
Pierce laughs. It’s dry, bitter. “You mean run?”
I stop. Turn. Meet his eyes. “I mean survive.”
He holds my gaze too long. “You should’ve marked her.”
“I couldn’t.”
༥ ༣ 62%–
“You could’ve,” Theo says. Voice sharp now. “You just didn’t.”
I snap. “She would’ve died.”
“She’s dying anyway.”
I push past them both. Back toward the cabin. “She can’t walk like this,” I mutter. “She’s not stable. If we move her and she shifts in the middle of it-”
“Then we put her down before she turns full rogue.”
I stop in my tracks. My claws come out before I even register the thought. “Say that again, Theo. I fucking dare you.”
“She’s my ex. Not my responsibility.”
Pierce grabs his collar before I can do it. “She’s my sister.”
“And so?”
One of these days, I will really kill Theo. But not today. Someday. I promise, someday.
4/4
