The man I saved.
And fuck—
The pleasure doesn’t just tether me to life. Itchainsme to them.
But I was already bound, wasn’t I? Already caught in their grip, their claim, their twisted, dark, inescapable hold. Three killers with fractured souls who carved their marks into my bones, who refused to let me disappear.
And I should hate them for it.
I don’t.
Not when it feels this good.
I clutch at them—desperate, frantic, drowning—my fingers fisting in Cassian’s shirt, my nails digging into Talon’s arm like I can hold myself together if I just grip hard enough.
Like if I keep myself wrapped around them, I won’t disappear.
Something warm and sticky pulses beneath my skin.
Blood.
From the car crash.
Right.
Cassian was dying, and I wrenched his soul back into his shattered body, forcing life where there should have been none.
And it must have worked.
Somehow, impossibly, he must have woken up fully healed.
I saved him.
But now, I’m the one fading.
And they know it.
They know it, and they refuse to let it happen.
Their bodies press in, solid, warm—alive—their heat chasing the creeping cold that still clings to my bones like death’s fingers.Three souls, wrapped around mine, caging me in, pulling me back.
Cassian devours my mouth.
Not a kiss. A claim. A demand. His fingers tangle in my hair, tugging, tilting my head back, his breath sharp against my lips as he takes and takes—stealing every inch of air from my lungs, replacing it with him.
I feeleverything. Nathaniel’s hands roam lower, fingers teasing the sensitive skin beneath my shirt, knuckles grazing the soft undercurve of my breast.
I want to tell him to do it—to touch me there already. I want it. But I can't speak.
“Come back,” he murmurs, like he can hear the desperate chant looping through my mind. His voice is rough, urgent, laced with something that sounds dangerously close to pleading. “Come back to us, Little Grim.”
I want to.
I really, really fucking want to.
But I’m trapped here, caught in a cage without bars, without locks, without keys. The darkness is everywhere, stretching endlessly, swallowing me whole, holding me just out of reach. Close enough to want. Too far to have.
They tease me—fingers skating over my heated skin, lips ghosting against my throat, breathless words murmured into my ear—all without giving me what I need.
