“Look at me.”
I don’t.
His fingers tighten at the backs of my thighs.
“Raven.”
My eyes snap up.
There’s something different in his expression now. Not soft but focused. Like he’s made a decision I won’t get a vote in.
“You think tonight was about taking you,” he says. “About fucking you until you stopped shaking.”
My breath comes shallow.
He leans in, close enough that I can feel his breath on my lips.
“This was about reminding you,” he whispers, “that there is nowhere you can go where I won’t follow.”
A sound breaks out of me before I can stop it. Half-whimper, half-laugh. Hysterical. Ugly. Real.
“You’re insane,” I breathe.
He kisses the corner of my mouth.
“I know.”
Then his forehead rests against mine, just for a moment, and his voice drops — low, dangerous, intimate.
“And you still don’t realise what that means.”
Something shifts.
Not him.
Me.
Because beneath the exhaustion, beneath the fear, beneath the ache, there’s something else blooming in my chest. Something traitorous. Something that feels like relief.
Like I don’t have to fight anymore.
Like being caught might be easier than running.
He feels it.
I know he does.
His smile is slow.
“We’re not done,” he tells me.
Chapter 38
RAVEN
The phone vibrates beneath my palm, a sudden, jarring intrusion against the heavy silence of the room that sends a violent, involuntary tremor through my entire frame.
I flinch so hard my whole body jerks, the movement reflexive and ugly in its desperation. Beside me, Damien stills instantly, his reaction not born of simple surprise but of a chilling, immediate recognition that freezes the very air between us.
