I don’t remember walking back to the apartment. I don’t remember how many locks I passed or how many floors I climbed. I only remember her.
On her knees. Exactly where I left her. Exactly where she’s supposed to be.
My boots are slick with blood. My knuckles are raw. My breath is torn, but when I see her, everything cracks in my ribs and I can finally fucking breathe again.
She’s counting. I can hear her—the whisper of numbers slipping from her lips, shaky and soft. Her body is trembling, her thighs forced wide, the clamp still biting her swollen cunt. She’sbegging. Begging like I told her to. Begging like she believes I’ll come back.
And fuck. Fuck, I did.
My chest splits under the weight of it. I drop to my knees in front of her, dragging her into my lap, pressing my forehead to hers like I might cave in if I don’t hold her right now.
I can’t tell her yet. I can’t tell her what I know. Not yet.
If I do, the cage won’t be tight enough. The walls won’t be thick enough. The locks won’t be strong enough. And I can’t lose her.
Not to him. Not to the ghost I thought I burned. Not to the man I left under the fucking ash.
I press my lips to hers, desperate, crushing, wild. I make her feel the adrenaline still vibrating in my skin. I make her taste the violence. She sobs into my mouth, her body rocking in my lap, chasing the friction of the clamp.
I grind my palm between her legs, pressing the metal against her swollen clit, dragging another broken cry from her throat. I’m not gentle. I’m not careful. I need to mark her so deep he can’t carve me out.
“You’ll always beg for me,” I growl against her lips. “You’ll always wait. You’ll always stay.”
She sobs. She nods. She says the words like prayers she doesn’t want to stop saying.
“You’ll cum for me now, little spider.”
Her body shudders, her cunt clamping around nothing, the metal digging into the desperate ache I left in her. She comes apart for me.
For me. Not for him.
I drag her tighter, burying my face in her neck, breathing her in like it’s the only thing keeping me tethered to this world. But I can still feel it—the itch in my skull, the buzzing in my teeth.
He’s still out there. Watching. Waiting.
I won’t let him have her. I’ll cage her so deep she won’t know where I end and she begins. I’ll lock the doors. I’ll lock the air. I’ll lock the pulse under her skin until it only beats for me.
She’s mine and I’m not losing her. Not to a ghost. Not to a priest. Not to the man I thought I burned.
This time, I’ll finish it. And I’ll make him watch.
Chapter 4
RAVEN
Damien hasn’t let me out of his sight for three days.
Not to shower.
Not to sleep.
Not to breathe.
The clamp is gone, but his grip is worse.
The new one is metal—an unyielding weight around my ankle, cold and constant, a reminder that he replaced something temporary with something permanent. He locked it on the second night—tight enough to bruise, chained to a bolt he drilled straight into the bedroom floor.
I still remember the sound of the drill biting through the boards, the way he held the cuff in his hand like it was something sacred.
