And then hesucks.
The pull is obscene. I feel it in the pit of my stomach, between my legs, in places it has no business being. My free hand flies up to push at his chest, but the moment my palm touches him, I don’t push him at all.
I clutch.
My fingers fist in the filthy material andhold on.
A sob rips out of me. I don’t know what I’m doing anymore. I don’t know who I am. The girl who got into a carriage yesterday to hunt a fae is gone, and what’s left is this trembling, weeping thing that’s responding to its own violation.
He drinks from me, slow and unhurried, his tongue working the wound, coaxing more blood to the surface, and lapping it up with sounds that vibrate through my entire arm. Low, satisfied sounds that make my stomach turn and my hips shift, seeking friction that isn’t there.
“Please.”
I don’t know what I’m begging for anymore. For him to stop. For him to keep going. For this to end.
When he finally lifts his head, I’m wrecked.
My breath comes in a mixture of gasps and gulps. My body is trembling, warm in places I can’t think about. I can feel the wetness of the wound throbbing in time with my heart. The other wetness, too. The one I’llneverspeak of, or acknowledge.
My hand hangs limp in his grip.
His eyes open. The gold burns brighter than before as his gaze moves over me, taking in the tear tracks on my cheeks, my swollen lips where I’ve bitten them bloody, the rapid flutter of my pulse in my throat.
“Human.” His lips curve up, stained with my blood.
I don’t answer. I couldn’t even if I wanted to. Everything inside me has shattered, and I don’t know how to put the pieces back together. His smile widens, displaying sharp white teeth, then his gaze drops back to my hand.
I try to pull back, but I’m too slow. His fingers slide higher, closing around my forearm, his grip biting to the bone. He brings my arm up between us, sending more pain shooting through my damaged shoulder.
My palm hits the iron around his neck.
The metal is cold and rough, pitted with age, full of dents and hard edges that press into the cut he made. I whimper. His eyes fix on a point past my shoulder, his jaw set, and every line of his body tense.
For a long moment, nothing happens. My palm stays pressed against the cold iron, my pulse hammers in my ears, and the fae stands over me with his fingers locked around my arm. I can feel where the collar meets his skin beneath my fingertips—the raw weeping flesh under the band, slick with blood that isn’tmine. The iron sits so tight against his throat that his pulse beats visibly in the swollen tissue around it.
Then the iron begins to warm.
It’s subtle at first, enough to think I’m imagining it. But the cold leaches out of the metal degree by degree, replaced by heat. I try to pull away. His grip clamps down in a silent warning to stay still.
The heat builds. My palm stings where the cut is pressed too hard against the iron. It feels like it’s being pulled open, the edges separating, blood flowing faster than it should. Every pulse pushes more out of me.
A faint sound reaches my ears. The band shifts against my skin, and a crack spreads through the metal, starting beneath my palm and racing around his neck. Then another. With each fine line that appears, a wave of nausea rolls through me.
“I’m going to be sick.”
He doesn’t even look at me.
The cracks in the collar deepen. The heat turns unbearable. My palm feels like it’s being held against a pot left too long over the fire. The blood between my skin and the iron has turned hot and sticky.
The cracks carve through the places where the collar has worn his throat raw. Iron rubs against flesh as the band shifts. I can feel the movement under my hand, the metal splitting, skin tearing anew, and his blood welling up to mix with mine. The heat pushes through my palm and into my wrist, climbing my arm in slow waves.
A rough sound slips through his lips.
His shoulders curl inward, tendons standing out along his neck. His jaw clenches so hard that the muscles jump beneath his skin.
The collar groans again. Louder this time.
The cracks meet, becoming a web of breaks held together by rust. My blood has worked into every seam. The heat coming off the collar makes the air around it shimmer. Then something gives, and the sound is like bone snapping.
