“Rafe,” I whispered against him, my voice trembling.
I poured myself into the kiss, urging him with every press of my mouth, begging him to meet me in it.For a heartbeat, he resisted—the same way he resisted everything human—but then something in him finally cracked. His hand fisted in the sheet beside my head, the other cupping my jaw firmer as his mouth opened against mine. The kiss deepened, rawer, urgent, and fractured, a quiet confession dragged from someone who had never been allowed to speak.
I clung tighter, answering every motion with my own, but underneath the heat I felt it—the resignation threading through him. It wasn’t a beginning. It was a surrender, a desperate gift given in the dark, and it was all he would let himself offer me. My chest ached with the truth of it, because even as his teeth caught at my lower lip, even as he breathed me in like I was air, I could feel him pulling away.
I wanted everything with him,neededeverything with him. I ran my hands over the bulge of his arms, then down his back, parting my thighs and tugging on his hips. My gunshot wound screamed as I did, but I didn't give a damn. I'd rather pop a stitch than give up a second of our time together.
Rafe pressed against me, exhaling hard through his nose and cupping the back of my head with one hand. I ground my hips upward, moaning softly when he immediately reacted, driving his hips forward in a motion that showed me how desperate he was, too. A dam was breaking. He began to kiss like someonestarved,and I gasped against him, the sound swallowed instantly by his mouth. I think the world could've burned and all he would've cared about was how much of me he could take before the fire reached him.
His tongue swept in, pushing past every barrier I thought I had left. My fingers tangled in his hair, desperate to keep him from pulling away. Rafe growled low in his chest, an animal sound that vibrated through me. It shocked me, and I think it shocked him, too. His face scrunched, pain riddling through the shadows of his lust, before it fell back into hunger. He kissed me through every inch of hesitation, every shard of pain. Hard, desperate kisses that left my lips stinging, then softer ones between, almost frantic in their tenderness. His breath poured into me, each exhale shuddering against my skin, and I clung to him, afraid to let go. He wouldn’t stop—God, hecouldn’tstop—and part of me prayedhe never would.
I traced the sharp line of his jaw, the slope of his neck, the solid plane of his chest beneath the thin fabric of his uniform. A shudder rippled through him like I’d struck a match to dry kindling any time I explored a new patch of scarred, warm skin. His kiss faltered for half a breath, then returned harder, deeper, mirroring my exploration. His hand skimmed my hip, careful of the bandages, then flattened against my waist as though to anchor me in place. Everywhere I touched, he answered. Every invitation I gave, he claimed—hesitant at first, then surer, bolder, as though he’d been waiting for that permission his whole life.
His hand gripped the underside of my thigh hard enough to bruise, dragging me flush against him. His teeth caught my lower lip, tugging until I gasped. He pinned one of my wrists above my head, grinding me into the sheets, his weight a cage around me. My wound was on the verge of tearing open, but any pain was overtaken by the ache he carved everywhere else.
There was only Rafe.
His dark consumed us whole, and I sank without fighting, every shred of restraint tearing loose as I let myself be devoured. His kiss was fire and violence, histouch a brand on my skin, and I welcomed the burn. I wasn’t being taken—I was takingback, dragging him into that little flame of Viktor’s lighter, my symbol of longing that I’d flicked on and off for years before the compound took it.
My hand slipped between us, cupping him through the rough fabric of his pants. He was hard…so hard. And big. Two things I’d never focused on much before but now were impossible to ignore. His whole body jolted with my touch, a strangled sound tearing from his throat. He sounded almost wounded, like he never thought anyone would touch him like I was and maybe no one ever had. Rafe had been sold more than any of us, so I knew he wasn’t a virgin, but being touched by a Buyer wasn’t the same thing. He was more present for my touch, his forehead pressing into mine and his lips parting with a rough pant. His mouth crashed down, and I moaned against his lips, his kiss deepening at the feel of my voice’s vibration.
I pressed my palm harder against his cock. He couldn’t hear me, so I made sure he could feel me—feel that it wasn’t one-sided, that I wasn’t just letting him have me. I was choosing him. I had chosen him longbefore, too. All those years ago, when I watched him in the courtyard with Leah, when I’d looked in his eyes and saw such a dark mirror waiting to claim me—I knew I’d willingly sink into its depths one day. Not because I was a masochist or too broken to try and put myself back together again, but because I was bright, no matter how hard I tried to dim it, and I loved chasing the dark.
His kiss fractured when I rolled my hips up against him, a growl vibrating against my lips as his hips rocked helplessly into my touch. I bit at his mouth, dragging him back down, and for the first time I tasted victory in him, a surrender he couldn’t hide. I fumbled with his waistband, needing my skin against his, to feel his warmth and to be as close as I could be.
And then…
He was gone.
Rafe threw himself off me, stumbled back until his spine hit the cell door, his chest heaving like he’d just come up from drowning. His hand covered his mouth as if to wipe me away, but the tremor in his shoulders betrayed him. In the dim light, his eyes caught mine—wild, burning, andhorrified.
The sheets were still twisted under me, my lips raw from the way he’d taken me. Every nerve screamed to reach for him again, but I knew that was it. He wouldn’t touch me like that again. Not with that hunger, not with that surrender. Whatever had cracked in him had slammed shut again, the walls sealing higher, harder. He’d given me everything he could in those few precious minutes, and the recoil was enough to make my heart break.
I laid back slowly, throat tight, letting the weight of what happened crush into me. Across the room, Rafe folded in on himself, shadows carving his silence into something absolute.
I had no choice but to fall asleep knowing he sat at that door, hands clutched at his temples and his head tucked between his knees. I let him be because I knew that stance well. I think we all did. It was what we did when Viktor wouldn’t stop hitting us. We’d just fold down and breathe. In. Out. In and out.
Only that time, Rafe wasn’t shielding himself from fists. He was shielding himselffromme.
I’d been wrong.
We were never going to make it through hell if we let ourselves get further attached. Any kiss was a gun in that fucking place, and we’d all just riddled ourselves with bullets by letting Rafe Creed's heart reach toward mine.
The next day, we were each given separate cells. None of us said a word as we were marched further and further away from each other.
?Arden?
Days bled through a slit in the door. Halden understood that a person isn’t broken by pain first. You break them with themselves; the thoughts that circle through their mind when faced with isolation. Was I the reason we were all separated? Was I the beginning of my only friends’ pain? Would I die because my soul chose to be born to a mother who didn’t want me? Or worse—would I live forever in that cold, empty cell?
Because that was what they placed me in. A plain stone box. No bed. No toilet or sink. I had a corner to sleep in, a corner to shit in, and a corner to panic in. The fourth and final was one I visited rarely. It was my death corner, I’d decided. I figured if I banged my forehead hard enough into the cement of the fourth corner, Iwould die, and I spent most of my time in the other corners staring longingly at that death.
Yes, I wanted to die. Wouldn’t you? I can’t even really explainwhyI stayed alive. For Leah, maybe. For the other Creed, yes. The people that had filled the shape of my name felt worth any pain because they’d given me something bigger than life—being. Because what’s a life if you can’t let yourselfbeanything? If you’re owned by someone else? That was all I’d ever been until Leah, Thorne, Kane, and Rafe. They’d given me purpose, and despite that fucking box, I stayed away from the corner that promised peace.
Eventually, the door opened. Hands grabbed me. Not people. Just hands. I was beyond cataloging the soldiers as people. They were just black gloves that hurt.
The room they brought me to was another box—that time made of glass that shined so pristine I could see myself swallowed by its white lights, white floor, anda circlet of white-coated technicians. Halden watched from behind the glass like a God. His dark suit was pressed sharp, black-peppered hair combed flat.
I was naked.
