My chair.Worn stool.Workbench of sterilized tools.Inks arranged in gradients only I understand.Light still spills through the window at the perfect angle for morning sessions.Nothing out of place.No tampering.
But the privacy?That’s new.
I walk the perimeter, inspecting.I don’t hate it.Not even a little.I’ve spent my life being watched and observed.By a psychopath.By my brothers.
And now Jag.
He did this.Probably planned it out while my hands were on his thigh.Maybe built it himself after I left last night.
The pleasure of it creeps in too fast, warm and unwelcome.
Anger follows.
Because privacy is currency.A bribe.A manipulation.
I back out of the room, heart thudding.
Declan prattles on about quality craftsmanship and aliens.I breeze past him, slam open the door to the break room, and pull up short.
I didn’t expect to find Jag in here.But there he is.Asleep on a shitty metal cot, shoved into the corner of the room like someone dumped him there after a hard night of partying.
He looks like a fallen statue of some war god left behind in the rubble.Completely nude except for a thin blanket slung low over his hips, barely covering anything worth hiding.
His massive frame twists awkwardly to fit the too-small mattress, legs dangling off the end, one arm draped over his washboard stomach, the other hanging limp to the floor.His chest rises slowly, all corded muscle and brutal lines.A body chiseled out of violence and left to cool.
Every inch of him is honed.No softness except his face, and even that’s a lie.Square jaw dusted with faint whiskers.Mouth slack in sleep.Shadows trace every ridge and groove, highlighting how perfectly designed he is to break people.
“Isn’t he magnificent?”Declan whispers, peering around my shoulder, gawking.
“No.”I push him backward and shut the door in his face.
Then, with a pulse full of piss and adrenaline, I cross the room and stop at the edge of the cot.
“Hey,” I snap, low and sharp.
Nothing.
“Wake the fuck up.”
Still nothing.
I kick the cot hard, and it screeches against the floor.
Jag jolts as if ripped from a nightmare, sitting up fast.Eyes wild, chest heaving, he stares at me, shocked.
I stare right back.
He blinks rapidly, and a bead of sweat rolls down his temple.Then he lifts the wrong hand.
The broken one.
His whole body seizes, and his jaw snaps shut so brutally I hear his teeth connect.No other sound leaves his mouth as pain crashes through his expression, flaring his nostrils and strangling a roar in his throat.
He swallows it down like it’s acid.But he can’t hide it.Not the tremble in his arm.
The hand is bloated and purple around the wrist, the bandages crusted with dried blood and construction dust.The unraveling gauze appears too tight in some places, loose in others.
He tries to flex his fingers, but they don’t move.
