Yes. Because only a hunter like me, a sadist, a killer could give her what she craves.
The most twisted and sinful, fucked-up pleasure of such highs—like the overdose of a thousand ecstasy pills—to the lowest crashes where even the soul forgets its own name.
I make her forget hers.
Lifting my teeth from her throat, I touch them to her lips. “Who the fuck are you?” I threaten and vow silent punishment upon her if she gets it wrong.
My eyes turn to slits.Don’t fucking test me.
Breathless, tear-stricken, and so exquisitely real, she whispers,“You.”
“Fucking come,” I command and kiss her again.
The moment her cunt clamps down—so excruciatingly addictive—I suck up her screams, spearing myself to the veryback of her cunt, my hips jerking wildly with the crashing orgasm. I pour ten days of goddamn isolation, blackness, and madness into her, carving myself into her bones.
When only our releases tangle in the air, I turn to my brothers. Speechless, they still wait for permission.
Seth eyes Rory from the side and mouths the word “wow”. Vincent is still against the counter, his gaze awed…for her.
I nod, loosening their tongues, and Jude steps forward. “Raphael.”
He sighs heavily. The only one I read as well as Briella is my partner. His jaw ticks. His eyes ache with the guilt of a man about to destroy something precious, something priceless.
“Jude,” I say.
She’s still trembling in my arms when his black eyes stroke invisible paths along her body, settling upon her splint. “It’s as good a time to tell you.”
She stiffens, but she doesn’t look at him. Her eyes find mine, widening with an inkling of horror. “Tell me what?”
Jude scrubs a hand down his face. “I knew the same night he left…when I first cast her splint.” His voice is rough and frayed. “The arrow’s damage was serious. Torn muscle. Shredded tendon. Even after it heals…”
Tears fill her eyes and paint her cheeks as we hover here—on the barest edge of a blade—and Jude finishes, “She’ll likely never walk without a limp again.”
She quakes. Then goes still.
Her eyes go cold, distant, like she’s already retreating into herself. I see the pain, the kind that breaks you beyond repair. She wants to run, to hide from it, but I won’t let her.
“You think you’re leaving me?” I growl, getting even harder inside her and seizing the back of her neck, anchoring her here. “No. You’re going to feel this. Every fucking inch of it.”
I am your strength.I brand her with the hell in my gaze, vowing my ruin if she tries to swallow the poison that is not mine.
Her jaw tightens, her chest heaving with barely-contained fury. “Fuck you,” she spits, like she wants to burn everything in her path.
Danger and promise wreathing all around me, I state, “No more running. I’ll fuck that poison out of you. We all will. To remind you that you’re still here, still real. You can try to hold onto that hate and self-pity, but you won’t be able to. Not while we’re inside you.”
Her body shakes, but I feel the resistance crumble as she gives in.
And we don’t stop until we’ve broken her open?—
—and made her whole again.
52
Rory
“WHY DID YOU HAVE TO BE THE FIRST?”
Citizen Soldier Playlist
