Chapter 13

Today has been just one big roller-coaster of misery, but after being ripped from my home, my world, and everything I’ve ever known, that’s not surprising, is it?

And then we arrived at a different base, with different rooms and layouts. If I hadn’t already suspected there was a bond between Ash, Noah, and Seb, it’s confirmed when they all go into the same quarters together, where Noah takes the blonde girl to a bedroom—the one that Ash picked, over me, and which still fucking stings—and all I can hear is them fucking.

I’m already on edge, my body throbbing with a strange sexual awareness, but those sounds seal my mental doom.

Seb radiates a pissed vibe. He orders me to bed and then leaves me there until I’m nothing but a ball of tears and snot. When he returns, he wraps me up in his arms and makes that deep, rumbly sound, almost like a purr, that breaks me and all my resistance.

But the relief I find in sleep is short-lived as he drags me from the bed and the false comfort and safety he represents and marches me into the other bedroom, the one Noah took the girl into what feels like many hours ago.

Noah is braced over the blonde girl on the bed. The scene hits me like an electric shock burrowing deep into my core. She is on her back with her legs spread wide to accommodate his bulk, her beautiful hair against the sheet. There are no pillows or other bedding left on the bed. Instead, it lays in haphazard piles across the floor.

“I need some relief,” Seb growls.

My jaw pops as Noah stops mid-stroke and glances over his shoulder.

If any man could be a work of art, it would be Noah. The thick muscles across his back bear an intricate and horrifying black, blue, and red tattoo that spreads to his left shoulder and hip. The death scene, with skulls, clawing hands, and other monstrous forms I can’t make out in the subdued lighting, appears to continue over onto his chest.

Noah’s eyes slide from Seb to me. I tear my gaze away, only for my eyes to slam into Ash lounging in a chair with another naked girl on his lap. He is wearing only pants, leaving his feet and chest bare. The girl, curled up on his lap, lifts her head and blinks at us like we’ve just roused her from sleep.

My fingers curl into fists at my side as an ugly rage takes root in the center of my chest.

Ash sighs, strokes his fingers through her hair, and then leans down to press a kiss against her temple.

I stiffen at the intimacy of the gesture.

This place is like an infection. Or maybe it’s the people and their ways.

Seb’s barked demand hangs heavy in the air. I should be terrified that Ash will agree, only I’m not. I ache inside, and there is only one way to alleviate it.

But I also feel exposed and vulnerable.

I want to throw myself at Seb, beg him to take me back to the room, to wrap me up in his arms, to make those sweet, rumbly sounds that will lull me into sleep, away from this environment of dark debauchery.

Ash directs the girl off his lap. She whimpers and looks like she’s going to protest, but his palm lands against her ass with a loud crack. “Go and find Mitchell,” he says. “Tell him I sent you to him.” When she hesitates, he cuts her a glare that makes me nervous on her behalf, even though I want her to go.

She pouts and struts past me.

It comes as a shock to both of us when I go to lunge at her. Seb yanks me away just in time.

Noah’s low, husky chuckle redirects my glare. The woman lying beneath him kisses up the side of his throat like she’s trying to encourage him to fuck her again. I envy her. I shouldn’t, but I do. She wanted this. Now look at her. What was it that Seb said? That’s right, “they find it liberating…”

“Noah, take a break,” Ash says, although his eyes are locked with Seb’s.

Noah grunts. He goes to heave off. The girl whines and clings. He peels her fingers from his hair and rises from the bed.

The death scene tattoo continues over the front of his chest—his nipples are pierced. My eyes sink straight to his cock as he stalks toward us on his way to the door, and I draw in an involuntary breath. It’s thick and long with the same twin glands, slightly raised, near the base. Only, it’s not the strange form that makes me gasp, but the twin rows of metal studs along the base and the heavy-looking loop through the head.

My pussy clenches. My eyes snap up to his. He winks and bestows a lazy smirk upon me as he strides past.

Seb’s fingers shake where they still hold my arm.

Ash gestures toward the bed. “All yours.”

Seb growls.

The woman on the bed rises to her elbows and offers Seb a predatory up-down look.

He’s not going to… He can’t… He won’t?

“Seb?” I try to peel his fingers off my arm as the two men stare at one another, but he has locked them tightly. “No!” I slap my hand against his chest. “No! Let me go.”

He doesn’t let me go. He marches me over to Ash and thrusts me unceremoniously onto his lap before he strides for the bed, undoing his buckle as he goes.

The woman’s light laughter as he fists her calf and drags her into the center of the bed makes me want to hurl.

I’m breaking inside, crumbling, being ground down into dust. The world is moving in disjointed rushes. I try to slap Ash, kicking and straining to get off, to get out, to get away, or, worse, push the girl aside and take her place.

Ash doesn’t miss a beat, wrapping his arms around mine, pinning them even as he pushes my legs down and traps them between his two thighs.

I can’t move. I’ve got tunnel vision, and the edge of hysteria is beating down on me.

On the bed, Seb shucks his pants down to reveal a firm muscular ass, spreading the girl open, before his hips flex, and he thrusts into her.

He groans.

She moans.

I feel like someone just thrust a knife into my belly, and a terrible, hoarse cry erupts from my chest.

“Hush,” Ash says. “He needs this.” He brushes his nose against my hair before I feel his lips.

I barely notice. I’m staring at Seb fucking the girl. The girl I wish was me.

Her cries, visceral with her arousal, crawl under my skin. Her arms entwine around his neck. She tries to kiss him, but he turns his head away and shifts his hand under her ass. And all I can hear is the sticky, wet sounds of sex and the slaps of flesh meeting flesh. And all I can see is her legs around him, his hips moving, knowing he is inside her, his cock filling her.

In this savage moment, I understand what it is to die while your body still lives, your heart still beats, and air passes in and out of your lungs.

I don’t want to want Seb.

Yet, I must admit that I do.

I begin to shake. The shivers soon wrack my body.

“It’s all right.” Ash draws my cheek against his chest. His fingers are gentle as they stroke through my hair. “A few months from now, you won’t remember half of this, and what you do will eventually fade. Awakening is messy, cruel, and emotionally charged. But there is no avoiding it.”

The touch ought to soothe me—I wanted his hands on me once—only nothing really can.

Tears begin to spill down my cheeks.

Awakening? Is that what this is?