Page 56 of Wrong Squad, Right Mess

I’d fallen asleep.

It had happened so fast I hadn’t even noticed, not until a voice attempted to rouse me.

Was it Carter? Or Ingram? Or maybe Kenyon was there, smiling, trying to wake me without startling me. It wasn’t Shear, because I’d have recognized the brush of his mind.

Something touched me, pulling me against a warm chest. I inhaled, wanting to ease my mind with the familiar scent of my men.

Except something almost sweet invaded my nose, a smell I recognized easily.

Corruption.

I yanked away before my eyes even opened, the reaction instinctual. I shoved, trying to escape that warmth and the smell, and as soon as I lost it, I went into a freefall.

At least I did until I struck the ground, my eyes opening and gaze frantic as I tried to make sense of my surroundings.

The Pitt. Corsa. The house. It all came back to me, and sure enough, when I lifted my gaze, I found Corsa standing over me, his arms crossed. We were right outside the house, in the dirt.

“Was that reaction needed? I was simply trying to put you into bed. Who falls asleep sitting up against a door?” He spoke as though it were obvious, as though I were the one behaving ridiculously here.

“Don’t you dare touch me,” I snapped back. “I might not have had a choice to come here, but don’t think you get to put your hands on me.”

He lifted an eyebrow as though to call me out on that. Given our size and strength difference, he was trying to tell me that of course he could put his hands on me. He wanted me to know that there was absolutely nothing to stop him from doing so, to make clear the differences in our positions.

But I refused to listen, to bow to him. I shoved myself up from the ground, not bothering to dust the soil off my arms. I didn’t care that I had to look up and into his face, I’d still stand up to him. “Don’t put your hands on me.”

“And what will you do if I don’t listen to your silly little demands?”

“Whatever it takes.”

He snorted and reached out, catching my arm. He wasn’t nearly as fast as Carter or Ingram, but still faster than me. I yanked back, though his grip was unyielding.

“You’ve grown feral in your time away. I like a little more personality than you had at the start, but I don’t need this much. It is a good time for you to recognize that this isn’t some equal partnership. You are mine, Yun, and nothing will change that. Fighting it is only going to hurt you.”

I forced myself to use my powers, hoping they’d had enough time to recharge. A familiar tingle on my skin had me breathing a sigh of relief. I wasn’t entirely helpless, after all.

I let my defensive power spread through me, licking across my body until it exploded outward.

I expected Corsa to scream—they often did when I used it. Instead…nothing.

I twisted to find him not even grimacing, as though the power did nothing to him at all.

He chuckled, as though I’d amused him. “You really think I didn’t expect you to do that? You likely don’t recall, but you did that ten years ago, too. I had enough time to learn how to let the power slide over me as well. We are connected, Yun, and there isn’t anything you can do to harm me.”

I thought it couldn’t get any worse until I felt the pull that haunted my dreams, the forced guiding where he shoved corruption inside of me. It made me sick, as though I were nothing but a dumpster for his refuse, just a place to put the energy that consumed him, that hurt him, that killed him.

“Stop,” I whispered, gagging even as I pleaded, like my body wanted to expel the hated energy in any way it could.

“This is why we’re bound, Yun. Don’t you get that, yet? We might have met here by what seems like an accident, but it wasn’t one at all. It was fate. And fate brought us back together again, because you are made for me.”

Made for me.

There lay the difference between him and the men I’d come to love. Corsa viewed me as thing for him to own, to use, to control. He gave none of himself to me—it wasn’t the sort of relationship, could never be.

The men saw me as theirs, yes, but they also saw themselves as mine just the same. It was a two-way street, an exchange between us. It made me feel valued, wanted, protected.

Corsa only made me feel ill.

“Damn it,” he all but growled out. “I missed this, the lightness, the clarity. Do you know how difficult it has been to try to stay sane all these years without you?” As he spoke, he stopped pouring the corruption into me.