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“Why are you even still here,” Rey bellowed, shoving Beau across the room to slam into a wall.
“Because you damn near begged me to! At least she didn’t scream every time I touched her that first week.”
First week? Devin turned her eyes to the ceiling, her brows attempting to drift down. How long could a body go without food or water? Had they succeeded at times, and now she just didn’t remember them? The questions disrupted the bleakness. Tried to haul her back into the world.
Devin let the heavy weight of her lashes meet, pulling the thick cloud around her. It didn’t matter.
“Dev, honey, open your eyes for me.”
Devin blinked. It felt like it had been mere moments, but Ashley was there. The smoky darkness of the males banished to the other side of the door. She imagined she could feel them, some new power to track the heat of their bodies through walls and desolation.
“Hey,” Ash murmured, one corner of her lips straining upwards.
A dark cloud drifted through Ashley’s gaze as she leaned close to bump noses, though she was careful not to touch any other part of Devin.
“No.” It was the rasp of death dragged over gravel. Devin didn’t recognize it as her own voice, but knew her lips formed the single syllable. Felt the deep cracks in her lips split, threatening an endless abyss of agony if she concentrated too hard on the shimmering pain in Ash’s eyes.
“I could still do it, Dev,” Ashley whispered on a sighing breath.
“No.”
“Don’t let that bastard do this to you. Let me help.”
“I did this.”
Ashley fell back, gaze bright with something beyond her tears. Eyes widening as she swept them over Devin’s wasted body, her friend recoiled.
It welled from somewhere deep inside of her. A dark, horrible place full of rage and agony. The scream was feral, the ragged edges of her nails scraping over broken flesh to rip it out. She tore at her hair, pulling the limp strands free. Trying to gain her feet, to run, to get away from the horrific wail building at the base of her skull.
She didn’t want to feel. Hated them all the more for doing this to her. There’d been a strange sense of solace in the blighted space where her soul once thrived.
Bruising hands caught her. Pinned her down to downy softness with murmured words of calm. Calloused fingers bit deep, keeping her in the ruined shamble of a nest. Held her there with the infuriating buzzing sensation as her heart slammed against her ribs. Until the darkness stole her away.
When Devin next opened her eyes, Ashley was gone. Rey was beside her in the bed, Beau nowhere to be seen.
“Come here, sweetheart,” Rey whispered against her temple.
Caught in the iron bands of his embrace, she had no choice. Never had one to begin with. Devin struggled to close her eyes, to bring the empty nothingness back, but he kept speaking. His words drove deep into her brain, disrupting the darkness.
“I love you, hear me?” His quiet sigh scattered over her shoulder, his fingers tracing the puckered edge of his claiming bite. “Knew you were dangerous the moment you came into that damn office, before you even got on your knees for me. Fuck, sweetheart, if you only understood how much I need you.”
Devin’s breath rattled around her chest, escaping her cracked lips in a faint wheeze. A length of clear tubing swung up from the bed to a plastic bag, a piece of tape hiding the needle puncturing her arm. A vague memory of the pain as it punched through her skin tried to surface, but she razed it to the salted earth of her nothingness.
“Still do,” Rey murmured as he stroked her wan cheek, turning her to face him. “I need you, Devin. I need you and love you.”
“You love the idea of me.”
Devin blinked, uncertainty pulling at her brows. Had she said it aloud? The widening of Rey’s eyes said she had. She hadn’t meant to, but sometimes it was so hard to figure out what was happening with a body she’d once been so attuned to.
“No, sweetheart. Not…” He trailed off on a sigh, pressing their forehead together so that his lips hovered above hers. Breathing her in, pouring his breath into her lungs. “Not now, not anymore.”
The haze was clearing, thoughts stumbling through the gray mire to string his words into something she could comprehend. She didn’t understand what he meant.
“They don’t explain this any better to us,” Rey said with a self-deprecating chuckle. “We bite you during a heat, claim our intent. You bend to our will. That’s it.”
“No excuse.” Her eyes stung, gritty and swollen as she blinked hard.
“I did what I thought best.”
