Chapter 35
Cason doesn’t stop fighting, not for a second.
His weight shifts against my shoulder as he kicks, twisting, swearing at me like he means every word.
There’s no hesitation in it, no performance.
He’s genuinely angry, and I feel it in every jerk of his body, every harsh word that he throws at me, and every weak jolt of lightning he sends my way.
“Put me the fuck down, Reese!”
“No.”
He huffs out something between a curse and a growl, shoving at my back, trying to throw off my balance. If he wanted to, he could drop me. I’ve felt what that electricity does. I know exactly how easily he could bring me to my knees again.
But he doesn’t, and that tells me everything I need to know.
He needs this. He needs the fight, the release.
I tighten my grip on him just enough to keep him steady as I head up the front steps toward the house, ignoring the way he continues to struggle. But he’s like a fucking worm, and I have my shadows following at my heels just in case he squirms out of my hold.
“Fight me all you want,” I tell him. “There won’t be any running from this.”
“I’m not running. I’m trying to punch you!”
I can feel his fists hitting my back, but he’s not hitting me hard enough to leave any marks.
This time, I have enough of my common sense in place to instruct my shadows to open the door. They do, and it swings open. As I carry him inside, voices cut off and everything goes still.
Mia is the first one I see, leaning against the wall in the living area, mid-conversation with two of our other Ascended. All three of them freeze when they clock the situation. Cason over my shoulder, swearing, kicking. Very much not subtle.
Mia’s brows lift slowly. “Well,” she says dryly, “this feels like something we shouldn’t get involved in.”
“Correct,” I reply without breaking stride.
“Good luck with that,” one of the others mutters.
Cason twists enough to look their way. “Your boss is a fucking prick!”
“You don’t have to tell us.” Mia laughs and turns away like she’s seen worse.
I don’t stop. I don’t slow down to scold her or to explain. If I do, I’d have to tell her how things went at the Institute today, and I can’t do that. Not yet. I can’t tell anyone about the promise I made.
Promise.
The word sits wrong in my head and tastes even worse.
The truth is Malcolm didn’t let us walk out of there because he trusts me.
He let us walk out because he trusts what I’ll do for Cason.
He saw it, clear as day, laid out in front of him like a weakness he can exploit whenever he wants.
He put a gun to Cason’s head, and I folded.
I’ll always fucking fold when it comes to him.
And now Malcolm knows there’s no version of any of this where I risk him, that I’ll burn everything I’ve built to keep Cason breathing. That makes me predictable. Controllable. Useful. All the things he wants to own.
My jaw tightens as I adjust my grip on Cason, continuing to ignore the way he’s still fighting me and screaming, still trying to shove me off because I just traded something I swore I never would.
But I haven’t shut anything down yet. And the thing is…
I won’t.
Malcolm just needs to believe I will. He needs to believe he’s already won.
And as long as Cason is standing next to me when that time comes, I’ll play along.
For now. Apparently, the rules have changed.
Malcolm didn’t just let me walk out of that building.
He let Cason walk out too. That wasn’t mercy. It was leverage.
And that is the real reason Cason is still hitting my back as I push through the hallway, all his rage bleeding out of him. But I’ll let him do it. Because at least he’s here. At least he’s alive.
Even if I have to learn the new rules of whatever game Malcolm is playing now, Cason will always be mine to protect.
By the time we hit my room, he’s already out of breath, and his resistance has shifted—a little less vicious and chaotic and more about the contact. He grabs at my shirt like he’s ready to rip it off. To touch me or to make me bleed, I guess we’ll find out.
I shut the door behind us and cross to the bed in three long strides.
Then I drop him.
He hits the mattress and bounces once, his green hair falling into his face.
But just as quickly, he moves again, scrambling back off the bed fast and coming at me without hesitation.
His fist connects with my shoulder, then my chest. He’s not pulling punches, not really holding back, but he’s not exactly trying to end me either. He could use his powers for that.
“Asshole!” he shouts, hitting me again and again. “You don’t get to just…” Another hit. “…fucking decide things for everyone!”
I let him get a few more in, let him burn some of it off. Then I catch his wrist. He tries to pull free, but I don’t let him. I haul him forward until his chest crashes into mine, his face two inches away.
“Are you done?” I ask.
“Fuck you.”
“One day. If you’re a good boy.”
That has his eyes widening and his breath catching.
But he recovers quickly, taking a step back, and it earns me another swing with his free hand. I block it, then bring my own hand up, palm open, and smack him across the face, the slap hard enough to sting my hand and make his head turn to the side.
Cason falls still, a moan he tries to repress slipping between his lips.
I let go of his wrist to grab him by the chin, forcing his face back toward mine. With my other hand, I reach for his cock, squeezing his semi through his jeans. His gaze meets mine, already glazing over.
Hauling him forward once more, I bring his lips a whisper from mine. “I see you.”
“Go fuck yourself.”
Even as he says it in a weakened voice, he grinds into my hand.
Releasing him, I push him back onto the bed once more, harder than before.
The breath is knocked out of him, but that doesn’t slow him down.
Before he can crawl off the bed, I move on top of him.
He shoves at me, trying to twist away, legs kicking as he fights for the upper hand.
Half-heartedly. I know the difference. If he wanted out, if he needed this to stop, I’d be on the floor already.
A nice electrocution is as good a safe word as any.
Catching both his wrists, I pin them above his head and lay my body over his, letting him feel the weight of me, both our breathing uneven. His eyes are bright with something that isn’t just anger anymore.
“I know what it is you want, little menace.” I thrust my hard cock against his through the annoying layers of our clothes. “You want it to hurt. You want me to take you. You want me to fucking use you.”
“Shut up.”
“Make me.”
There’s a beat, only quiet breath. And then whatever’s left of the fight in him bleeds into something heavier and deeper and even more real.
“No.” It’s a whisper on his lips as his gaze locks on mine. “Make me.”
I arch a brow at him because it’s rare his tone is that sincere.
Holding onto both his wrists with one hand, I rise up just enough to reach for my gun at my side. I place the barrel beneath his chin, and his eyes immediately grow heavy under the surge of adrenaline and arousal.
“Did you miss my gun, menace?”
His lips press into a thin line as though he’s having to force himself to keep from saying yes. However, the little noise that comes from his throat gives him away.
“Don’t think that’s going to make me stop fighting you,” he says.
“Good. Don’t.” I peer to the side where my shadows are currently crawling up the wall, starving for a taste of him. “They’ll fucking love it too.”
I move backward off the bed, and he bolts up, like he’s determined to get to me before my shadows get to him. That doesn’t happen. He leaps off the bed, and he’s practically in midair when my shadows grab at him. They curl around him, his torso, his ankles, his wrists, like strands of night.
Then they rip.
His clothes tear at the seams, shredded right off his body. They spin him around as they strip him, and I get a view of the circuit board tattooed in shaded black ink down the curve of his spine. It’s surprisingly beautiful on him.
He continues struggling as they face him toward me again, squirming as ribbons of fabric go floating to the ground. His nipples are firm peaks when they hit the cool air. The rest of his clothes disappear completely, and his cock is already rock fucking hard by the time it’s exposed.
Cason doesn’t stop fighting.
He writhes as the shadows tighten their hold on his naked body, coiling around his thighs, his throat, his cock.
They wind around his wrists and pull them up over his head, stretching his arms taut.
When he can hardly move, he resorts to lighting sparks.
They flicker within the dark like lightning in storm clouds.
I take another step back and tilt my head because the sight of him all naked and tied up in my shadows as they flash with bolts of white and blue and green might just be the most beautiful and tantalizing thing I’ve ever seen.
But as I told him before, he can’t electrocute shadows.
As though in retaliation for the attempt, the shadows cinch around him a little tighter everywhere. Precum gathers at the tip of his length, and he has to work a little harder to breathe.
“Fuck you!” Then his angry gaze meets mine. “Fuck you too!”
I can’t help but chuckle at that.
Closing the distance between us again, I stand in front of him. We’re directly at eye level now, the shadows holding him in place where his toes are brushing the floor. He pants heavily as he scowls at me, his chest heaving and his green hair sticking to his temples with sweat.
Moving my gun, I run the side of the barrel up the underside of his cock, shadows parting for it. The glare practically melts off his face, and his eyes roll into the back of his head, his lips parted on a soft moan.
“What do you think, Cason?” I stroke him a few times with the cold steel. “Should we let my shadows have their way with you?”