Chapter 17
Chapter seventeen
Sweat Lodge Under the Skin
Cass
The dream was fragments. Flashes. Whispers.
Riot’s hands on him. The pressure building toward something terrifying and inevitable. That climbing sensation from the stairwell—winding tighter and tighter, his body clenching around Riot’s finger, chasing something just out of reach…
In the dream, Riot’s voice was honey and gravel, and Cass was arching into touches that felt like revelation. His body was doing things and for once it didn’t feel like failure. It felt like a tickle and an ache and itch being scratched and he wanted to scratch it just a little harder…
He woke gasping.
But the dream didn’t stop.
For a terrible, wonderful, confusing moment, Cass couldn’t separate what was real from what he’d been dreaming. There was heat everywhere—his skin burning, his core aching, slick pooling beneath him—and there was Riot, surrounding him completely.
“Riot?”
“Shh.” There was a hot gust against Cass’s neck, followed by the wet drag of a tongue over his pulse point. “You were making sounds in your sleep. I wanted to help.”
He was in Riot’s lap still, but everything had shifted while he slept.
His robes had been pushed aside, and Riot was touching him, rubbing his palm between Cass’s legs, touching the hardness that didn’t seem to want to go away.
Riot’s hand slipped further beneath him, his rough hands gentling around the bandages on Cass’s thighs.
Cass drew in a sharp breath, wrapped his arms around Riot’s shoulders and glanced down between them while he tried to find words his mouth wanted to say.
Oh.
Riot had undone his own pants too. There was less fabric between them now—just the thin material of underwear and the hard, hot length of Riot pressing against him.
“Feel that?” Riot’s voice had dropped into something dark and promising. His teeth scraped along Cass’s neck. “Feel how hard you make me? Been like this for hours, princess. Since the stairwell. Since I had my finger inside you and you clenched so sweet and tight—”
His fingertip pressed against Cass’s entrance—just the barest pressure, just enough to make Cass’s whole body seize up.
“I could slip inside right now,” Riot whispered. “You’re so wet I wouldn’t even need to work for it. I could slide two fingers in and you’d just take them, wouldn’t you?”
“I—” Cass didn’t know what he was going to say. His hips were moving without his permission, grinding forward against Riot’s hardness, and then back against those teasing fingers.
“That’s it.” Riot’s other hand had found Cass’s hip, guiding his movements into a rhythm that made the hollow ache pulse. “You’re so good for me, Cass. So fucking good.”
The words should have been shameful. They were shameful and unenlightened. But Cass’s body didn’t seem to care about enlightenment at the moment. “Please,” he heard himself beg. “Please, I need—”
“I know what you need.” Riot’s finger pressed harder, and Cass felt himself start to give way, felt his body opening—
“RIOT.” Lilac slammed on the breaks, jolting them both forward. Everything stopped. “Let me see both hands. Now.”
Slowly, Riot withdrew his hand.
The loss was devastating.
“Fuck,” Riot breathed. When Cass finally looked at him, his eyes were glowing brighter than they had been the whole car ride. He blinked a few times, the gold flickering. “Fuck, I’m sorry, I didn’t—”
“Save it.” Lilac’s eyes met his in the rearview mirror, and her expression was complicated—angry, yes, but also something like understanding underneath. “Get him situated and get your head on straight.”
“Princess.” Riot bit his lip as he adjusted Cass’s robes with shaking hands, his eyes dimming and his cheeks flushed. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have—while you were sleeping, I shouldn’t have—”
But Cass was still reeling from the loss. His body was screaming at him, every nerve ending demanding something it had been denied. The hollow ache had become a howl.
“It’s okay,” Cass managed, though he wasn’t sure if it was.
He shifted off Riot’s lap—the separation felt like tearing—and pressed himself against the door, trying to create distance.
Trying to think about anything except how wet he still was, how empty, how desperately his body wanted to crawl back into that lap and let Riot touch him more.
Through the windows, he caught his first glimpse of their destination.
Plants. Everywhere.
The sight was so unexpected that it momentarily overrode the misery of his body.
Cass could see more green growing things than he’d witnessed in his entire life.
Not the carefully manicured meditation gardens of Elysian territory, with their precise geometric patterns and spiritually significant plant placements.
This was wild, uncontrolled growth—flowers in colors he’d only seen in illustrated texts, vines climbing buildings without permission, trees growing exactly where they wanted instead of where someone decided they should go.
“Brother Marina would have a heart attack,” Cass whispered, pressing his face closer to the glass.
The sacred gardener at Springfield Gardens had always been Cass’s second favorite Elder—patient and kind, explaining the spiritual significance of each plant while Cass helped with the weeding.
He’d hoped to work alongside him someday, learning to cultivate harmony through careful botanical management.
But that occupational assignment had been delayed indefinitely.
Until your sacred bond is resolved, they’d said. Until you’re spiritually ready.
Now, looking at flowers growing wherever they pleased, Cass wondered if Brother Marina had ever seen anything like this, if he’d known that gardens could exist without someone deciding exactly where each seed should go.
Behind him, he could hear Riot adjusting his clothes, could hear the harsh sound of a zipper. The knowledge that Riot was putting himself back together—that he’d been undone because of Cass—made his ears burn.
“Are you okay?” Cass asked, turning to look at Riot before he could stop himself.
“I’m fine,” Riot said, his voice still rough. His eyes dropped to Cass’s mouth, then lower, then jerked away like the sight caused physical pain. “How are you feeling, princess?”
Like I’m going to die.
“Good,” Cass lied, forcing brightness into his voice. “Look at all of this. There are so many different kinds of flowers. And that tree—is that an actual apple tree? With real apples growing on it?”
“Yeah,” Riot said, his voice strained. “They have orchards here.”
“Orchards,” Cass repeated, letting the wonder push down the discomfort.
In Elysian territory, fruit came from controlled greenhouse environments where every variable was monitored for optimal spiritual energy.
The idea of trees just... growing fruit because that’s what trees did. .. it was almost too much to process.
Through the windows, Cass could see buildings in the distance—strange, beautiful buildings with curved walls and green roofs and solar panels that looked like flower petals.
As the vehicle rolled to a stop near what looked like a central gathering area, he could see more details—the way paths were made of recycled materials, how rainwater collection systems fed into the gardens, how a handful of people meandered about with weapons visible on their bodies, but they didn’t look mean.
“It’s beautiful,” Cass breathed.
“We need to check in with—” Lilac started.
The moment the vehicle stopped, he scrambled for the door and stumbled onto ground that felt wonderfully solid beneath his feet.
The air smelled different here—green and alive and real in a way that Elysian’s carefully filtered atmosphere never managed.
He tried to turn to take in more of the surroundings, but his legs wobbled and his vision spotted at the edges.
The heat surged through him, followed by a wave of cold that made him shiver despite the warm air.
You’re fine. You’re fine. Just breathe.
“Princess, wait—” Riot’s voice came from behind him, alarmed.
But Cass was already drawn forward by flowers he’d only seen in botanical texts.
Actual wildflowers growing in actual wild patterns.
He dropped to his knees beside a patch of what might have been black-eyed Susans, running his fingers over petals that were somehow more vivid than anything in the meditation gardens.
“They’re real,” he whispered, feeling tears prick his eyes. “They’re real and no one told them where to grow.”
A rustle in nearby bushes made him look up, and his heart stopped.
A rabbit.
A real life rabbit, with brown fur and alert ears and bright dark eyes that watched him with curious wariness.
In Elysian territory, wild animals were considered spiritually disruptive influences and weren’t permitted within community boundaries. Cass had never seen one like this, and he never imagined they could be so perfectly, impossibly alive.
“Hello,” he said softly, extending one hand. “You’re beautiful.”
The rabbit tilted its head, apparently as curious about him as he was about it. For a moment, they simply existed together—the sweaty, desperate Omega and the wild thing—and Cass felt something in his head break a little.
This is what freedom looks like.
Then the dizziness hit.
The wave came from nowhere—not like the cramps, not like the heat flushes. This was different. His vision went gray at the edges, then started to tunnel. His limbs felt distant, disconnected. The ground tilted beneath his knees.
Get up. You have to get up. Don’t let them see—
Strong arms caught him before he could fall, pulling him back against familiar warmth and that incredible strawberries-and-cream scent that made his brain sing with safe, safe, safe.
“I’ve got you,” Riot murmured against his ear.
“I’m okay,” Cass said automatically. “I just moved too fast. I’m fine. Look, are those tomatoes actually growing on that vine? How is that possible?”
“Cass, you’re burning up.”