Chapter 49
ARMEN
Sting carries her through corridors I know she doesn’t recognize. Deeper. Quieter. Away from the main hubs where people cluster and noise never stops.
She’s barely conscious, head lolling against his shoulder, body limp from exhaustion. Rogue walks ahead, checking corners. I follow behind, watching the way her legs dangle, the way her breathing has gone slow and deep.
We stop in front of a door that looks like all the others, scuffed metal, faded paint—but this one has a lock that actually works. Rogue pulls the key from his pocket and opens it.
The room inside is nothing like the storage closet she’s been sleeping in.
It’s small, but deliberately so. Warm. A low platform bed takes up most of the space, covered in soft blankets and actual pillows, not the thin, flat things most Runts get but real ones, scavenged from old department stores and cleaned until they didn’t smell anymore.
Tapestries hang on the walls, faded but whole, geometric patterns and soft florals that catch the light from the string of small lanterns strung across the ceiling.
The glow is warm, golden, nothing like the harsh fluorescents that buzz everywhere else.
There’s a rug on the floor, worn but clean. A small table with a chair. A narrow shelf with space for her things, if she ever gets any. A curtain instead of a door leading to a private washroom.
It smells like cedar and something faintly floral. Clean. Safe.
Sting lowers her onto the bed gently. She sinks into the mattress with a soft sound, eyes fluttering open just enough to take in the room.
“Where...” she starts, voice hoarse.
“Your room,” I say, stepping inside. “No one else comes in here unless you say.”
She blinks slowly, trying to process. Her gaze travels over the tapestries, the lights, the blankets. “This is... mine? How many rooms do you have?”
“You’ve seen them all. But yes, this is yours.”
“Why?”
Sting crouches beside the bed, brushing damp hair back from her face. “Because you’re not just a Runt anymore.”
Her throat moves as she swallows. “Then what am I?”
“Ours,” Rogue says simply, leaning against the doorframe. “And we take care of what’s ours.”
She stares at the ceiling for a long moment, tears pooling at the corners of her eyes. Not sad tears. Something else. Relief, maybe. Or grief for what she lost, mixed with something she didn’t expect to find.
“I don’t deserve this,” she whispers.
“You’re here,” I say. “That’s enough.”
She closes her eyes. A single tear slides down her cheek.
I strip off my shirt, then my pants, and climb onto the bed beside her. Sting does the same on her other side. Rogue stays at the door for a moment longer, then shuts it and crosses to the bed, shedding clothes as he goes.
Vi’s eyes open when she feels us settle around her. “What are you doing?”
“Staying,” Sting says.
“You’re exhausted,” Rogue adds. “We’re not leaving you alone tonight.”
She looks between us, something fragile and raw in her expression. “I’m filthy.”
“We’ll clean you up in a minute,” I say. “Right now, just breathe.”
She does. Her body relaxes incrementally, sinking deeper into the mattress.
But even exhausted, even wrecked, I can feel the tension still coiled in her. The need that hasn’t fully left. We gave her three orgasms in the Skylight Room, but her body is still humming with it, the denial from last night and this morning, the teasing, the ache that’s been building for days.
My hand slides down her stomach. She tenses.
“Armen—”
“One more,” I murmur. “Just one more and then you sleep.”
Her eyes widen. “I can’t—”
“You can.”
Sting’s hand joins mine, both of us touching her now, slow, deliberate. Rogue’s mouth finds her throat, teeth scraping gently.
She whimpers, hips lifting involuntarily.
I slide two fingers inside her, she’s still slick, still open from before, and curl them. Sting’s thumb finds her clit, circling slow.
“Please,” she gasps. “I can’t, it’s too much—”
“One more,” I repeat. “Then you rest.”
We work her together, hands moving in sync, mouths on her skin. She’s so sensitive now that every touch makes her shake, every stroke pulling sounds from her throat she can’t control.
It doesn’t take long. She comes with a broken cry, body arching off the bed, thighs clamping around our hands. We keep touching her through it, drawing it out until she’s sobbing, pushing weakly at our hands.
“Stop, please—”
We do.
Sting climbs off the bed and disappears through the curtain into the washroom. I hear water running. He returns with a damp cloth and cleans her, between her legs, her stomach, her face where cum still clings to her skin.
I’ve never seen him like this.
When she’s clean, I pull the blankets up over all of us. She’s in the middle, surrounded by heat and skin and the steady rhythm of our breathing.
“Sleep,” I tell her.
“Can’t,” she mumbles. “Too much.”
“Try.”
Her eyes drift closed. Her breathing evens out. Within minutes, she’s gone.
Rogue looks at me over her head, brows raised. “Think she’s accepted it yet?”
“Figured what out?” Sting asks.
“That she’s not leaving,” Rogue says. “Not ever.”
I look down at her, face relaxed in sleep, marks covering her throat and collarbone, body tucked between ours like she was always meant to be here.
“Hard to tell,” I say.
We stay like that, wrapped around her in the warm glow of the lanterns, until sleep pulls us under too.
And for the first time since she arrived, the Rot feels almost quiet.