Chapter 6
For all the exquisite torture Nathaniel puts me through, he never gets inside me.
Not once.
He stays fully clothed, impeccable, and untouched, while I unravel for him piece by piece.
By the time he’s finished with me, I can’t speak.
My voice is shredded, my throat raw from begging and crying out until my pleas dissolved into aphonic, incoherent sounds.
A thin line of drool warms my cheek, sliding down in slow humiliation I’m far too wrecked to wipe away.
My fingers throb from how hard I’d clawed at the mattress, knuckles aching from the grip I couldn’t loosen.
I lie on the bed, boneless and shaking and wrecked beyond reason.
Oblivion. I think this is what oblivion feels like. A perfect, floating nothing. No shame, no fear, no sense of the world beyond the pounding pulse in my pelvis.
I can already see the curve of mischief starting at the corner of Nathaniel’s mouth. God, he’s going to want to go again. And I… I don’t think I can. Truth to all that’s unholy, I’m barely alive. My soul is hanging onto my body by a single frayed thread.
He slips a hand beneath my back, lifting me effortlessly. He settles me into the pillows with a tenderness that borders on obscene, considering what his hands just dragged me through.
The question is right there on his tongue. I can feel it.
And then—
The door slams open.
Hard.
Cassian storms inside like the entire fucking building is on fire.
“What is taking you guys so lo—“
He stops.
Mid-step.
Mid-breath.
Mid-thought.
His gaze lands on me… And freezes.
“What the fuck?” he growls. A muscle ticks hard beneath his right eye, the kind that means he’s a heartbeat away from breaking something.
“Nathaniel,” he snarls. “Were the two of you fucking this whole time?”
Well.
Um.
Busted.
Nathaniel straightens slowly, like a man who didn’t just make me see God, his entire flock of angels, the pearly gates, and all pillars of hell at the same time.
“I calmed her,” he says simply, as if that explains the state I’m in. “She was anxious.”
Cassian’s nostrils flare. “You—what?”
“It was in order.”
Cassian’s gaze snaps to me.
His whole body moves on brute instinct. Three long strides and he’s at the bedside, leaning over me, brushing the drool from my cheek with his thumb.
“Was this your idea?” he murmurs. His jaw flexes. “If you didn’t look like an actual hospital patient I would fucking spank you.”
“Don’t mind him, love,” Nathaniel says behind him. “He’s just upset he wasn’t here to share.”
Cassian’s head whips toward him. Murderous.
But when his eyes return to mine, something has shifted. Less heat. More hunger. More… conflict.
It tells me everything.
Even if the world was burning, Cassian would still fuck me through the fire.
“Skye,” he says quietly, “are you okay?”
I try to speak.
I really do.
But all that comes out is a soft, ruined sound.
Cassian’s eyes darken.
Deeply.
“This is really not the time for this,” he mutters.
“This is the only time for this,“ Nathaniel counters. “If we’re about to go on a hunt to an unknown location, the next time we’ll have a moment to ourselves will be after it’s done, and you know it.”
“Motels exist, you sick fuck,” Cassian growls. “Travelling with Skye will be different than just the three of us.”
“It will be.”
“Then why the hell would you do this?” Cassian snaps. “She can barely get up now.”
Cassian rises.
“Because I wanted to be alone with her, Cassian,” Nathaniel says. No apology. No shame. “Just her. Just me. For once.”
Cassian blows a slow breath out. The posture stays rigid, but something inside him loosens. Then he looks at me.
His thumb brushes along my cheek, gentler than a man that size has any right to be.
“Skye… he didn’t hurt you, did he?”
“No,” I manage. Then I let a crooked smile slip. “Not more than you did last time, anyway.”
That shuts him up so effectively it could be a spell.
Color climbs Cassian’s throat like he’s remembering exactly what he did to me.
How I sounded.
How I begged.
A weak, wrecked laugh scrapes out of me. “You’re both… the worst.”
Out of the three, Talon is the gentlest. Which is hilarious, really. The man who’d fuck on a battlefield if only he could ended up the softest by default.
“Are you a bit calmer now?” I ask Cassian, curling in on myself and tugging a blanket over my body.
Cassian’s mouth tightens.
“Calmer? Nope.” He shakes his head once. “I still think we should burn this entire world down.”
“Is that so?”
He looks better now. Or… at least the actively murderous aura has dialed down from kill everything to kill strategically.
“It’s just…” He drags a breath in. “Something happened that made me swallow it down for now.”
“Oh?” I sit up straighter, grimacing when my thighs tremble. “Rhea?”
“Worse. But you need to see it. And… Talon’s still losing his shit.”
Oh, man.
I try to stand up. My muscles protest violently, trembling with every small movement. The blanket slips. Cassian swears under his breath and yanks it back up.
“I’m fine,” I croak.
Cassian gives me a look so pointed it could cut bone.
I am very much not fine.
“Sure,” he mutters. “You look extremely fine.”
Heat coils in my stomach.
So grumpy.
“She is fine,” Nathaniel says. “Her parasympathetic system has finally kicked in. Cortisol is dropping. Heart rate elevated…” His eyes flick to mine, catching the aftershocks still rippling through me. “…but not dangerously so. You should be thanking me.”
Cassian rounds on him. “Thanking you? For what?” he snaps. “For wringing her out until she can’t fucking walk?”
Nathaniel blinks.
“Yes.”
My cheeks burn. My entire body heats.
God, why does that answer make me clench?
“I was anxious,” I rasp. “He… helped.”
Cassian’s gaze jolts between us.
“Next time you decide to ‘help’ her,” he growls at Nathaniel, “you tell me first.”
Nathaniel tilts his head, polite as ever.
“Why? So you can watch?”
Heat detonates in my stomach. Cassian’s eyes flash—hunger flickering under irritation—but he doesn’t take the bait this time. Barely.
“Let’s just get down,” he mutters. “Some of Rhea’s… friends arrived.”
“Friends?” I echo.
He shakes his head once. “Let’s get down.”
I stare at him. That… is a development. And suddenly the fact that my legs feel like they’ve been replaced with warm gelatin becomes a real problem.
I try to stand. I will my knees to behave. But after one heroic attempt and about three seconds of dizziness, I end up right back on my ass on the bed.
Cassian sighs. Then he slides an arm beneath my knees and the other behind my back and lifts me like I weigh nothing.
My stomach drops. My head lolls against his chest. The blanket slips but he yanks it back into place with a curt flick.
“Cassian,” I protest weakly. “I can walk.”
He snorts. “Only in theory, sparrow.”
“I can,” I insist, even as my toes do absolutely nothing except dangle decoratively while he carries me toward the door.
“Alright, alright,” he says. “How about you stay in my arms for my sake, then?”
“Are you enjoying this?”
“Sure, I am,” he says. And honestly? I can’t tell if he’s being sarcastic or if he actually likes carrying me around like a freshly fucked princess.
“At least help me get dressed!” I squeal, clutching the slipping blanket.
Cassian doesn’t respond.
He just keeps walking, big bastard strides, zero sympathy.
So I shoot a desperate look at Nathaniel, still standing at the foot of the bed, watching all of this with that scientist-with-a-god-complex stare, the one that makes my body remember every place his tongue just was.
Thank God he’s merciful.
He smiles and dips his head in a nod before heading to the closet. He grabs a handful of things and follows after Cassian and me.
By the time we’re out of the room and into the corridor, my brain finally catches up with my body. Reality trickles back in on a time delay.
I hate it.
I don’t want to face anything waiting for me.
I want to crawl back into that bed and pass out.
But who cares what I want, right?
We make our way down the hall anyway.
Right before we reach the stairwell, Cassian helps me stand while Nathaniel dresses me up. He slips a navy hoodie over my head and then guides my limbs into black, shiny leggings. Then he kneels—actually kneels—and slides navy socks onto my feet.
We head down the stairwell. Voices drift upward from below.
One of them is Talon’s, unmistakably shaken.
The others… higher. Younger. Multiple. Grim Reapers; you can hear it in the cadence. That soft echo of being half tethered to a world that doesn’t belong to them anymore.
“Can you walk now?” Nathaniel murmurs.
I nod.
I’m not sure I’m telling the truth.
I try anyway. The floor tilts. My knees buckle, and Cassian catches me with a muttered curse. His hands grip my hips, thumbs brushing dangerously close to places that are still wet from Nathaniel.
Nathaniel steps into the room first, shifting aside just enough for Cassian and me to appear behind him.
Three girls stand against the far wall.
All of them are way younger than me. One has long braids falling like ink-soaked ropes down her back. Another has a buzz cut and a jagged scar splitting her jaw. And the third… the third looks like she should be in a classroom somewhere, doodling hearts in the margins of her notes or something.
What the hell is this?
Overhead, perched on pipes and metal beams, are their ravens. Three dark little birds that look just like Pain used to, back in the day.
Talon paces the length of the room, one hand raking through his hair, the other flexing at his side. He looks like he’s about to crawl out of his own skin.
When we walk in, his gaze snaps to me, flicks to Cassian’s arm around my waist, then slams into Nathaniel.
“Thank God,” he breathes. “This is way too fucking much. I can’t do this.”
“Would you look at that?” one of the Grim Reapers says—the one with the buzz cut. “Someone’s having a breakdown.”
“Cry us a river, Talon,” the one with the braids says, flat.