Chapter 28 #3
My knees nearly buckle. The words hit me somewhere deep and dark and I'm—fuck—I'm close. I'm so close and I still have seven rounds left.
"Koshin—"
"Keep shooting." His fingers are relentless. "Don't stop until it's empty."
I fire. And again. And again. The target is shredded now, holes punched through chest and throat and skull, and I can't feel my legs. His fingers are fucking me in time with the shots and I'm making sounds, desperate pathetic sounds, and I don't care.
"Three more." His voice is wrecked. "You can do it. Three more and then you can come."
I fire. My vision is blurring. I fire again. My arms are screaming. One more. One more and—
The last shot goes through the target's heart.
"Now."
I come so hard I see white. The gun drops from my hands and I don't care where it lands because his fingers are still moving, still fucking me through it, and I'm clenching around him and sobbing his name and my legs give out entirely.
He catches me.
Spins me.
Lifts me onto the table in one motion, shoving aside the ammunition boxes, and his mouth crashes into mine. I taste blood—I bit my lip, I don't know when—and he groans at the taste of it.
"That was—" I can't finish. Can't think.
"The most depraved thing I've ever done." He's yanking at his pants, freeing himself. "I need to be inside you. Right now. Right fucking now."
"Yes—"
He slams into me.
No warning. No gentleness. Just his cock filling me in one brutal thrust and his hands gripping my hips hard enough to bruise and the table scraping against the stone floor. I wrap my legs around him and hold on.
"You shot a target while you came on my fingers." He's fucking me hard, punishing, his forehead pressed to mine. "You hit center mass while I was inside you. Do you understand how—" He breaks off with a groan. "Do you understand what that does to me?"
"Show me."
His eyes flash silver. His hand wraps around my throat—not squeezing, just holding—and he fucks me harder. The table slams against the wall. I'm going to have bruises on my ass and my hips and my throat and I want every single one.
"You're mine." The words come out guttural, barely human. "Every part of you. Every fucked-up, violent, perfect part."
"Yours." I'm already close again. Still sensitive from before, still wound tight. "I'm yours, I'm—"
"Say my name when you come." His hand tightens on my throat. Just a little. Just enough. "Say it so the whole compound hears."
"The room is—"
"I don't care." His hips stutter. "Say it anyway."
I come with his name tearing out of my throat, my nails raking down his back, my whole body clenched around him. He follows a second later, slamming deep and spilling inside me with a sound that's more growl than moan.
We stay there. Panting. His cock softening inside me, his hand still loose around my throat, his forehead pressed to mine.
"That was..." I swallow. Try again. "What the fuck was that?"
"I don't know." He sounds as wrecked as I feel. "I don't know, but I want to do it again."
"We don't have time."
"I know."
Neither of us moves.
"The gun." I manage finally. "I dropped it."
"I'll get it." He doesn't move. "In a minute."
"We have a schedule."
"I know." He kisses me—soft this time, almost gentle. It's more disorienting than the violence. "One more minute."
I give him two.
After, he retrieves the gun from where it landed. Checks it over. Hands it back to me with reverence.
His eyes are still dark. Still hungry. But he steps back, putting distance between us. "We need to finish the lesson. Moving targets. Reloading under pressure. You need to be ready."
"I can't feel my legs."
"Then you'll learn to shoot without them." His smile goes sharp. "Come on. We have work to do."
An hour later, my shoulders ache and my hands smell like gunpowder and sex and I can hit a moving target at thirty feet.
Koshin watches me fire the last round and says nothing. He hasn't said much for the last twenty minutes—just watched, silver eyes tracking every shot, every adjustment. Every time I hit center mass, his jaw tightens. Every time I nail a headshot, his hands curl into fists.
He's been hard the entire time. I've been wet the entire time. Neither of us has acknowledged it.
"Enough?"
"Enough." He takes the gun, checks the chamber, hands it back. His fingers brush mine again. "It's yours. Keep it loaded."
I slide it into the holster he gave me earlier. The weight settles against my thigh.
"About that wall."
"Later." But his eyes are still hungry. "After."
"After?"
"After you kill your father." He crosses to me, crowds me against the table, his hands bracing on either side of my hips.
"After you put a bullet in him with the gun I made for you.
After everyone knows what you're capable of.
" His mouth brushes my ear. "Then I'm going to take you apart so thoroughly you won't remember your own name. "
My knees nearly buckle.
"That's—"
"Motivation." He pulls back, and his smile is all edge. "Gear. We move in an hour."
Back in his chambers, I strip off his shirt and pull on dark clothes from his wardrobe. Fitted for shadow work. He's doing the same beside me, and the silence between us hums with everything we're not doing.
The shift from lovers to killers happens without thought. We both know what comes next.
"Knife." He passes me a blade. "Backup. Left boot."
I take it and sheath it where he indicates.
"You're very good at this." The words come out drier than I intend. "Arming women for patricide. Regular hobby or am I special?"
"Just you." His smile flashes, quick and sharp. "Always just you."
"Lucky me."
He's armed now too, his own weapons settled into place with the ease of long practice. Coat over everything, hiding the arsenal underneath. He looks like himself again—the Titan who walked into a plaza and killed the head of Faith without blinking. Ancient and dangerous.
Mine.
I'm keeping him.
"Ready?"
I touch the gun at my thigh. Feel the solid weight of it, the green detailing I can't see but know is there.
My father dies tonight. I claimed this kill. I'm going to look him in the eyes and end him for every bruise, every beating, every year of watching Seris learn to flinch.
"Ready."
Night has fallen outside the windows. The compound is quiet, waiting. Somewhere in the city, my father is sitting in House Solyne thinking he has time. Thinking Seris is still his shield.
He's wrong about all of it.
The door opens. Koshin steps through first, and I follow.
Armed. Claimed. Ready.
Tonight, I fix what I broke by leaving.