Chapter 46
Amy
Back at his house, he does not leave before morning.
We do not talk about the Order. We do not talk about what is coming, but I know something is coming. I felt it in the way he held my hand as we walked back across campus.
In the morning, he is still there when I wake, which has never happened before.
He is awake, of course. He is always awake, lying on his back looking at the ceiling with his arm around me and his breathing even and his expression that only exists in the early morning dark when he has forgotten to put the armor back on.
I watch him for a long time before he knows I’m awake.
He looks like someone who has arrived somewhere after a very long journey and is not yet sure he is allowed to stay.
I put my hand on his chest.
He looks down at me.
“Tell me what is going to happen,” I say.
He is quiet for a moment. “The Order is going to convene. Probably today. They have the surveillance footage from the depot and from the north perimeter. They have everything Valen stopped managing three days ago.”
“And what do they do with it?”
He looks at the ceiling. “They invoke the terms of my release. The conditions I agreed to when they let me out of Unit 9. I violated them, going off campus without authorization, engaging in an unsanctioned action, escalating against a civilian target.”
“Victor Sokolov is not a civilian target,” I say.
“No,” he agrees. “But he is the son of an Order affiliate, and the Order does not distinguish between its enemies and its assets when it wants to make a point.”
I look at him. “What does invoking the terms mean?”
He meets my eyes. “It means they send me back.”
The words land quietly. The way the worst things always land—not with noise but with weight, settling into the room like something that was already there.
I don’t move.
“For how long?” I say.
He doesn’t answer immediately. When he does, it is with the honesty of someone who has decided they owe it. “Indefinitely,” he says. “At Silas’s discretion.”
Indefinitely.
I sit up.
I look at him in the gray morning light, at the man who sat in a white room for years and decided, from a photograph, to choose me.
Who stepped out of shadows in dark quads.
Who left notes under doors. Who counted my breaths in the dark and stayed until the nightmare stopped and then left before I could thank him for it.
“I’m not going to let that happen,” I say.
He looks at me with something that is not quite a smile, not quite grief, but lives between the two. “Amy.”
“No,” I say. “You do not get to be calm about this. You do not get to have made every decision for months and then sit there and accept this one like it is already finished.”
He watches me.
“I’m going to talk to Azriel. And Valen. And whoever else needs to be talked to. I’ll tell you everything, but you have to trust me.”
He is quiet for a long moment.
Then he says, “I know you will try.”
I hear what is underneath it. The years in a locked room. The resignation of someone who has learned that the institutions that contain him are larger than anything one person can argue against.
“I’m not going to try. I’m going to do it.”
I put my hand back on his chest.
“You protected me. The least I can do is choose you back when the room has a door.”
Something breaks open in his face, just for a second, just long enough for me to see it. Then it is gone, and the controlled stillness is back, but I saw it.
He pulls me back down against him, and his arm tightens around me. I press my face to his chest, and I feel his heartbeat under my palm, steady and slow, and I think about white rooms and ledgers and family connection indices and the reckoning of a life that was designed to have no one in it.
He lifts my chin with one finger and says, “Lie on your back and spread your fucking legs. I think I need to remind you I’m not going anywhere.”
“Saint…”
“You said you’re not hurt.”
I shake my head. “I’m not.”
“Then lie on your back and spread your fucking legs.”
I do as he says. I’m clad in a band T-shirt. No panties. No bra. The way he likes it since I’ve been staying with him.
This is the part of him I crave. The part where the softness melts away, leaving the darkness of who he is underneath.
I spread my legs, and he settles between them, pulling the band of his shorts down to release his cock.
He fists himself, eyes pinned to my pussy like he’s making sure my pussy is wet enough to fuck.
When he is satisfied, he pushes the head of his cock inside hard and deep.
A gasp leaves my lips. I’m panting. My legs spread wide instinctively. My breath is coming out fast and ragged.
The head of his cock hits me deep. The slapping of skin fills the bedroom. One hand digs into my left hip. His right palm is flat on the mattress by my head.
I arch my back. He takes one nipple, then the other. He trails his tongue between my breasts to the hollow part of my neck.
His eyes meet mine. I blink, and his right hand wraps around my neck. Then slowly over my mouth. “Do you trust me, Amy?”
I nod because I do. How could I not?
If he wanted to hurt me, he could, but I know what this means. It’s no secret he likes to push my body to its limit. I found I like his pleasure just as much as his pain.
Every time he fucks me, he shows me a little more. Goes a little harder. And this time is no different.
His hand stops at my throat.
Not squeezing.
Not yet.
Just resting there, heavy and warm, his thumb against the pulse jumping beneath my skin.
“Look at me,” he says.
I do.
The room narrows to his face above mine. His hair falls forward. His eyes are black with control and something worse than hunger. Restraint. The effort of holding himself back when every part of him wants to take.
“I need words before I do this,” he says.
My breath catches.
Saint’s gaze flicks to my mouth. “Not because I don’t know you want it. Because I know what it means when you give it to me.”
The ache in my chest is worse than the one between my thighs.
“Yes,” I whisper.
His fingers tighten but barely. “If you need me to stop, tap my wrist twice.”
I nod.
“No.” His voice sharpens. “Say it.”
“If I need you to stop, I tap your wrist twice.”
“Good girl.”
The praise hits like heat poured straight through me.
His mouth lowers to mine, but he doesn’t kiss me. He hovers there, close enough that every breath I take feels borrowed from him.
“Now give me your fear,” he whispers. “I’ll give it back as something else.”
His hand slides over my mouth. His thrusts are harder, deeper. A muffled moan escapes as my pussy grips his cock tighter in anticipation.
Waiting for him to do what he wants.
He pinches my nose. My eyes go wide, and he smiles. “Take it, Amy. Come all over my fucking dick.”
My body arches off the bed. My pussy begs to be fucked harder. My lungs burn, but my orgasm builds faster. My body fights against the need for air and the desperate urge to come.
I grip his arm as he pounds into me. My ears are pounding. My hands try to push his hands off my face, but Saint is strong. Too strong.
“I’m not gonna let you breathe until this pussy comes for me.”
I panic. Tears flood my vision. Then my orgasm slaps the panic away. Every thrust brings it faster. My vision goes dark and then back.
I’m coming hard and fast, but I can’t scream. I come so hard that I black out.
When I come back, I can breathe. Relief floods my aching body, mixed with the feeling of another orgasm.
Saint is eating my pussy. Sucking and flicking my clit. My hands grip his shoulders as I take deep breaths of fresh air.
“Breathe, baby. That’s it.” I breathe as he continues, “You’re gorgeous, Amy. Perfect.”
I smile.
“You take what I give you so good,” he praises. “You’re mine.”
“Yours,” I scream as my third orgasm takes me again.