Chapter 35
Chapter Thirty-Five
SCORPION
She stayed facing the wall, staring blankly at it, her body curled defensively away from me. I probably should have left her alone, given her the space she wanted.
I couldn’t.
I had tried for ten minutes and then found myself back down here.
She was where I wanted to be. Even if she didn’t want me here.
I knew deep down a part of her did. I knew she didn’t want me to give up until one, or both, of us were dead.
I couldn’t. It wasn’t a choice. It was fact.
I would go down fighting to get my girl back.
“Do you remember the time you bit me?” I whispered.
The clinic was in night mode, most asleep, the night giving way to the morning hours.
“You drew blood. That’s why I started calling you little viper.
” The memory made me chuckle lightly. “Fuck, I pretended you drove me nuts, and you did, but I never left, did I? Was always on your watch duty.” I recounted the excuses I gave myself and others, why I would take another shift, why I wouldn’t let anyone else watch her.
“I don’t think I stood a chance.” I brushed my fingers through her knotted, dirty, blonde hair.
Grime covered her face, and she still reeked of herbs and hours of being on that train.
Staring down at her, she hadn’t moved a muscle. She was empty. Vacant. My memories of us were getting me nowhere. I was losing her.
I stood before my brain even registered the command, unlocking the cuffs keeping her to the bed.
“Get up.” I pulled her up. Her eyes tracked me but didn’t fight.
“What are you doing?” A healer hopped over to us, her eyes bugging out.
“Shower?” It was less a question and more a demand.
The healer pointed to a doorway in the back, a worried expression on her face. And I didn’t know if it was for me or Hanna.
“Come on.” The anger at Hanna, at myself, trudged up my shoulders as I stalked back to the bathroom, yanking her with me.
The healer’s protest died as I slammed the door to the restroom, fire bulbs flicking on, bathing the windowless room in a buttery light, taking me back to the first I dragged her from a cot into the showers and forced her to start living again.
We had come full circle; the only thing changed was how I felt about her.
Then I was still pretending, pushing it back, ignoring what was in my gut.
I couldn’t lie to myself now.
The vast room had been built for soldiers and staff with multiple shower stalls and areas to get ready. It was simple, but nicer than most places I’d been in. Compared to prison, this place was a luxury.
I marched us to one of the stalls, turning on the water. “We’ve been here before, Hanna. You can shower with your clothes on or off, but this time the door stays open. Got it?”
Hanna’s narrowed gaze went from the shower to me.
“Decide, little viper, or I will.”
Her nose flared, a sign of emotion. She held up her cuffed hands, her head tilting.
“What do you want?” I lifted an eyebrow. “Use your words.”
She glowered at me.
“You had enough to say on the train.” Even though I understood she was going through withdrawals, her declarations still sliced through me like a blade had been left in my gut, and it kept cutting in deeper and deeper.
The healers told me the drugs should be through her system by now, but she was far from okay. Her brain might be too fried to ever be herself again. The idea made me crazy, and I wanted to push her until I saw life in her eyes. Until I saw Hanna somewhere in there.
She wiggled her arms. “Off.”
My heart took a sick leap at hearing her voice. Scratchy, raw, and low, but it was a start.
“You can wash with them on.” I nodded to the water, checking the temperature with my hand.
“Not if I want to undress.” A purr slunk up the back of my neck, making my body jolt and my dick harden.
“Don’t pretend you didn’t want to watch me last time.
” She started to unbutton her pants. “I could feel your need to fuck me then. Go ahead, Scorpion, take what you want. I know how rough you like it.”
My eyes shot to hers, her blue gaze on me like she was hunting prey. Hungry. Bazdmeg, I wanted to kiss her, push her against the wall and forget the fact I knew she was trying to trick me.
Tug at a man’s dick, and our brains seem to unravel.
“Nice try.” I grabbed her cuffs, pulling her under the spray, the water gliding down, sticking her clothes to her.
She smirked as she watched me adjust myself.
“Need help with that?”
I ground my teeth, handing a shampoo bottle to her. At least I had her talking, though now I wasn’t sure it was a good thing.
“Looks like you might need this too?” She poured the soap into her hand, running it through her hair, her eyes on me.
My body responded to her; my desire for her had me clutching the stall door, trying to stay upright.
It was instinctual, the need to take her.
Have her again. Claim her as mine, making sure she had no mistake in what it meant.
I had only been inside her once, and it made me feel I was the one going through withdrawals.
Craving a drug I would never recover from.
She fully turned to me, her fingers undoing her pants, the shampoo bottle falling out of her hands.
“Oops.”
I was already bending down, grabbing the bottle, when I realized my mistake. The tone of her voice was filled with sugary fakeness.
Stupid asshole.
I twisted just as her knee flew up to my face, hitting my ear.
I stumbled, my equilibrium tilting, when metal cuffs rammed across my temple and cracked my nose, making me fall into the wall.
Her elbows dug into my back as she tried to slip by me.
I pushed off the wall to lurch for her, my hands reaching out, wrapping around the cuffs as she started to run.
The wet floor and soap slipped her back as I used all my force to yank her into the wall, slamming her head and spine into the tile.
Anger billowed off me, my chest heaving as I moved in under the stream of water, tasting the blood from my nose wash down my lips.
“Bad move, little viper. You keep thinking you can get away from me,” I snarled, pushing my body into hers. “Haven’t you learned by now that there is nowhere you can go, nowhere you can run, that I won’t find you?”
Her body heaved into mine, her blue eyes glittering with hate.
I could feel the life in her veins, the desire in her blood.
The hunger. For a moment, all I saw was Hanna.
The girl that fought me at Sarkis’s base with fire and passion.
The girl who had lost her parents, who had been abused in prison, who had been through hell and back.
The girl who fucked me with fury in the woods.
My hands gripped her jaw, my mouth coming down on hers with savagery, my tongue slipping past her lips, ruthlessly demanding entry.
There wasn’t even a moment of pause as she responded, a deep groan rolling her body into mine, her nails scratching through my wet hair, making me lose my shit.
Her thin fingers tore at my pants, shoving them down my thighs as I ripped her tank over her head, wrapping around her cuffs, exposing her bare breasts.
I pinned her manacled hands against the wall, my lips slipping over her skin, taking her nipple in my mouth, hearing her moan as I sucked and tugged on it.
Her body bucked into mine as I claimed the other.
“Scorpion . . .” It was so soft, but it hit so deep in my soul. The need, want, and love in three syllables. It turned everything rational off, turning us both into animals. I wanted to taste her, lick her everywhere, explore every inch of her body.
“Fuck me,” she demanded, her eyes sharp and bright, her teeth biting my lip until I tasted blood. “I need you.”
“Be careful, little viper.” I yanked down her pants, shredding her thin underwear.
“Cats might bite.” I grabbed her hips, and she wrapped her legs around me, my cock parting her folds.
“But a Scorpion has a deadly sting.” I drove into her, pleasure rippling over me so severely that I had to palm the wall behind her, my legs quaking as the intensity grew.
A frenzied cry, full of pleasure and pain, came from Hanna, her nails digging into my back, clawing at me and cutting into my flesh.
It only made me crazier for her as she gave it back, climbing higher on me to plunge herself harder on me.
“Fuck! Fuck!” I couldn’t stay upright, the connection between us too much, my legs taking me down to the wet tile floor, the water cascading on us.
The shift in position hit her deeper, and she pushed me back, riding me so ruthlessly that my spine started to tingle.
Grabbing her hips, I pulled her up to my head, her thighs locking around my face with wails of pleasure as my tongue and lips sucked, licked, and nipped at her pussy, holding nothing back.
My hands cupped her breasts, twisting and flicking at her nipples.
“Scorpion!” I loved her crying out my name, hearing the girl I knew screaming out for me. “Oh gods, I’m coming.”
“Not yet.” I tugged her off, wanting to come inside her.
Sliding her back down my body, I sat her on my lap.
Roughly, I held her chin. “Watch me, Hanna.” She tried to turn her head, but I forced it back.
“I need you here with me. Do not take your eyes off me.” My hips lifted, driving back into her, our mouths parting.
It felt so fucking good. There was nothing else like it.
I never counted on finding my mate, I never cared to, but as I pumped into her, her eyes on mine, feeling what it was like to be inside her, to have her in my life.
I never wanted to be without. I understood Hanna was hanging on by a thread, that only intimacy, a moment she could hold on to when all was lost, might save her from falling.
I would be her rope, her rock, or her punching bag.
Whatever it took. I would be that for her.
With each stroke, I forced her gaze on mine. “What am I to you, Hanna?” Her lids closed as I arched higher into her. “No, look at me.”
“Just fuck me,” she seethed, trying to move me faster, the intimacy itching at her.
“No.” I gripped her jaw harder, keeping my strokes long and deep. “What am I to you, Hanna?” I said more firmly.
“Nothing,” she growled. “Just someone to fuck.”
Ignoring the strike of pain, I picked up my pace, seeing her eyes glaze, her moans puffing from her chest.
“Watch me,” I growled, feeling angry and hurt. “Feel me come inside you.” I flipped her on her back, my hand on her throat, keeping her head pointed at me as I pounded the fuck out of her.
Hanna’s lips parted in a silent scream, her entire body exploding around me, gripping my dick so hard I bellowed, my seed spilling in waves into her as I thrust into her again.
For one moment, our eyes connected, and the bond between us tightened. Hanna was fully with me, her eyes pleading for me to hear the words she didn’t say. I swear it was like her voice sank into my gut, burning into me.
I need you. Don’t give up on me.
In a blink, that girl was gone.
Her lids narrowed, and she used her cuffed hands to push away from me, my seed dripping out of her, washing away under the stream.
“Hope to knock me up?” she fumed. “Tie me to you forever.”
“Almost all fae take precautions as teenagers.” There had been too many problems with humans dying, not able to hold a fae child to term.
Nor did we want to get fae women pregnant either.
We were a fertile bunch. Tree Fairies had a birth control concoction that could only be undone with another brew.
Though I heard with Druids, it didn’t work as well.
She stood up, not looking at me, her jaw clenched. I was still leaking down her leg, but it was as if I was nothing but a stranger.
Shutting off the water, I sighed heavily, my body and mind wanting to sleep.
“Come on. Get dressed.” I picked up some fresh clothes stacked on the shelf, dressing her in loose pants and a tank. I quickly clothed in extra black military pants and a black t-shirt and ran my hands through my hair. I dragged Hanna back to her bed.
I could feel the healer’s eyes on me. I knew she heard us. Hell, the entire house probably did.
Hanna crawled back onto her cot, turning over and facing the wall. It was like we never left this room. The moment in the shower never happened.
I was back to square one.
Leaning over my legs, I rubbed my head with frustrated exhaustion while my body zinged with energy, my dick already wanting more, but I felt so heavy and . . . sad.
My skin prickled, feeling as if Brexley had walked into the room. I turned to greet her, but nobody was there.
I noticed Caden was now down here, sitting with Birdie, both talking quietly, but no Brexley.
It felt odd, because her energy danced around me, but not even her shadow was there.
Scouring my face, my attention went back to Hanna.
I need you. Don’t give up on me.
“I won’t, little viper,” I muttered. “You’re mine.”
Hanna’s head jerked slightly, her blue eyes staring back, her mouth opening to speak.
I never got to hear her words, what she might have said in response, before gunfire shattered through the peace. Screams and bellows found us all the way underground, the earth vibrating as heavy engines moved in.
There were no more days, hours, or even minutes.
The war had begun.