Chapter 20
World Serpent
THORNE
I stand in the kitchen as the front door opens, watching Skye Summers lead the way.
Her ER trauma doc energy precedes her like a physical pressure wave.
Behind her is Forest: a mountain of a man who makes the entryway look small, his presence absorbing the light in the foyer and making the air in the house feel suddenly, violently crowded.
Lily's head snaps up. She scrambles to her feet and runs toward him, stopping just short of the giant.
"Are you—Thor?" Lily tilts her head back to look at the giant.
Forest stops, looking down at my daughter.
He doesn't know her, but the hardness in his face melts instantly; the jagged edges of a man who has seen too much combat softening into something unrecognizable.
He drops to one knee, bringing himself down to her eye level with a grace that shouldn't belong to someone that size.
"I'm Forest," he rumbles, the sound like low-frequency thunder vibrating through the floorboards.
"You're as big as a mountain." Lily pokes his forearm with a tiny, cautious finger. "Do you have a hammer?"
Forest looks up at me, a quick glint in his eye, acknowledging the God of Thunder status Lily has granted him. "I left the hammer in the truck. It was too heavy for the carpet."
"See!!!" she squeals, turning back to Pop. "He is. He is Thor."
Her finger is still on his skin, tracing a path over the ink on his right forearm. She goes still, her brow furrowing. "What's that?"
She's staring at the Jormungandr tattoo, the world serpent, coiled in a perfect, lethal circle, biting its own tail.
"A snake." Forest glances down at his arm.
"It's eating itself." She tilts her head, her eyes wandering up to his shoulder, where another dark line peeks out from his sleeve. "Do you have more? Are they all snakes?"
Ten feet away, Stratton is at the worktable with Brass. She's frozen, the stylus poised over her tablet. Suddenly, the stylus starts moving. It isn't the methodical, architectural rhythm she's been using to rebuild the patient lists.
It's frantic.
A jagged, feverish scratching of ink on the digital screen, her shoulders hunched as if she's trying to hide the work from the rest of the room.
I watch for a second, puzzled. She looks like a woman who just found a leak in a dam and is trying to plug it with her bare hands. I dismiss it as a side effect of fucking her less than an hour ago.
My own blood still burns. I told myself I wouldn't touch her, that last night was a closing balance, and that resolve lasted less than ten seconds after opening her door.
Even now, with a house full of people, my blood races south.
I want to fuck her again. Right here. The desire is a physical ache, a dark, heavy pressure that makes it hard to focus on anything but the scent of her still clinging to my skin.
What the hell is wrong with me?
Forest shifts, the fabric of his shirt straining against his biceps. "Not all snakes. I have a compass. And some trees."
"To find your way in the forest?"
A ghost of a smile touches Forest's mouth. "Exactly. So I don't get lost."
"I have a dinosaur," Lily declares, running back to the sofa to retrieve Theodore. She holds him up for inspection. "He doesn't have tattoos, but he has very sharp spikes. He's a protector."
Forest inspects the stuffed animal with a solemn nod. "He looks like he could handle a few frost giants."
"Alright, God of Thunder." A rare smirk tugs at Ghost's mouth as he greets the Guardian HRS team. "Sit down."
As the men banter, Brass asking Forest about the California traffic, Torque showing off a new encrypted comms link, Lily's curiosity shifts. She wanders back toward the worktable, her eyes fixing on Stratton.
"Hi." Lily leans against the edge of the table, her eyes curious. "Are you helping Halo? Those are a lot of numbers."
Stratton freezes. She doesn't look up, but her fingers tremble against the tablet. The charcoal shirt is too big on her, the collar gaping to reveal the pale line of her throat, territory I claimed recently. I can still feel her pulse against my thumb.
"Lily, leave her alone." My voice is louder than it needs to be. The room goes quiet for a heartbeat.
"I just wanted to say hello, Daddy. She looks lonely."
"She isn't lonely, she's busy." My hand finds Stratton's arm and tightens. The heat radiating off her skin, the vibration of her frantic energy under my palm. I want to fuck her again. The urge is a physical imperative. "Back to your blocks. Now."
Lily huffs, turning on her heel and stomping back toward the sofa, where Forest watches the exchange with a narrowed, measuring gaze. He doesn't say anything, but his posture reads the room, mapping the jagged, electric tension between me and Stratton.
We gather around the table. Skye spreads out her equipment list, her face shifting into a mask of professional focus.
"We are starting from zero," she begins. "I don't know the chemistry of ML-273, and I don't know the delivery mechanism. I need a fresh sample from a patient who has completed the cycle. Lily is the only case we have."
She looks at me, her eyes softening with the weight of what she has to ask. "I know she's had enough of needles, Thorne. But I have to draw her blood. I need several vials. I've already put together a specialized team of researchers, but we need to know what this drug does."
"How much blood?"
"Several vials."
"She's just getting her strength back. You're asking for a lot."
"I know it's a tough ask." Skye's gaze is gentle, but unyielding. "But we're blind. If we don't know what's in her system, we can't protect her. Or the other kids on those lists Stratton is rebuilding. We need to see what Phoenix did to her."
Stratton sits perfectly still, her eyes fixed on the table, shrinking under the weight of the conversation. Her throat moves as she swallows, and her breath comes in shallow hitches.
The air in the room is thick with a tension that has nothing to do with the mission and everything to do with the woman sitting at the end of the table.
"Fine."
The word is a blunt instrument, cutting through Skye's logistics and Ghost's lingering questions. I'm not agreeing to the schedule; I'm agreeing to the exit.
My skin feels three sizes too small, humming with a frantic, jagged energy that only settles when I look at her.
Stratton.
I don't look at Ghost to confirm the plan.
I don't acknowledge the team. The only thing that exists in this suffocating space is the distance between my hand and her arm.
I reach out, my fingers locking around her with a possessiveness that borders on a bruise, and begin dragging her back toward the safe room.
The walk is a blur of heavy boots on concrete. I can feel the weight of their stares—Ghost's narrowed eyes, Pop's trembling silence—but they are ghosts, fading into the background of a world that is shrinking down to the size of a ten-by-ten cell. My pulse isn't beating; it's demanding.
I shove the door open; the metal groaning on its hinges.
"Get inside."
The moment the door slams and the lock clicks, the last thread of my control frays and snaps. There is no lead-in, no transition. We collide in the center of the room, a desperate, grabbing wreck of hands and mouths.
I slam her back against the cinder block wall, but I don't turn her around this time. I want to see her. I want to see the destruction in her eyes.
I hike her legs up, pinning her against the stone, our eyes locked together in a dark, silent war.
"Again," I growl against her mouth, my tongue forcing its way past her teeth.
She doesn't pull away. She claws at my tactical vest, her fingers digging into the nylon, her breath a frantic, jagged hitch. I enter her slowly, a deep, punishing slide that makes her head snap back against the wall. I don't rush. I want her to feel every inch of the debt.
I reach between us, my thumb finding her, working her with brutal precision while I watch the waves start to break across her face.
My other hand finds her breast through the charcoal shirt, my fingers pinching the nipple hard, a sharp spark of pain that makes her arch into me.
I take the peak into my mouth, laving it before biting down hard. Hard enough that she screams.
The sound of skin on skin, the rhythmic, wet slap of our bodies colliding, echoes in the small space. She's crying out now, the sounds jagged and raw, her eyes never leaving mine even as the pleasure shatters her.
"Look at me," I command, my voice a dark vibration. "Tell me who owns this debt."
"You," she gasps, her fingers tightening in my hair.
I drive into her one last time, deep and absolute, as the first wave breaks her. She shatters against me, her body vibrating with a final, lethal intensity, her cries muffled by my mouth as I finish inside her.
I pull away slowly, my breath a harsh, rhythmic rasp. I stay close, our foreheads touching, the heat between us a physical weight.
"I still hate you." I fix my belt, the metallic click of the buckle the only thing that sounds sane in here. I stop with my hand on the handle. "What were you scratching at back there? You were on fire."
She hesitates, pulling the shirt down to cover the marks I just left on her chest. She looks away, her fingers trembling as they touch the fabric. "It's just an idea. Nothing solid. Just … Just a thought."
I study her. The secret she's holding onto is a variable I can't account for, but the way she looks right now, broken and beautiful against the stone, is a distraction I can't afford. I'm getting addicted to her, and that makes her dangerous.
"Fix yourself," I rasp, my voice sounding foreign even to me. "I'll bring you dinner when we're done with our briefings."
She doesn't flinch. She just leans her head back against the cold cinder block, her eyes meeting mine with a steady, terrifying clarity that cuts straight through the adrenaline.
"The debt doesn't sleep." Her voice is a low, wrecked vibration that seems to hum in the small space. "I'll be ready. Bring dinner. Or bring the rage. It's all the same to me."
I stare at her for a heartbeat longer than I should, acknowledging the jagged truth in her words. I don't offer a platitude or a threat. I just give her a sharp, single nod—receipt confirmed. She knows where we stand.
She knows exactly what she is and what she owes.
I turn on my heel and step out, the transition back to the hallway feeling like a plunge into freezing water.
I pull the heavy steel door shut and slide the bolt home.
The mechanical clack echoes through the narrow corridor like a gunshot, marking the boundary between the monster inside that room and the soldier I have to be outside of it.
I stand there for a second, my back pressed against the cold metal, my lungs burning as I try to force the internal chaos back into a manageable shape. I smooth my shirt, steady my hands, and prepare to face Forest and the rest of the team.