Page 11

The contact with his skin sends a wave of pain down through my womb, and I grunt, curling into it, desperate to keep as quiet as I can. Tiny pinpricks needle my organs, as the deep, cramping ache spreads across my abdomen.

“You’re in estrus.” His voice is ragged and carries an edge of desperation that I know I’ve incited with my response, but his motives aren’t aligned with my own. He craves something more than my body, something he’s willing to manipulate and bend to get his hands on. “If I were a different man, I’d relieve you of this pain. Lying beside you has become my greatest torment.”

“You’re welcome to sleep by the fire,” I say coldly, pushing his hand away.

He captures my wrist, tucking it against my body, as he holds me tight to him. “You know there isn’t a chance in hell I’d sacrifice a night beside you to sleep by a fire.” This is his torture, his punishment toward me, for having stolen away his means of escape from the mental torment he still suffers since Calico. He knows how his presence, the closeness of him, affects my body during this cycle. How the scent of an Alpha can throw me into the misery of my body’s involuntary response to it.

All for his own selfish gain.

Though my skin burns with the need to feel his hands on me, the relief won’t be enough to distract me from the heartbreak that’s splintered me into a thousand pieces. It lingered when Titus made quick work of his release during my last estrus, without a single word spoken. As cold and detached as he could muster for the sake of his friend, while sparing me the agony of suffering, as Neela had back at Calico. And I mourned for days after. Cursed the bastards of Calico for ensuring that I would forever suffer the needs of my body, as I’m certain it was their intent that, should my Champion perish for whatever reason, I could quickly be reassigned another.

All for the greater good.

Through deep breaths, I close my eyes and push the pain away. “I need you to do something for me, Cadmus.”

He rolls away from me, offering some relief to the burgeoning ache in my womb. “You know I only do favors when there’s something in it for me.”

I’m well aware that the favor he seeks isn’t sex, but the drugs I’ve withheld from him. The peyote he took to for weeks in his failed attempts to escape whatever horrors still cloud his mind. Since the night at the waterfall, he hasn’t said a word about what happened to him while in isolation at Calico. Though the drugs may have given him moments of contentment, it rendered him useless to our cause, and nearly ended his life when the last hive mounted an attack against us. If not for Titus, Cadmus would’ve been slaughtered with a smile on his face. High as the leaves on a cottonwood tree.

Ignoring his request, I roll onto my back and turn to face him. “I want you to punish Tessa’s father. But don’t kill him.”

His jaw shifts, the sharp planes of his bones giving life to unspoken contemplation in his head. “What for?”

I could tell him, but I have a sense that seeing it for himself will ensure her father’s pain. “Go have a look for yourself. Inside their tent.” I’m not even sure what he’ll find there, but if Tessa’s reaction earlier is anything to go by, I’m certain it won’t be innocent.

“What would you have me do?” By the air of disgust in his voice, I know he understands what I mean.

“Ensure that he doesn’t do it again. To any child.”

Finally turning to face me, he wears the defiant expression of the man I knew back in Calico. One who found amusement in torment. “How fortunate for you that I enjoy inflicting pain almost as much as getting high on it.”

“Then, you won’t disappoint.” As he pushes up from the bed, hiding his persistent erection behind the pants he pulls up his thighs, I stare up at him. “Not in front of the girls.”

“Of course not.” He jumps off the back of the truck, tucking a blade into his waistband, before he disappears out of view.

“He’ll kill him, you know.” Titus still lies, with his back to me. “It’s what I would do.”

“Those girls won’t survive on their own. And we can’t take them with us. We’ve no idea what we’re walking into with these rebels. They could be hostile toward us.”

He rolls onto his back and tucks his arm beneath his head. “Then you probably shouldn’t have sent a trained killer after the man.”

Biting my lip, I contemplate that for a moment and scramble to my feet. Hopping out the back of the vehicle, I throw on my boots and eye Cadmus, who hasn’t yet reached the tent. Not daring to call out to him, I run through the darkness to catch up, and both of us pause at the sounds of muffled sobbing. We exchange a glance. “Promise me you won’t kill him,” I whisper.

“No promises.” Cadmus lurches forward, but I grab his arm.

“We can’t take the girls with us. Not where we’re going. They can’t survive on their own out here.”

“I won’t kill him. But he’ll wish he was dead.”

We pad quietly toward the tent, the sounds of sobbing louder as we approach, and we crouch low, keeping to the shadowed side of it.

“That’s a good girl. Daddy will be done soon, and you can go back to sleep.” Rustling and grunting interrupt the girl’s sobs, and she cries out. “Now you keep it down. Or those big men are gonna have a turn with you, too. You don’t want that. They won’t treat you good like Daddy does. They’d tear a little thing like you in half.”

Disgust burns in my chest, my hands balling to tight fists, and it takes every ounce of restraint not to tell Cadmus to rip his tongue out of his skull while he carries out his punishment.

Without a cue, Cadmus stands up and makes his way to the front of the tent, not bothering to stay hidden. I can see his silhouette made by the light of the still-burning bonfire, but the panting breaths from inside the tent tell me Tessa’s father has no idea what’s coming for him.

Tessa screams, and I see Cadmus’s shadow lunge forward.