"Felix!" I scream, the stretch incredible, overwhelming, perfect.
"That's it," he soothes, holding still to let me adjust. "You've got it. Such a good girl, taking my knot so well."
Then he presses the button.
The knot inflates inside me, and I come so hard I nearly black out. Every nerve ending fires at once, pleasure so intense it feels like it'll kill me. In fact, I'm pretty sure I die a few times over, babbling his name and other incoherent obscenities. I'm sobbing into the blankets, my body clenching around him, milking him when I come back to myself.
He growls—actually growls like the alpha he's so fucking good at pretending to be—and I feel him pulse inside me, filling me with his release. His teeth scrape against my neck, right over the scent gland where a dagger pierces a rose over a mark I'd peel off my own skin if I could sits, and I lose my mind.
"Do it," I beg, tilting my head to give him better access. "Bite me. Mark me. Make me yours forever."
His teeth sink in, not quite deep enough to bond—he can't, we both know he can't—but enough to satisfy the primal need. I come again, screaming, my vision whiting out as my body convulses around him.
When I finally come back to myself, we're lying tangled together, still connected. He holds me carefully, like I might break, pressing soft kisses to the bite mark that will fade too soon.
"I'm sorry," he whispers into the darkness of our nest.
I blink, confused, still floating in post-orgasmic bliss that even the darkest shadows taking up residence in the corner can't taint. "Why?"
"Because I can't..." His voice cracks slightly. "I can't really give you what you need. The real thing. A proper knot, a true bond. You deserve?—"
I turn to face him as much as our position allows, taking his face in my hands. His silver eyes are full of something I've never seen before, something that looks like shame and fear and love all twisted together.
"We're all each other needs," I tell him firmly, pouring every ounce of conviction into the words. "Just the two of us against the world, like always."
He closes his eyes, leaning into my touch, and I press my forehead to his.
I just wish I could make him believe that.
Chapter
Five
ELIAS
The medical kit weighs nothing in my hands, but the weight of what we're about to do presses against my chest like a stone. I check the supplies for the fourth time tonight because routine keeps the ghosts quiet. Morphine, adrenaline, surgical thread, combat gauze. Everything I need to patch up the living and nothing I can do for the dead.
"Thirty seconds out," Archer's voice crackles through the comm, steady as always. The helicopter banks left, and my stomach lurches with the motion. Not from the flight. I've flown through worse turbulence in worse birds. It's the anxiety that comes before every mission.
The warehouse below us squats in the industrial district like a tumor made of rusted metal and broken windows. Intel says fifteen victims inside, maybe more. The trafficking ring moved them here three days ago after we hit their mountain compound. They're getting sloppy, desperate. That makes them dangerous.
"Remember," Bane's voice cuts through the rotor noise, "we go in quiet. No unnecessary risks. These fuckers know we're coming for them now."
Jackal hums something that might be Vivaldi, twirling a knife like the psycho he is. The man treats violence like performance art, and I've seen his exhibitions. He catches me watching and flashes a grin with too many teeth.
"Don't worry, Doctor," he says, his British accent making everything sound civilized even when discussing murder. "I'll try to leave you something to stitch up this time."
"Just try not to paint the walls," I tell him, checking my sidearm. "Blood spatter makes it harder to assess the victims."
The helicopter touches down on the roof with barely a whisper. Archer's gotten good at silent insertions, and the modified rotors help. We rappel down the side of the building, boots hitting concrete with soft thuds that get swallowed by the city's ambient noise.
My enhanced hearing picks up voices from inside. Male. Angry. The kind of anger that comes from knowing your world is about to end. Good. Let them be afraid. Let them know what their victims felt, even by a fraction.
We breach through the skylight, Jackal going first because he moves like smoke given form. Bane follows, a juggernaut of raw power. I come last, medical bag secured across my back, sidearm drawn but safety still on. My job is technically to heal, not kill. Though that line often blurs on a mission.
The warehouse floor stretches out below us, a maze of shipping containers and makeshift holding cells. The smell hits me first. Unwashed bodies, fear, desperation. Human misery has a scent, and I've learned to recognize it. My jaw clenches involuntarily.
"Movement, southeast corner," Bane whispers into his comm. "Three tangos, armed."
