I tugged harder. Rougher. Each pull a reminder of what I no longer had. I wrapped my fingers tighter, digging nails into thebase, veins standing out along the shaft as I worked myself like a man trying to scrape out sin. I thumbed over the leaking head, smearing precum down the underside until it made the glide sickeningly slick, obscene. My hips bucked into my own hand, desperate for friction and mercy, finding neither.
I changed angles, twisted my wrist at the top of each stroke just to drag the edge closer with more brutality. The noise of it, wet and furious, echoed off the tile. I bit down on my own lip, hard enough to taste blood, trying to channel the pain somewhere, anywhere but the throbbing between my legs. I pumped faster, punishing myself for remembering, for wanting, for needing her like this.
The stretch of her inner walls around me, the desperate arch of her body, her voice cracking on my name, it all lit up behind my eyes, each flash of memory another nail driven into my restraint. My breath hitched. My balls drew tight. I wasn’t just chasing orgasm; I was barreling toward it, wrecking myself on the memory of her.
The ache built, coiled low and cruel. And still I kept going, chasing the edge like it might bring absolution. My hand slid slick over my length, stroking, jerking, twisting until my thighs tensed and my vision blurred. The burn of friction was exquisite, raw and red and real. I grunted through gritted teeth, eyes squeezed shut, as if shutting out the sight of my hand might make it less pathetic.
“Rhea... fuck...” Her name ripped from my throat, hoarse and broken, as I came with a violence that left me shaking. One hand kept jerking my cock through every agonized pulse, while the other cupped and reached for my balls, squeezing with brutal force. I needed the pain, needed the reminder that I was stillflesh and not just hunger. I rolled them roughly in my palm, fingers clamping and twisting like I could crush the ache out of me. Hot ribbons of cum streaked the tile, rope after rope, evidence of the shame I couldn’t bury, the desire I couldn’t kill. My arm trembled, my legs buckled, and still my cock twitched in my grip, throbbing with brutal satisfaction.
I stood there, breathing like I’d run a warpath, hand still slick and twitching, my soul no closer to peace.
I stood there afterwards, water streaming over me, self-disgust so acute it nearly doubled me over. I was jerking off to my brother’s killer. Getting off on memories of the woman who’d destroyed my family. What kind of brother did that? What kind of man?
The shower couldn’t wash away that particular shame, but I tried anyway, staying under the spray until the water ran cold and my skin pruned.
Sleep came eventually because even insomnia had limits. But rest? That was for people whose subconscious didn’t moonlight as a torture chamber.
The nightmare started differently this time.
Instead of watching through Rhea’s eyes, I inhabited my own body. I stood in her childhood bedroom, taking in the feminine touches that spoke of a life before me. Stuffed animals on a shelf. Books organized by color rather than subject. The kind of details that built a person, layer by careful layer.
Laziel stood by her bathroom door, his hand on the knob. My brother, the man I had seen grow up from a baby.
But in the dream, all I saw was the threat.
“What are you doing here?” My voice came out wrong. Distorted. More growl than words.
He turned, surprise flickering across features I’d known since birth. “Damon? I was just checking on her. She seemed upset earlier…”
“She’s MINE.”
The shift happened without transition. One second I stood on human legs, the next I was airborne, claws extended. Laziel’s eyes widened with the kind of shock that came from betrayal by someone you trusted absolutely.
“Brother? What are you doing?”
But I was beyond words. Beyond reason. He’d touched what was mine. Been in her space. Breathed her air. My wolf didn’t understand family or loyalty or anything beyond the mate bond screaming for protection. For elimination of threats.
My claws found his throat with the precision of an apex predator. Blood painted the white walls in arterial sprays. Laziel tried to speak, tried to plead, but I’d destroyed his voice box in the first strike. He reached for me, not to fight but to understand. Baby brother to the end, looking for the why behind the violence.
I gave him none. Just rage and claws and the systematic destruction of anything that might threaten my mate. When he stopped moving, stopped breathing, stopped existing, I stood over his corpse and felt nothing but satisfaction.
Mine. Safe. Protected.
I woke up gasping in sheets soaked with sweat. My hands shook as I checked them for blood that wasn’t there. Couldn’t be there. Because I’d been at the estate that night. I had been asleep in my bed when Laziel died.
The dream memories felt too real, too detailed. The way the blood had been warm on my claws. The satisfied rumble in my chest as I’d marked territory with violence.
I stumbled to the bathroom and emptied my stomach until nothing remained but bile and questions. What if the reason I couldn’t find Rhea’s guilt convincing wasn’t because of the mate bond? What if it was because some part of me knew the truth?
My phone buzzed on the nightstand. A text from my mother:Have you made a decision about finding her?
I stared at the words until they blurred. Finding Rhea was not a question anymore. I was going to hunt down my mate, but not to finish what I had started. But to demand answers, actual answers.
Because if Chen was right, then there was more to my brother’s death than any of us knew. Except for maybe my mate.
I typed back:Yes.
My mother’s response came immediately:Good. I’ve already dispatched scouts to likely territories. The omega can’t hide forever.
