NovelEnglishChapter 180
JESSICA
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“If 1 don’t mark you, someone else will.” His voice is raw, ground down to its bones. “If you don’t choose me
they'll tear you apart.”
Kade mutters something sharp under his breath, but it barely registers. My eyes don’t leave the tree line, the
place Grayson vanished into-and now returned from-his shirt torn, blood soaking through, his shoulders braced
like he’s still fighting ghosts out there.
Riot.
He was here.
“Are you okay?” | step toward him, fast, hand catching his jaw before | can stop myself, tilting his face into the
light. “Thank the goddess,” | breathe, chest shuddering, though I don’t know if I'm saying it for him or for me.
“I can handle him.”
My relief curdles into
anger.
“You're bleeding.” My voice shakes, sharp edges cutting. “Handling him looks like this? You disappear into the
woods, cback soaked in blood, and I'm supposed to just-just what? Pretend this is fine?”
His eyes cut to mine, dark, heavy. “Jessica.”
| bare my teeth in a smile that doesn’t reach my eyes. “Don’t Jessica me. You vanish into the woods with your
psychotic brother and cback promising to put your mark onlike I'm sprize you're trying to guard.” |
step closer, shoulders squared, refusing to back down. “You don’t get to scare the hell out ofand then act
like I should just bow my head and say thank you.”
“Shut up,” he said before shuttingout with his lips.
When he rips away, I'm left gasping, my lips swollen, my pulse out of control. My head says punch him. My body
says more.
“Don’t-"l choke, trying to steady myself. “Don’t you dare uselike that.”
His eyes are black around the edges, wolf straining. He doesn’t answer me. He looks over my shoulder, straight
at Kade, and gives him a single nod.
I whip my head around. Kade’s leaning against a tree, arms folded, smirk sharp enough to draw blood.
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“You two are always this entertaining?” His gaze crawls over me. “Or is this just for my benefit?”
“Go to hell,” | snap, even though my throat feels tight.
Grayson steps half in front of me, givinganother kiss. “I'll see you later.”
Chapter 180
10 voucher). Later? That's it? He kisses me, silences me, throwsbehind him like sfragile thing, and then
later?
By the t| find my voice, him and Kade are already gone.
“Fuck you, Grayson!” | shout into the trees before | storm back toward the house. | don’t even care if he’s
bleeding out somewhere-1'm just happy he’s damn breathing. But him always doing this to me? Leavingin
the dark, kissingquiet, tossingscraps of half-truths—it’s getting fucking tiring.
| drag a shaky hand through my hair, pacing the small space. My wolf claws at me, restless, snarling, demanding
| tear out there and hunt down the answers myself. But | shove her down. Hard. | promised Grayson I'd behave.
Behave. Like I'm spet on a leash.
My laugh comes out sharp, bitter. “Yeah, real convincing, Jessica.”
Why is Riot here? And why does he look like he lost it again?
| bite my lips and the next thing | know, I'm already out in the woods, trailing Riot’s scent.
| drop to my knees, palms pressing dirt, nose to the ground. Blood. His? Someone else’s? | don’t know.
| close my eyes, listening. “Riot? Are you....still here?”
“Show yourself,” | whisper, though my voice shakes. “If you're going to stalk me, at least—"
A chuckle cutsoff.
“Little Jessica.” My ndrips from the shadows, shredded raw in his throat. “Still sniffing after things that'll kill
you.”
A shiver skates down my spine. | push up from the dirt too fast, my knees nearly buckling, but | bare my teeth
anyway like I've got claws sharp enough to gut him.
“Cout,” | snap, even though my stomach’s twisting. “W-Where’s Pierce? Where is my brother?”
Silence.
“Riot,” | choke again, softer, desperate. My chest aches with it. “Please!”
And then, low by my ear, close enough that my skin prickles-
“He's dead.”
“You bastard,” | hiss, voice cracking. “If you touched him-if you did anything to him-" My threat breaks apart,
dissolves. My knees threaten to give again but | lock them, teeth grinding so hard my jaw aches.
A chuckle, thin and shredded, drifts through the trees. | spin, but there's nothing. Only shadows shifting, like
they're in on the joke.
“Stop hiding!” | scream, the sound raw enough to tear my throat. “Face me!”
Chapter 180
My wolf hurls herself against my ribs, howling, demanding we chase him down, but there’s no trail, no weigh in
the air. Just that copper tang of blood, growing fainter by the second.
He's gone.
Like he was never here at all.
| stand there shaking, fists balled, eyes burning, until my lungs won't hold another breath. Then the truth cuts
If he’s telling the truth... if Pierce really is-
“No.”
One second I'm in the trees, the next I'm slamming through the door.
Grayson barely has tto turn before I've got him by the throat and pinned to the wall.
His eyes flash-shock, then wolf-but | don’t let him speak. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Jessica-"
“Don’t!” | slam him harder into the wall. “He said Pierce is dead. Do you hear me? Dead! And you-you keep me
away?”
His wolf surges. In a blink I'm wrenched off my feet, my back cracking against the opposite wall as his hand
clamps around my wrists and pins them high above my head.
“Enough,” he snarls, eyes black.
| buck against him, legs kicking, but he cagesin, thigh shoving between mine. “That's my fucking brother,
Grayson!”
“Pierce is not dead,” he grits out, so close his breath scorches my skin. “Do you hear me? Not dead. Riot lies,
Jessica. He lies because he knows you'll bleed for it.”
“He wouldn't say it if"
“He would say anything,” Grayson cuts in. “He'd tell you the sky's burning if it meant watching you run into the
fire.”
I slap him across the face, hard. “You always lie totoo!” My nails dig into his chest jerking him back, shoving
him from me. “All the time! You think I don’t see it?”
He staggers, just a hair, then grabs my wrists again, twisting, forcingtoward the wall. My boots skid across
the floor. “I don’t lie!” he roars, voice raw, wolf-edge under every word.
“You do!” | spit, kicking at his shin. My teeth grit, jaw aching. Every instinct screams fight or flee, but my blood is
fire, my lungs are tearing, my wolf is roaring under my skin.
He slamsinto the wall again, knocking the air from me. “Stop squirming, Jess!” His hands dig into my
8:17 Sun, Sep 14
Chapter 180
shoulders, hard enough to bruise.
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| shove back with everything | have, knocking him a step off balance, and then-he’s back, closer, chest to chest,
face inches from mine.
“Do you even hear yourself?” | rasp. “Do you hear what you're saying to me?”
His chest rises and falls violently. “I hear you. Every word. Every fight. What do you fucking want to know?
“WHAT DOES.RIOT.WANT?"
Grayson holds my gaze for a heartbeat longer, fingers brushing my jaw. He licks his lips slowly, a sigh curling
from his chest like smoke. “Tomorrow is the full moon,” he murmurs, low, dangerous. “He’s making sure... I'll
mark you.”
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