Page 47 of The Brotherhood

“Hunger,” Handy said, inhaling slow. Even. Controlled.

Harlow folded his arms. Watching. Assessing.

Handy finally looked at him. “I remember him.”

The air in the room shifted.

The monitors beeped, too fast, too sharp.

“I remember what they did to him.”

His jaw flexed. His fingers curled into a fist.

“What he had to do to survive.”

For a second, the silence felt thicker.

Then—Poppy.

The thought struck without warning.

She was still in his bed. Safe. Wrapped in sheets that smelled like them both.

She was his anchor.

Like Augustine’s woman had been.

The idea of losing her—

The monitor’s alarms went off.

Quantum cursed, hands flying over the console. “Handy, you need to regulate.”

He clenched his teeth and forced his breath steady. The numbers slowly leveled, but he could feel Harlow’s gaze.

Handy exhaled, rolling his shoulders as he met Harlow’s stare.

“When do we leave?” Handy asked.

Harlow’s mouth hardened with his own need for vengeance. “As soon as we can.”

****

Poppy woke to the scent of him.

It was everywhere. In the sheets. In her skin. Deep in the pillows where his body had pressed into them.

She shifted under the covers, and the dull, aching fullness inside her sent heat flashing through her veins. A reminder that he had been here. Had taken her. And she had given herself to him completely.

Her fingers curled into the sheets—his sheets—gripping them for something solid, something real. The morning replayed in her mind in flashes. Then came their first time. How he’d held her open, pinned her against the wall. The sheer, unrelenting need in his touch.

She swallowed hard, her breaths escaping.

He hadn’t wanted to do it. Not at first. She remembered that, too. The way he had fought it. The way he had hated himself for needing her. But she had seen past it. Past the resistance, past the war inside him. She had let him take what he needed. And in the end, he had needed all of her.

Poppy exhaled shakily, forcing herself to move. The sheets tangled around her bare legs as she pushed herself upright. She felt… wrecked. But not broken.

She ran a hand through her hair, her fingers catching in the knots. Her body hummed with the imprint of him. Heat flushed through her chest, through her stomach. Through her core.

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