Page 10 of Theirs to Crave

I stood still, staring at Cassandra. Her face was pale, wet with tears, her eyes large and blank. She’d gone somewhere else. I recognized it all too well. I curled my hands into fists, feeling my nails cut into my palms, and prayed that wherever she’d gone was better than here.

In the next cage, the Indigo Girls were crouched, unearthly still, glowing eyes fixed on Logan and Cassandra.

“Tell you what,” Logan taunted. “I’m a generous guy. Let me show you what you’re missing.” The asshole jerked up Cassandra’s tunic, exposing her completely.

She twisted, trying to cover herself, panic forcing awareness back into her eyes.

Logan caught her arms, pinning them behind her back with one hand as he wrapped his other arm around her neck, holding her tunic high. Mocking insults fell from his lips between excited, panting breaths, and he humped her, jerky and rough. All the time, he stared at Mariano.

Cold sweat slicked my whole body as nausea rolled through my gut. I swallowed convulsively and grabbed the back of Mariano’s tunic. I saw my hand move, saw the fingers grip the cloth, but I felt nothing, heard nothing over the thundering of my blood in my ears.

Mariano turned on me, snarling. He saw my face and blanched. With a monumental effort visible in his clenching jaw and twitching muscles, he pulled himself under control. He allowed me to pull him back from the door, but his burning eyes remained on Logan even as he took my hand in his.

The other man sneered and tightened the arm around Cassandra’s neck, rubbing his cheek against hers as her face reddened and she kicked, desperately fighting for air.

Mariano sank to his knees, his eyes fixed on Cassandra’s panicked face as prayers and curses fell from his lips. His hold on my hand was tight enough that no blood flowed between us.

My throat was too dry for speech and my eyes burned—I was too afraid to blink, terribly sure that if I did, the reality I’d find when I opened them would be even worse.

Shane was still as a statue in the center of his cage, fists clenched, staring at Logan with death in his eyes.

Ria was so close to the cell wall between her and Cassandra that it sparked when she breathed. She didn’t seem to notice. She recited a litany of softly voiced threats, the soothing violence surreal on top of the depravity of the scene.

The Indigo Girls moved. Slowly, imperceptibly, they formed a single row facing Logan and Cassandra, bodies tight with ready tension.

Logan loosened his grip, nuzzling Cassandra’s hair and grunting when she flinched. His next words were so low I could barely hear them. “Such a disappointment. Why do I even keep you around? Oh, that’s right. You’re not a bad little cocksucker, are you?”

He shoved two fingers roughly into her mouth and smiled as she gagged. “I’ll make you a deal. Get on your knees. Prove you’re worth something, and I might let you live. You know what happens when you displease me.”

Cassandra’s body shook with the force of his thrust against her ass, but all the life had drained out of her as he spoke. She hung limp from his grasp, unresponsive, prepared to endure the unendurable.

I wanted to kill Logan. Rip through the walls and beat him to death with my bare hands.

“No?” Logan taunted when Cassandra didn’t move. “You want to bleed, then? Fine by me.”

A furious noise burst from Ria, her cell wall bursting with lightning as she slammed her arms against it. “Let her go, you sick fuck!”

“Aw, look, babe!” Logan crowed triumphantly. “Somebody cares about you after all. Too bad it’s another bitch. Hey, maybe that’s your problem. Maybe you’re a little homo.” He laughed and groped her breasts, his touch leaving red marks on her pale skin.

Cassandra didn’t react.

Logan growled and shook her.

Her head snapped back and forth, but she didn’t cry out or fight.

“Fuck this,” he snarled. “They want you so bad, they can have you.”

He shoved her, and I held my breath as she fell to her knees, her expression hidden by the fall of hair from her lowered head.

Logan’s face spasmed into a rictus of rage. He wrapped her hair around his fist, pulling her head up, and hissed, “Go on, then, they’re waiting.”

I saw her eyes before the door became an explosion of light—they were wide, terrified, and fully aware. Then I saw nothing, my eyes seared by the brightness of the lightning storm that was burning her alive.

She screamed. We screamed. It went on forever.Dios mío, make it stop.

When the baleful light flickered and died, revealing her body slumped on the ground, it took me a few seconds to realize Logan was screaming, too.

He was scrabbling against the ground in the center of the cell, fingers bloody as he tried to dig through the floor. There was something wrong with his back. The tunic was burned away, and his back...bubbled. The skin was gone in some places, raw and red in others. I saw bone. Other things pulsed nauseatingly beneath the wreckage of his flesh. He howled, his screams high and jagged.

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