Page 22 of Rage

With mechanical movements, he straightens. Her eyes go round when he reaches for his belt.

“W-What are you doing? Stop!”

His muscles lock up, his fingers twitching against the buckle as his chip sears with another constricting command. Shit. His chip is still calibrated to obey her commands, but the roar of the general’s orders throb through his brain.

Save her. Save her.

“You want to die?” he grits. He grabs the gun from the floor, unhindered now that his intentions are no longer to kill her, and tosses it on the bed. “Then take your own life. I can’t do it for you. But… I can make the pain stop.”

She stares at him, uncomprehending, her breath coming in quick gasps. Her fingers still move against her bleeding ribs, digging. “What?”

“The only way to heal a broken mate-bond is to replace it with another,” he growls. “It’s that, or you die. Your call.”

Her mouth opens and closes, but no sound comes out. He can see her desperation to deny him—it’s written all over her harrowed face. She wants this as little as he does, and he hopes with everything he is that she will surrender to death. His chip might kill him if he lets her die, but death does not scare him.

Especially not when the alternative is her.

She stares at him for several shaky breaths, eyes flicking to his gun for several more. His heart drops to his gut when steely resolution settles over her pale features, lending her the illusion of her former strength.

“If… If that’s what it takes. Do it.”

Without another look at him, she turns on the bed, presenting him with her naked back. Her left hand is still pressed against her wound, her right clutching the stained bedding.

AX2 lets out a low breath, the relief when his chip no longer fires conflicting orders at him nearly enough to drown out the anger boiling his bones.

Nearly.

This damnable woman—this cruel cunt—has taken everything from him, and now, she demands this too? His fucking claim? She, who doesn’t even see him as human?

But of course. To her, he is nothing but a weapon, a tool. Something to be used. Only this time… This time, he gets to use her too.

He kneels on the bed and grabs her hair, yanking her up higher on her knees before he pushes her forward, forcing her to brace against the bed on both elbows. She’s stiff in his grasp, every muscle in her shaking body tensed to the point of snapping, and when he lifts a knee to spread her thighs apart, she whimpers.

But she doesn’t fight him.

His breath is labored as he pulls back to free his cock, anger hardening his body in place of any real desire for what lies ahead. He has fantasized about hurting her countless times, about breaking her body apart until her heart stops beating, but never like this.

The realization makes him pause as his gaze slides over her back and hips, covered in purple bruises from where she’s been used before.

It shouldn’t matter—he gets to hurt her now, like she has him so many times before. Fuck, she’s even commanded him to.

Only it’s… not the same.

It doesn’t matter. Only her pain should matter.

It is the only thing that matters.

He bares his teeth and grabs her by the scruff again, pushing her face into the dirty mattress. His free hand he places between her barely parted thighs, pressing up against her pussy to spread her. Her skin is cold.

She jolts against his touch, twitching as if she wants to close her legs, but she doesn’t. She stays put, even as her quiet sobs make her tremble.

She is dry. Dry and tight, and the stench of the other alpha soaks the sheets and her marred skin. When he brushes over something crusty, she yelps and jerks hard.

AX2 glances down. Powdery blood dusts his fingertips. The scab he has unwittingly rubbed against bleeds a little, coloring a thin strip of her pink flesh scarlet. It isn’t the only wound there—maybe half a dozen minor tears are scabbed over around her opening.

His heart gives an odd sort of thump low in his chest at the proof of what, exactly, has been done to her. It should bring him joy—to know that his tormentor found someone even more monstrous than she is.

It doesn’t.

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