Chapter 5

Chapter 5
Nyra
I can’t feel my hands. That’s the first thing I notice when I reach the elevator. My fingertips are numb, nerves shot clean through, as if the heat that drenched me down there hasn’t burned out of my system yet. He’s still on my skin. Every breath I take carries the phantom of his scent. Every blink recalls those golden eyes that were so still, silent...starving. I can’t scrape him out of me. I can’t think around him.

I jab the elevator button harder than necessary, my badge trembling in my hand. Nothing happens. For a second, I wonder if I hallucinated it all, if the door never opened, if the cloth never lifted, if the eyes weren’t real. But my body knows better. My body is betraying me.

Upstairs, I move like I’m submerged. The sterile lights of Level 1 seem too bright, too sharp. My limbs feel heavy, like they belong to someone else, someone sedated and dazed. Every movement takes more effort than it should. I’m barely present. As if the person who went down there isn’t the one who came back up. I return my cart, wash my hands, again and again. In the mirror above the sink, I look like something unfinished, faded, damp. Like someone tried to scrub me out of the world and gave up halfway.

Jana walks in, heading for her locker. Her collar is fixed tonight. No visible bruises. But her eyes pause on me for just a second too long.

“You okay?” she asks, careful. Not concerned, just cautious.

“Fine,” I lie.

She nods, already moving past me. That’s how it works here. Nobody pries. Nobody pushes. That’s the trade: You leave me alone, I don’t ruin your silence.

The last hour leaks by, thick and heavy, like time’s forgotten how to move. I change clothes in a locker room that suddenly feels two sizes smaller. The metal benches squeal under the weight of my still-shaking limbs. I swipe out at the back gate and walk the concrete hallway to the dorm wing, the place that used to feel like a shield. Now it feels like a trap. I shower with the water turned up too hot. Let it sting my skin raw. Let it beat against the back of my neck until I’m certain it’s taking something with it. It doesn’t. His scent clings beneath the soap. Even the water knows what I’ve done.

By midnight, I’ve dried my hair twice, changed my sheets, made tea and watched it go cold, rearranged the drawer of socks that only has three pairs in it, flipped through a book without registering a single word. Sleep won’t come. He won’t leave me. My legs twitch under the blanket like they’ve been caught mid-run.

My fingers won’t stop brushing the skin at my throat, as if something should be resting there.
Something warm.
Something heavy.
Something his.

I turn onto my side. Then my stomach. Then my back again. It’s not rest I need, it’s relief. I give in around 2:00 a.m. Push the covers down, let my thighs fall open. My hand moves like it has a mind of its own. I don’t hesitate. My fingers slide between slick skin and soft sheets, and I gasp. That sharp, electric ache, it’s already there. When I whisper his name, Rane, the syllable slinks across my tongue. Thick, sticky, forbidden. Saying it feels like a crime, but it makes my pulse race anyway.I work myself harder. Deeper. Trying to drown in the heat of him. The memory of gold eyes and the soundless thunder that shook the floor. I chase it, hips grinding into my palm, breath rasping through clenched teeth. And then, I lose it. The scent is gone. The echo fades. And just like that, the edge pulls away, cruel and sudden. My body flinches. The pleasure stutters and collapses, too hollow to crest.

I groan in frustration, ripping the blanket aside. My thighs are damp, my chest heaves. It’s not enough.

Barefoot and flushed, I pull on leggings and a hoodie. The tea is still on the counter, untouched. I dump it in the sink, the clatter of ceramic breaking the silence like a slap. I shouldn’t go back. But my hand’s already reaching for my badge. The night guard doesn’t glance up when I re-enter Redveil. He assumes I forgot something. We’re ghosts to each other in this place and he never looks directly at anyone. No one asks questions here, that’s part of the design.

I head to the service stairwell instead of the elevator. Floor by floor. My feet whisper over steel steps. The deeper I go, the thicker the air becomes, like every level beneath the surface presses closer to the skin. The walls hum. Pipes twitch. The lights dim. It’s not just silence down here. It’s waiting. By the time I reach Sublevel 2, my breathing has gone shallow. My chest is tight.

But I don’t stop. Not yet.
I keep going.
Down.
Down.
Deeper.

The stairwell ends at a heavy door. No keypad. Just a manual handle and reinforced steel. I know better than to try it. Sublevel 3. Where the last of the truly dangerous ones are kept. Or so they say.

I slide down the wall, perch on the last step, and breathe him in. His scent is faint through the walls and door. Masked by chemicals and vents but it lingers. Clings to the corners of the space like memory. And my body reacts like he’s right beside me. I shouldn’t, I know that. But my thighs part before I can stop them.

My hand moves again. Slower this time. No pretense, no guilt, just need. My fingers find slick heat and start to circle, and I press the back of my head to the wall. The cold stone makes me shiver. The sensation only sharpens everything. He’s not here next to me, but he might as well be. The scent of him curls around me like fog. I breathe it in like smoke. I picture the reinforced glass. The sight I barely saw. The eyes that never blinked. And I imagine him behind that door now; collared, growling, his body stretched to the breaking point with no outlet, no release. I pant harder, thighs trembling, the coil inside me winding tighter and tighter. I need...and then it happens.

A growl.
Low.
Close.
Real.

It rolls through the sealed door in front of me, rough and raw and intimate. Possessive. Male. His.

It rips the orgasm out of me like a command. My body locks. I come so hard I nearly cry. Hips jerking, thighs clamping around my hand, one shaking palm pressed to my mouth to smother the sob that tears loose anyway. It doesn’t stop. I ride it out with my breath gone, vision blackened, muscles seizing and releasing in wave after wave of pleasure so sharp it hurts. And when it’s done, when I blink and taste the copper of my own bite on my lip, I run.