Chapter 375: DON’T TOUCH ME.

I pushed the door and it gave without any resistance at all.

The room had no light in it. I stepped inside and heard her before I saw anything — a sob, and under it the sound of a bed frame moving against stone, small and repeated, metal shifting a fraction and coming back.

The air was cooler than the corridor. It carried the thin mineral smell of the basement and something under it that was warmer and closer.

I pushed the door close. The latch clicked soft.

"Hey."

The sobbing climbed. Short. Wet. The frame jumped once against the floor and settled.

She was on the bed. I could hear that much, the scrape of skin on sheet, the broken rhythm of breath that kept failing halfway out.

"I heard you from the corridor. I came to see if you were all right."

Please. Please help me.

I’m on fire.

The thoughts came through clean.

"Sophia."

My hand went out along the wall, found the switch, and pushed it.

The dark went.

She was roped to the frame. Wrists tied above her head to the corners of the headboard, ankles tied at the foot, naked on her back with everything pulled tight enough that she couldn’t turn, couldn’t curl, couldn’t close her legs.

Pale skin against the thin mattress. Dark hair spread on the sheet. The full length of her stretched and held — breasts rising hard with each breath, stomach hollow, the soft open line between her thighs exposed and working against the restraint as if her body had forgotten the rope was there.

She was fighting it hard. That was what had been moving the bed — the whole frame shifting on the stone with every pull, legs lifting as far as the rope allowed and slamming back down. The rope had left raw ground-in marks at both wrists.

"Hey."

Her fangs were out. White against the open mouth. She had her head turned as far as the angle allowed and she was trying to reach her own shoulder with her teeth and couldn’t close the last inch of it — the rope holding her wrist just short of the bite she needed.

She asked for this.

Monica tied the knots and walked out, and nobody locked the door behind her, because the woman left in here can’t get up to reach it.

I came toward the bed and the fighting got worse. She threw her hips and the whole frame jumped and came close to going over on one side. The headboard knocked the wall. A sound left her that wasn’t a word.

Blood.

Clear as a voice. Hot against the inside of my hearing.

"Sophia. Relax."

I put my hand out toward her shoulder and her head came round so fast the rope sang. Her teeth closed on the air where my hand had been — a snap, clean, the sound of something that would have opened skin if I’d been half a second slower.

I took it back.

"Get. Out." She got both words out separately, each one costing her something. The fangs stayed down. Her eyes were dark enough that the white of them looked wrong under the bulb.

"I’m here to help you."

I stayed standing where I was. Close enough to see the tremor running through her thighs. Far enough that the next snap of her teeth would meet nothing.

You have no idea what you’re doing, kid.

Her face didn’t bother hiding any of it. Colour high. Mouth open. The veins under the pale skin of her throat standing darker than they should have been, then fading, then standing again.

You have a dick and you have fresh blood in it. You’re—

"I’m here to help you," I said again. "Just breathe. Relax."

She closed her eyes.

And stopped fighting.

I watched what it cost her to do it. Her legs kept going, small and constant against the rope — the muscles jumping, the ankles pulling, the soft flesh of her inner thighs flexing and failing. Her shoulders worked against the headboard. Everything under the skin still moving while she held the outside of herself still by force, the way someone holds a door closed against a crowd.

That was how far they were prepared to go, a bare room, and a friend who tied the knots and walked out. All of it to reach one day.

The fangs went back. Slow. The points of them disappearing behind her lips. The veins under her skin faded out and left her face looking like a face again.

"Sophia."

She didn’t answer.

"Sophia."

I moved my hand toward her shoulder and her eyes opened.

"DON’T TOUCH ME."

It came out as an order and it stopped my hand where it was. Mid-air. The heat of her skin close enough to feel without contact.

"I’m not." I put it back at my side. "Is there anything you need?"

Just get the fuck out.

She looked up at me, and she was all the way back now. Whatever had been in that bed a minute ago had gone and left Sophia Vale in it.

"Call Monica for me." Level. Controlled. The exact voice she’d used behind a desk at School Central. "Now, please."

[ She’s found her way back on top of it. ]

So I missed it.

[ Touch her and it returns. ]

[ We may not get this again. ]

No.

[ Abram— ]

I said no.

"Why are you standing there staring at me?" Sophia said. "Go and get Monica."

My eyes stayed on her.

She was one of two reasons I was still standing inside this prison when I could have walked out of it. Ingrid had put the door in my hand and I’d given it back — for this, for her, and for the woman in the next room who was asleep.

The light sat on the full heavy curve of her breasts. On the open line of her stomach. On the gap between her legs where the rope had left her no way to close.

"They’ve tied you open. Do you want me to cut you loose?"

Her jaw set. A muscle jumped once under the pale skin.

[ That won’t work. Touch her. ]

She said ’don’t touch me’.

[ This isn’t the moment to become holy Bram. You have done considerably worse than this. ]

This boy has watched me with my fangs out. Sophia’s thought, coming up through everything else, sharp and clean. He’s seen exactly what I am and he’s standing there looking at my cunt.

A creep. An actual creep.

He will not be breathing when I come off this bed.

My palm was on her stomach before I’d decided to put it there.

Hot. Soft. The muscle under the skin jumped hard against my hand and her whole body tried to follow it — spine curling, hips lifting, the ropes catching her halfway and jerking her flat again with a sound of wood and strain. A broken noise left her throat.

"Why did you—"

She didn’t finish. Her eyes had gone dark again. The control she’d put back on a minute ago cracked down the middle.

You’re going to need to save me now.

I pulled my hand back. The heat of her stayed on my palm.

"I told you not to touch me."

"Is everything okay?" I asked. "Is there anything I can—"

"This is going to sound insane."

She was staring at the ceiling, not at me — at the bare bulb, at the stone, at nothing that could answer her. Her wrists pulled once against the rope and stopped. A tremor ran the length of both thighs and didn’t settle.

"But I need you to fuck me. Please."