Page 23 of Untamed

I’ll find him. And when I do, there won’t be enough left of him to scrape off the ground.

Because no one...no one...hurts what’s mine and walks away alive.

My arms tighten around her without meaning to, my jaw grinding until my teeth ache.

Mine?No, what the fuck?She’s not yours.I remind myself.

I keep telling myself it’s because she’s family. This need to protect her isn’t stemmed from anything romantic. No one hurts someone from the Russo family and lives to talk about it. Not on my fucking watch.

Jordyn’s quiet whimper in her sleep pulls me from my internal musings. She shifts closer, and the rage boiling under my skin twists into something even worse—helplessness. Because no amount of blood spilled will bring her parents back. No amount of violence will erase the hollow carved into her chest. But I can make damn sure no one else ever hurts her again.

The hours crawl past as I still there, the silver light of the moon stretching long shadows across my bedroom floor. The house is quiet, the world muted, as her soft, steady breaths fan against my neck.

It’s okay. It’s just for tonight. Just until she stops shaking. Just until she doesn’t need me anymore. But deep down, despite all the lies I try to convince myself, I already know the truth.

I’ll stay for as long as she needs me.

The first thing I register is the faint pull of sunlight against my closed eyelids. And then warmth. A soft blanket tangled around my legs. A pillow that smells unfamiliar, like musk and something darker underneath.

My head pounds, a dull ache pulsing behind my temples. My body feels heavy, weighted down by exhaustion, by something I can’t quite put my finger on. I blink slowly, trying to piece together where I am.

This isn’t my room.

The walls are too dark. The air too cold. The bed way too big.

I push myself upright, the blanket slipping off my shoulders, and my heart stutters hard against my ribs. I’m wearing a black hoodie. It’s not mine. It’s too big, swallowing my frame whole.

And then I smell it.Him.His scent is everywhere.

Panic fills me as I glance around the room, my throat tightening.

No sign of anyone. The chair in the corner sits empty. The door is closed. It’s like he was never here. The memories come back in pieces. The pool. The cold. The way my body gave up. Strong arms wrapping around me. A rough voice murmuring in my ear.

Ti ho presa, Bambina. Sei al sicuro.

That voice.

Ares.

For a second, it feels like I’m still dreaming. Like maybe none of it happened. Maybe I imagined it—him jumping into the pool and pulling me out, holding me through the shaking, whispering things in a language that made my chest ache without even understanding the words.

I bury my face in my hands, trying to breathe past the pounding in my chest.

Did he really stay? Did he really hold me like that? Or was it just some fever dream my broken mind conjured to survive the night? To dull the penetrating pang in my chest. I pull the sleeves of the hoodie down over my hands, the fabric heavy and comforting in a way it shouldn’t be. His scent clings to it, wrapping around me like a second skin. I bury my nose into it, breathing him in. The smell of chlorine still clings to my skin, and it makes my stomach lurch.

It feels real. Very real. But the empty room tells a different story.

Ares Russo doesn’t look like the type to hold broken and fragile girls through their nightmares. He doesn’t sit vigil all night in a chair, guarding someone like they matter.

I swallow hard when the ache in my chest becomes sharp and sour.

Maybe it’s better this way. Maybe it’s easier to pretend it didn’t happen at all. I swing my legs off the bed, my bare feet hitting the cold floor, and pull the hoodie tighter around me like armour. One step at a time. One breath at a time. Because whatever last night was—real or not, it doesn’t change the fact that I still have to survive today.

I sit at the edge of the bed, my eyes closed, a voice in my head screams at me to stay. Refuse to leave and curl up into a ball on his bed and forget the world outside of this room exists.

When is it going to stop hurting? When is this weight crushing my chest going to ease, because every breath I take feels like it’s killing me, slowly and painfully.

I don’t know what I’m supposed to do with myself. I feel like I’m trapped in limbo. Stuck between two universes with no clue where to go or how to escape.

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