Page 237 of Untamed

The shaking hasn’t stopped. Not then. Not now.

My body wouldn’t cooperate, wouldn’t let me breathe, wouldn’t let me move, wouldn’t let me look away from what’s left of the tiny, fearless creature who used to sleep curled under Ares’s arm like nothing in the world could hurt him.

Like he was safe.

And then the wall.

The message.One pet down. One lover to go.

Those words didn’t scream at me. They whispered. Cold. Deliberate. Already dry by the time I saw them, like whoever wrote them wasn’t rushed.

Like they took their time.

Like they stood in our room, killed our cat, and used his blood to carve a promise.

I feel it again, the nausea, rising sharp and sudden. The kind that doesn’t stop at your throat, the kind that crawls under your skin and rots everything warm.

I remember the moment Ares dropped beside me.

The way his arms locked around me like iron, pulling me in, trying to hold me together when all I could do was fall apart.

“Don’t look at it.” He whispered. But it was too late. I already did.

And I couldn’t look away.

I buried my face in his chest, and the sound that tore out of me wasn’t even human. It was grief.Real, raw, ragged grief.

Ladro was just a kitten.

Just ours.

And now he’s gone, slaughtered because someone wanted me to be afraid.

To know they could get to me. Tous. And they did.

No locks can keep them out. No name can protect us. Not even Ares.

They wanted fear. And they got it. Because I’m not afraid of what they might do. I’m afraid of what they’re already planning.

I don’t know how long I’ve been lying here in the guest room.

The room is too quiet, too clean, too still. Like nothing in it knows what just happened. Like the sheets haven’t soaked in the scent of fear or the way I clung to Ares like I was about to unravel.

But I am unravelling. Being taken, watching Ares kill that man, then finding Ladro, it’s all pressing down on my chest, crushing me slowly.

I can’t stop shaking. Even now, curled beneath a blanket that isn’t mine in a bed that doesn’t feel safe anymore. I should be grateful they didn’t hurt me, at least not physically. But that’s not how this works, is it?

It wasn’t about hurting me.

It was about showing me or Ares they could. That they could get close enough that I feel their breath on the back of my neck.

Nicolai took me…he left that message… he wanted to break something inside me without touching a single bone. And he did. Piece by piece. Thought by thought.

The walls feel like they’re closing in. I try to breathe through it. Try to ground myself in the feel of the sheets, the weight of the blanket, the press of the mattress beneath me. But none of it feels real. I don’t feel real.

He could’ve killed me. He didn’t.

He let me go. Why?

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