Page 154 of Blood & Throttle

He stills, brows lifting just slightly, and I see that flicker of something in his eyes—surprise, maybe. Respect. Maybe both. “You sure?”

I nod without hesitation. There’s no joke in my voice now, no sass on my tongue, just a strange kind of certainty settling inmy chest like ash after a fire. I don’t need to talk myself into this. Because this is more than ink. This is trust. Mine, in him.

I trust him enough to scar me.

He doesn’t say anything else just gives a short nod, like he understands exactly what it means. He strips off his gloves, replaces them with a fresh pair, then grabs a clean rag and antiseptic. His hands are steady. He’s so calm, but I can see the tension in his shoulders, the way his jaw flexes as he works. He knows what this means too.

I push down the waistband of my sweats, just enough to bare the sharp curve of my left hip bone. The spot he always grabs when he yanks me close. It feels right, branding myself where his hands always go. I sit back on the bench, lean into the cool leather, and stare up at the ceiling as the needle buzzes to life.

The pain hits fast. Sharp. Burning.

I grit my teeth, but I don’t flinch. I welcome it, let it crawl beneath my skin and twist through my nerves. It feels like something being burned out of me, something else being carved in its place. My thoughts drift—through the ache, through the buzz of the needle and the metallic tang of blood in the air.

I try to imagine this shop as it used to be. Full of music and laughter and people who weren’t waiting to die every time they left a room. Sammy, her boyfriend, a life that vanished when the Verge went dark. Riot sitting in this same chair when he was younger, getting his first ink while everything was still almost normal. I wonder what he was like back then. Not softer, no. He’s not built for soft. But maybe there was a version of him that smiled easier. Who didn’t wake up with blood on his knuckles and guilt stitched into his ribs.

I wonder what it would’ve been like, had I met thatversion of him. Or what version of myself I would have been had Riot Carter been in my life before the world as we knew it ended.

I almost wish I’d seen them.Us.

The buzzing stops.

I blink, still a little dazed, as he wipes the fresh tattoo clean. His brows are furrowed with focus, lips set in a hard line, but there’s something else there too, something flickering behind his expression like a flame trying to decide whether to consume or protect.

“What’s it say?” I ask, still catching my breath, still bleeding a little.

He doesn’t answer.

So I sit up, look down and freeze.

I sit up, muscles tight, breath catching from the sting still crawling across my skin. He wipes the fresh ink clean, and I glance down, expecting to see something cocky. Something likeRIOTcarved in his usual chaotic scrawl—loud, possessive, and impossible to ignore.

But what I see makes me blink.

CARTER.

I furrow my brows, an incredulous laugh slipping out as I tilt my head. “Carter? Really? Since when are you the formal type?”

His lips curl around a half-smirk, but his eyes—those lethal, storm-dark eyes—don’t waver. He rolls his stool up closer in front of me, one hand braced on my thigh, the other smoothing over the skin just above the fresh mark like he’s already claiming it.

“Better get used to it, Little Stray,” he murmurs. “Because I plan on making it your last name too.”

My breath stutters.

His voice is low, rough, wrecked with certainty. Not a joke. Not a tease. A promise.

That name on my skin? That wasn’t a flex.

It was avow.

Something real, raw and impossible to unfeel once it’s said aloud.

The weight of it presses into my chest, but it’s not heavy in a bad way. It settles like something I didn’t realize I needed, something solid in a world where nothing ever stays.

I stare at him, heartbeat ragged. “You proposing mid-apocalypse now?”

“Not yet.” He smirks, thumb brushing over the edge of the tattoo. “Gotta get you across that finish line first.”

“And then what?” I ask quietly, almost afraid to believe it.