Page 26 of Forgotten (The Soulbound #1)

Darkness presses in from all sides.

Not just the absence of light, but something deeper. A void. Vast and unfeeling. I drift in it, weightless, untethered, nothing but consciousness unraveling in the silence of my own undoing.

It feels… familiar.

Not in the nostalgic way—no warmth, no comfort—but in a terrible way. The kind of familiarity that whispers of loss, of slipping through the cracks of existence. Of fading. Of vanishing into nothing but a breath of what I used to be.

I think I’m dying again.

Except… if I were dying, I wouldn’t feel this. I wouldn’t feel anything.

And I feel something.

Hands.

Warm. Real.

They slide over my skin—fingertips tracing my arm, skimming the curve of my shoulder, ghosting down my spine. Another, rougher set, settles firm against my waist, pulling me closer. A third presses flat against my sternum, right where my heart should be beating. Heat spills from every point of contact, spreading through me, pushing back the void, pushing back the cold.

I let out a sharp breath. Or at least, I think I do. It feels real, but so does the nothingness swallowing me whole, and I don’t know what’s real anymore—

A voice cuts through the dark.

Murmurs my name.

Cassian.

He was dying…

But I hear him.

How is that possible?

His voice is rough, low, threaded with something raw beneath the usual detachment. Something almost furious. But not at me.

For me.

“You’re still here,” he mutters, like he needs to convince himself. His thumb brushes along my jaw, his grip tightening just a little—like he’s afraid I’ll slip away.

Another voice. Softer.

Nathaniel.

“Not enough,” he says. His touch follows Cassian’s, tracing down my side, dipping lower. “She’s not fully back.”

“She will be,” Talon says, his mouth so close to mine.

The words shouldn’t make my stomach twist the way they do. Shouldn’t send heat curling low in my belly, shouldn’t make my pulse stutter. But they do.

Because I’m not just feeling warmth now.

I’m feeling hunger.

And it's not only mine.

The four of us have been playing this game of push and pull from the beginning. Wanting without being able to touch. Reaching for something we could never have. And in chasing the impossible, we’ve kindled something deep inside each of us—something burning, something dangerous.

Now, with their hands on me, that fire flares. The energy of it coils between us, pulling me further from the abyss, and the realization crashes into me like a physical force.

They want me.

And I want them.

Nathaniel’s fingers skim lower, brushing over the curve of my hip. Cassian’s grip on my jaw tilts my head back, exposing my throat to the heat of his breath, the phantom brush of lips. Talon’s hands wrap around my wrists.

“Skye.” Cassian’s voice is rougher this time. Commanding. “Come back.”

I let out a shuddering exhale.

I have never been this aware of my body before. Not as a Grim Reaper. Not even when I was alive. I remember needing oxygen, the way my lungs would burn when I held my breath too long. This is the same. No, this is worse.

Them touching me is not just pleasure—it’s survival.

If I don’t have it—if I don’t have them—I will slip away, unraveling into nothing.

“Come on,” Talon murmurs. “Doesn't it feel good? It does, Little Grim. Just like before. Am I right?”

He is right. But I have no way of telling him. I am in the darkness after all. There's no light here. No eyes to see or no voice to speak. There's only the feeling of them. That's all my world consists of.

Nathaniel mutters something too low for me to hear, his voice dissolving into the void.

“Look at her,” Cassian breathes, his voice low and possessive. “She’s still caught between. We need to pull her back—”

Then Nathaniel again. A soft, considering hum. His head dips lower. His lips ghost over my throat, just a brush, a promise.

“We will,” he murmurs. “She’s already responding.”

I focus on his voice, the smooth undertone, the rasp fraying the edges—rough, ruined. Wrecked from screaming during the wraith’s attack. Wrecked and hungry.

It makes something deep inside me shudder. Makes me ache. Because he’s right. I am responding. My skin hums beneath their hands, every touch sinking into me like heat into ice, thawing me, pulling me back.

But it’s more than that. More than warmth.

It’s power .

This isn't just desire. It’s something deeper. It’s our connection. The thing they did to me when they carved out my bones? That connection is alive and calling to me.

And I want to answer.

Someone’s mouth crashes against mine.

I inhale sharply—not out of shock, not out of resistance, but because the second one of them kisses me, I exist. I feel real. I am real.

And gods, I want more.

A needy sound escapes me, embarrassing in its honesty, and the man that kisses me, takes—slowly and intentionally, like a man savoring his last meal. His tongue slides against mine, his teeth catching my lower lip with just enough bite to make me shiver. Liquid heat floods my veins, pooling low, setting me on fire from the inside out.

His grip tightens, fingers digging in, dragging me against him like he can force me back from the brink of oblivion through sheer brute strength alone.

It takes me a breathless moment to realize—it has to be Cassian.

Not because I see him that I know, but because I feel him. I know them. I could recognize their souls in the dark now.

Nathaniel’s lips find the side of my throat, teeth scraping over sensitive skin, and Talon shifts beside me—somewhere between Cassian and the nothingness at my feet.

But Cassian—yes, it’s definitely Cassian kissing me.

The man I saved.

And fuck—

The pleasure doesn’t just tether me to life. It chains me to them.

But I was already bound, wasn’t I? Already caught in their grip, their claim, their twisted, dark, inescapable hold. Three killers with fractured souls who carved their marks into my bones, who refused to let me disappear.

And I should hate them for it.

I don’t.

Not when it feels this good.

I clutch at them—desperate, frantic, drowning—my fingers fisting in Cassian’s shirt, my nails digging into Talon’s arm like I can hold myself together if I just grip hard enough.

Like if I keep myself wrapped around them, I won’t disappear.

Something warm and sticky pulses beneath my skin.

Blood.

From the car crash.

Right.

Cassian was dying, and I wrenched his soul back into his shattered body, forcing life where there should have been none.

And it must have worked.

Somehow, impossibly, he must have woken up fully healed.

I saved him.

But now, I’m the one fading.

And they know it.

They know it, and they refuse to let it happen.

Their bodies press in, solid, warm—alive—their heat chasing the creeping cold that still clings to my bones like death’s fingers. Three souls, wrapped around mine, caging me in, pulling me back.

Cassian devours my mouth.

Not a kiss. A claim. A demand. His fingers tangle in my hair, tugging, tilting my head back, his breath sharp against my lips as he takes and takes—stealing every inch of air from my lungs, replacing it with him.

I feel everything . Nathaniel’s hands roam lower, fingers teasing the sensitive skin beneath my shirt, knuckles grazing the soft undercurve of my breast.

I want to tell him to do it—to touch me there already. I want it. But I can't speak.

“Come back,” he murmurs, like he can hear the desperate chant looping through my mind. His voice is rough, urgent, laced with something that sounds dangerously close to pleading. “Come back to us, Little Grim.”

I want to.

I really, really fucking want to.

But I’m trapped here, caught in a cage without bars, without locks, without keys. The darkness is everywhere, stretching endlessly, swallowing me whole, holding me just out of reach. Close enough to want. Too far to have.

They tease me—fingers skating over my heated skin, lips ghosting against my throat, breathless words murmured into my ear—all without giving me what I need.

And then—

Something inside me snaps. Like a rubber band stretched too tight, like a high-voltage wire finally sparking, like my last ounce of self-control getting through straight into the abyss.

A sound escapes me—raw, shattered, somewhere between a moan and a gasp.

They hear it. And it’s all the permission they needed.

Nathaniel’s fingers finally find my breast. Talon’s hand slips under my waistband, his palm pressing lower—sliding, dipping, finding .

“That's it,” Talon breathes. His voice is a slow, sinful drawl, thick and dark and soaked in smug satisfaction. I missed that sound. His fingers press just enough to make my back arch, to force more of me into his hands.

“There you are, Skye,” Nathaniel rasps. “Feel it. Focus on the way it feels.”

Oh, I’m feeling it. I’m feeling it so hard my soul might just ascend—or descend—honestly, I don’t care where it goes as long as it doesn't stop.

My thighs betray me before my brain can stage an intervention, parting like the Red Sea, except there’s no Moses here, just three men who have absolutely no interest in leading me to salvation.

No, these heathens are here to ruin me.

Talon’s fingers dip into my pussy, moving in and out. Cassian bites my lip, a sharp, possessive tug that sends a violent shiver down my spine. Nathaniel pinches my nipple just right.

It’s too much and yet— fuck —it’s never enough.

I don’t know how my undead body can hold this much pleasure, how I’m not combusting into pure ash, but I don’t care. I will never fucking care again.

“More,” I whisper, my voice raw and wrecked, a single syllable that should be illegal in every single dimension.

And then I hear it. My own voice.

Wait.

I freeze. My throat. My lips. My fucking body.

I can speak.

The realization doesn’t just hit me—it dropkicks me through the ceiling of reality. Then—zap—another divine smite, right to my neurons.

My eyes are closed.

I am no longer in the void.

I am back. Back in the land of the living.

And holy shit.

Everything sharpens in an instant.

The heat.

The pleasure.

The weight of them pressing against me like they cannot live without me.

A whimper escapes before I can stop it—an undignified, pitiful little sound.

Don’t let go.

Because if they do, I might slip away again.

Nathaniel pinches my nipple again—harder this time. Just enough to sting, just enough to make me gasp.

“You feel that?” His voice is low, rough, and furious with relief.

And only now do I realize:

We are still at the crash site.

The car is upside down. Upside-fucking-down. A few feet away, smoke curls from its shattered remains like some kind of post-apocalyptic set piece. The night is still thick, still ominous, as if the wraith might respawn at any given moment.

Nathaniel is bleeding. From his temple. Blood streaks down the side of his face like war paint.

Talon? Bruised to hell.

Cassian? Absolutely drenched in blood, his chest on display, a fat scar where his injury was. He looks like he belongs in a blood-soaked Renaissance painting, but does he care? No. None of them do.

They are waiting. Staring at me.

They want an answer.

So I give them one.

“Yes,” I breathe, a tremor running through me. “Do you?”

Nathaniel doesn’t answer. He just watches me, unreadable, and then—

He kisses me. Hard. Deep. Possessive. His tongue slides against mine like he’s trying to brand me, make sure I know I’m alive.

But…

He didn’t answer.

I pull back, breathless, unsettled.

“Do you?” I ask again.

Silence.

Nathaniel just stares.

He still doesn’t reply.

Neither Talon nor Cassian react.

A sick sort of realization slithers up my spine

What had Talon called my touch before? Warm mist.

Oh. Oh no. Is that all I am to them right now? Some fleeting, whispery, half-there hallucination? A tragic little puff of steam dissipating before they can even cup their hands around it?

Because I’m drowning in them—in heat, in sensation, in the weight of their bodies pressing against mine. But are they drowning in me? Or am I just some erotic mirage, an apparition of lust, a moaning smoke they can’t really feel?

Does it even matter?

Because Talon’s fingers are still in my pussy. He might not feel me like he would a living, breathing woman, but I feel him just fine. I feel the heel of his palm against my pubic bone, the wetness slicking my thighs, the way his fingers move like they were personally trained in the forbidden scrolls of divine pleasure. I feel myself strung up and teetering on the edge, chasing a release I haven’t had in years.

I might regret this later.

Might.

His fingers curl just right, and my mouth parts before my brain can even attempt to establish control.

Guess that decision’s been made for me.

A broken, shattered moan rips from my throat, and when I turn to look at Talon—at those mismatched eyes that are now seared into my soul forever—I see a different kind of pleasure there.

Maybe he can’t feel me. But he can see me. And apparently, that’s more than enough.

He likes the view.

And just as that realization sinks in, the other two rejoin him, resuming their actions.

Cassian’s mouth is at my jaw, his breath fanning over my lips, his hand still buried in my hair. Nathaniel is playing with my nipples.

And together, they turn the feeling inside me into something uncontrollable.

I don’t know who groans first, but the moment one of them does, it’s over.

I rock my hips against Talon’s touch, grinding into his fingers like a woman possessed—pure, reckless desperation overriding anything that might have once been considered dignity.

“That's it, Little Grim,” he murmurs. “Take what you need.”

I do.

I move.

I press harder against his hand.

Nathaniel groans, low and wrecked.

“Gods, she’s so fucking—” He cuts himself off, his fingers digging into my thigh like he’s trying to personally confirm I’m still made of flesh and not some ethereal creature here to devour them whole. He spreads me wider—for Talon, for him, for all of them.

Cassian curses under his breath.

I shudder.

Talon’s fingers speed up, and I… fall .

Pleasure crashes through me, slamming into me like a wave, drowning me, flattening me into the astral plane where the only thing that exists is this. Them. This moment. My body locks up, my breath snags, and I shatter, crumbling like an ancient ruin finally giving in to the weight of time.

The world blurs. My vision goes white. I might actually be truly, irreversibly dead this time. Who’s to say?

Somewhere in the aftermath, I hear them breathing—rough, ragged, like wolves circling something fragile and trembling. Their hands linger, their bodies still pressed close, their hunger thrumming just beneath the surface.

And then Talon speaks.

Low. Hoarse.

Dark with something almost sinister.

“You’re back now,” he murmurs, dragging his fingers from between my thighs and up to my lips. “Aren’t you, Little Grim?”

I don’t answer.

I just part my lips.

And I taste.

His fingers slip past my tongue, and the entire world stops breathing.

Who knew warm mist would taste like this?