Page 48 of Lustling

The question hangs between us, raw and uncertain, already echoing with rejection he doesn’t yet understand.

I don’t answer. I leave him there. Still half-hard. Still hoping. Still human.

His pride crumples in on itself the way all fragile things do when exposed to too much truth.

I keep moving through the night, through more hands, more touches, more stolen moans. They all taste the same. Empty calories. No matter how much I take, it’s never enough. Not like they are. Not likeheis.

By the time I step back into the cool night air, I’m still wound up, restless, every nerve thrumming with tension. My heels click on the pavement like gunshots. The hunger is quieter now, but not gone. It won’t be gone until I go back.

Home. To them. To him.

To Deimos.

TWENTY-THREE

It’s not about her.

That’s the first lie. A sharp-edged thing I carve into myself as I down another mouthful of whiskey and let it scorch my throat raw. The burn isn’t satisfying. It’s not even distracting. It’s acid compared to the taste she left on my tongue—blood-warm and honey-slick, like silk dipped in sin. I’d tell myself it didn’t linger. That I didn’t wake up tangled in sheets that still smelled like her. But that would be a second lie.

It’s not about Lillien.

Not about the way her dress clung to her like it had been sewn by wicked hands just to tempt me. Not the way her eyes lit with bloodlust while she fed, her lips stretched around some lowlife’s cock like she was starving and he was the last warm thing left in the world.

This is about something else.

About control. About hunger sharpened into weaponry. About reclaiming whatever part of myself slipped through my fingers the second she moaned for someone else.

This is about reminding myself who the fuck I am.

I lean against the bar, letting the smoke and neon swallow me whole. The club is loud—bass throbbing like a pulse undercracked floors, bodies grinding in drunken choreography. It smells like cheap sex and cheaper spirits. Desperation dressed up in perfume and glitter, pretending to be something worth worshipping.

They’re all playing a part. Pretending at pleasure. Pretending they’ve ever bled for it. That they’ve everburnedfor it.

But I can work with that.

It doesn’t take long to find two.

A brunette, lips over-painted and eyes glazed with drink. Her smile is all teeth and false bravado. The blonde beside her is all glitter and giggles, her dress riding high on her thighs, already dreaming of the story she’ll tell if she survives the night.

They’re beautiful. In a forgettable kind of way.

Perfect.

I don’t ask. I don’t flirt. I don’t even speak. I justlook. And they come. Like they’ve been waiting to be ruined.

Ten minutes later, they’re in my house. My shadows. My silence.

Bastion’s sprawled on the couch when I walk in, shirtless, knuckles bruised, a half-dried smear of blood on his jaw. He lifts his eyes lazily as I step inside, the girls trailing behind me like prey already half-claimed.

He grins, sharp and slow. “Bringing home a whole buffet tonight, are we?”

There’s a crack just under my sternum. That tight, raw pull behind my ribs.

“She went out and fucked someone,” I mutter, teeth grinding. “So I can too.”

It’s too raw. Too fast. Tootrue.

Bastion raises a brow, and I see the amusement flicker in his eyes before his grin sharpens into something colder. “Didn’t realize this was a competition,” he says lightly.