Page 63 of Savage Captor (Deadly Devotion #1)

Greyson

A gony. I’ve known it before. It’s been a long-time friend of mine, but I’ve never quite felt it like this.

Every bone, muscle, and cell in my body screams with a pain that seems never ending.

Waves of it crash over me, sweeping me under every time I get a heartbeat’s reprieve.

I’m almost certain that I’m going to die, that it’ll never go away…

And then, lights. Flashing lights. I hear familiar voices— Cain, and the doc . A beeping monitor somewhere.

Only one thought is cemented in my mind, a snippet of clarity amidst the jumble of confusion: Scarlett. She fucking poisoned me. Left me for dead. I don’t know how I’m alive, but I need to find out. I have to wake up, and then I have to punish her.

I manage to force my eyes open with great effort, blinking against the blinding lights.

“Good morning, sleeping beauty.” I can’t see Cain’s face, but I see the outline of his body standing over me, and hear his voice clear as day. “Feeling well rested?” he asks drily.

“Where is she?” I rasp. Maybe he caught her. Maybe she’s still here—

“Long gone. She snatched your car keys and took off—the entire compound has been searched.” He pauses for a beat.

“You’ve been out for two days.” After a few blinks, I can make out Cain’s usually empty expression.

I’m on a bed—one of the cots in the medical wing.

A pesky machine is hooked up to me, and there are stickers connected to wires on my bare chest. Scarlett really did a number on me.

I try to sit up; fall right back down with a groan as pain shoots through my chest.

“Easy,” Cain says. “You’ll be recovering for about a week. Don’t give yourself a heart attack trying to move.”

“I have to find her.” She tried to kill me, and almost succeeded .

The urge to hunt, capture, and punish is all I can think about.

It consumes me. I want to strap her to my bed, chain her to it, and leave her there forever.

Use her as the toy I stupidly tried to avoid turning her into.

I told her I loved her, and she poisoned me .

“How am I alive?” I ask. Cain must’ve found me and given me the injection to reverse the effects of the oleander—

“Scarlett gave you the antidote,” Cain says slowly. “Don’t you remember?”

What? I remember pleading with her not to become a killer on my account. I remember begging her, I remember the emotional agony of her betrayal…

“No, she didn’t.”

“Yes, she did. When I found you, there was an empty syringe next to a vial of Digibind. The only known cure for oleander poisoning.” Cain lets out an empty chuckle. “That girl isn’t strong enough to be a killer.”

She didn’t leave me to die? She… she didn’t leave me to die. She told me the only way she’d let me live is if I agreed to let her go… and I refused with what I thought would be my final breath. And yet, she didn’t go through with it.

She still saved me .

“You’ll need a week to heal,” Cain says. “After that, what you do is up to you. I’d recommend killing the girl to make a statement, but—”

“ No ,” I snap. “No. She’s my chosen. She’s the one I’ve claimed, and the one I’ll fucking keep.” And, whether or not she saved me, she still gave me a lethal dose of a cruel poison. “I’ll find her. I’ll train her until she understands her place. She’s mine.”

Cain blinks slowly. A small, miniscule smile flits over her lips. “And here I thought you were against the claiming ritual.”

Maybe I was reluctant at first, but waking up in medical after my chosen poisoned me and escaped, after I nearly died and only her goodness saved me… it’s changed my mind.

She should’ve killed me. She should’ve let the poison do its work. Because now, nothing… nothing will save her from me.