Page 144 of Scavenger's Oath

She’s right. The others wouldn’t hold back. I’ll try.

The crowd on the scaffolds screams at us to get moving. One of them throws a leather strap at my feet, shouting for me to whip her. Another slams a metal pipe against the fence, the clang echoing through my skull.

“Make it good!”

“Don’t be shy, sweetheart. Spread those legs. You’re about to be famous.”

My fists ball at my sides as my skin crawls, the haze falling over my senses again. My breath comes in hot puffs, like a bull ready to charge.

Sasha looks at me with a softness I don’t deserve. “Zane,” she whispers, forcing a tiny smile. “It’s okay. I know you have to. They’ll punish us both if you don’t,” she reassures, voice hoarse as she reaches for me.

But her voice doesn’t reach me anymore. “Don’t touch me,” I growl, catching her wrist before it lands on my scarred arm, twisting it behind her back.

Fragile bones shift under my grip as her cry makes my cock jump like I’ve been starved for the sound.

We hit the ground hard as I tackle her to the mat. The crowd explodes, jeers and laughter blur into static. They want the brutality. The violence.

“Let’s go, boy!”

“Rip off her clothes!”

Their voices pump through me like a second heartbeat, each shout tightening the vise already crushing my chest. My hips twitch forward on instinct, hungry to perform.

My vision blurs as the monster overtakes me. Raw, hard movements, hands gripping hair, pinning her down as she fights me instinctively. The only foreplay is the wrestle as I tear at her clothes.

Maybe she should’ve run while she had the chance.

A red haze begins to cloud my mind, and I struggle to stay in control. To not hurt her too badly, just to keep them satisfied. Appease the audience.

But she’s working with me, faking trying to get away from me, scrambling on her front as I strip her.

At least I hope she’s faking… her screams, the fear in her eyes—it’s too real.

Straddling her legs easily, I keep a firm hand on the back of her neck to keep her still. Her pulse hammers under my palm, the vibration running through my hand and straight down my spine.

My vision narrows as my conditioning takes over. The crowd cheers at the way I pin her, but it’s my cock that betrays me, swollen from the power, even as my gut twists with shame.

She sobs loudly as I pull out my cock and line up, her teeth clacking together when I slam into her.

The crowd’s roar turns deafening. They’re chanting something, but it’s all just noise. My pulse drums in my ears, hot and hammering, until it feels like I’m vibrating with the Pit.

Every thrust grinds my pelvis against hers, the friction blistering but impossible to stop. My body lunges for the rhythm like it remembers what my head wants to forget.

Time fractures and the vision before me shifts.

Suddenly I have my foot pinning her head to the mat and a leather strap in my hand, whipping her back as I pound into her. Sasha digs her fingers into the mat, screaming and crying loudly with a battery powered torch stuck in her asshole, my own hand curled around the end.

My movements stutter and I throw the strap aside, pulling the torch out as gently as I can.

Then an idea pops into my head. It’s a risk, but it could get her out of the Pit for at least ten months if I succeed.

If she’s carrying a Berserker’s child, they won’t touch her.

Our bodies collide again and again, sweat and blood smearing the mat under us. The crowd grows louder as she does, relishing the sounds of her struggle.

I finish inside her like an animal—until there’s nothing left to give. Then collapse over her and for a second… we’re breathing the same air again and not surrounded by crowds of depraved, war-hungry men.

My thighs tremble with the force of it, muscles spent. Sweat trickles down my spine, slick between my shoulder blades, itching where I can’t reach. It drips onto her marked back, her hair sticking damp to my chest, strands glued by sweat and blood.