Page 16

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHARLOTTE

J orge’s hand wrapped around mine, pulling me through the chaos behind the scenes of the Convergence Games. I didn't mind the manhandling in the slightest. Not when I was doing my own version of it to him.

I couldn’t stop touching him. My fingers curled tighter around his, the occasional brush of my arm against his. He felt so different.

Harder. Stronger. But not just in the way his body had filled out with his lean muscle, honed into something lethal.

Jorge had always been pliable when we were young. Soft where I was sharp. Yielding where I was unmovable. He had been the boy who bent beneath the weight of expectation, who never resisted when pushed, who absorbed every blow life threw at him and kept going.

But now…

Now when I touched him, I felt no give beneath my fingers. His body was no longer something that could be shaped by the world around him. It had been sculpted by battle, by survival, by his own will.

No, Jorge wouldn’t bend anymore. And gods help me, that thrilled me.

Heat coiled in my stomach. This was the same boy who used to kneel at my feet, who once followed me with wide, reverent eyes, who never resisted when I pulled him into a dark place and made him kiss every part of my body. Now there was steel in him, literally.

I had never liked the enhancements that warriors brought into the Games. Prosthetics made of gleaming steel and arcane tech, turning flesh into something unnatural. It had always unsettled me, likely because I was a fairy, and we had our prejudices against metals.

And yet Jorge’s fingers wrapped around mine with such familiar precision that if I closed my eyes, I wouldn’t have known the difference.

It felt like him.

Because it was him .

I ran my thumb over his knuckles, expecting cold metal, expecting that jarring difference between man and machine. There was warmth pulsing beneath the surface like a heartbeat. His fingers tightened ever so slightly, responding to my touch the way they always had.

The lean muscle in his arms was nothing like the bulky builds of the warriors surrounding us. Jorge’s muscles were deliberate, honed with precision, as though his body had been carved from steel and tempered in fire.

They'd found his name in the records and officially welcomed him as a return competitor. The Games were over for the night, and we were sent with the other survivors to the warriors’ quarters.

Jorge's gait as we walked through what could only be described as a small village was confident, his stride long and purposeful, as though each step declared his place in this space. His clothes were finer than anything he’d ever worn back home, tailored to fit his frame.

I couldn’t stop staring at the stubble on his jaw. He’d never had stubble before. It suited him—too well.

If I hadn’t known the feel of him down to my very bones, I might have thought this was someone else entirely.

The way people looked at him only added to the dissonance. Guards moved out of our path with a snap of respect, their heads bowing in deference. A murmur followed us, rippling through the crowd. I caught the word “Commander” more than once.

He swept us into one of the cabins, closing the heavy door behind us. A large bed draped in rich fabrics dominated one corner. A sitting area was tucked by an unlit fireplace. I spied the glint of a marble-tiled bathing room beyond.

Before I could marvel—or demand answers—Jorge turned, his expression dark and thunderous.

“What were you thinking?”

I stumbled back a step, my mouth opening and closing like a fish as I tried to process his anger. Jorge had never raised his voice at me before. Never.

His hand was at my throat, the prosthetic one. His chest pressed against mine. His eyes were fire.

My brain fizzled. He was yelling at me, and all I wanted to do was kiss him. No, I wanted to push him down on the bed, sit on his face, and have him yell into my core. Oh, I was wet thinking about it.

But I knew I couldn't move his hand. He had me pinned. At his mercy. I pressed my thighs together and got no relief.

"I came to find you."

His jaw worked. He looked at my mouth, my lips. His nostrils flared.

I leaned forward, trying to capture his lips. He held me in place. I didn't like that. I didn't like not being able to have him.

"You shouldn't be here," he said.

That made no sense. He was here. I was supposed to be wherever he was.

"You were supposed to be at the summer castle," he continued.

"How do you know that?"

"Because I suggested it to him."

I stopped struggling. Jorge let me go. He paced away from me.

It gave me a look at his tight ass. And his stride.

His thighs had never been that thick, that strong.

His shoulder blades were bigger. It was like he had been rebuilt to my every fantasy.

I hadn't known I wanted him this way until he was standing in front of me with so much power coming from him.

"Wait. You suggested what to who?"

“Do you even understand what you’ve done?

” His voice cracked like a whip, his dark eyes burning as he stopped just short of me.

His chest rose and fell with the force of his breaths.

He was so close, so overwhelming. “You threw yourself into the Convergence Games like you were invincible. Like your life was expendable. You could have died! Do you know what it’s like to look up at the crystal viewer and see you in the lineup, knowing exactly what those games are designed to do? Knowing what they could do to you? ”

There was a lot to unpack there, but there was only one thing that I truly wanted to know. "Where were you?"

"Where was I? I was where you were supposed to be today."

"I was supposed to be meeting the Beast Prince."

"Correct."

He'd said he knew I was going to be at the summer castle, that he had suggested it to him . "You were with the Beast Prince?"

Jorge threw aside his cape to reveal the insignia of the Solmane army. I wasn't one to understand medals, but he had a lot of them. Once again, I heard the term commander in my head.

"You're in the army?"

"After I survived the games, they gave me a choice. Return to the competition or become a conscript. If I played again and won in the next games, I could have my freedom. Winning was a gamble. Joining the army put me closer to where I knew you would be."

"You could've died."

"Then I would've figured out how to haunt you. There's nothing I wouldn't do to get close to you."

"You fought trolls?"

"I did. I made my way up the ranks and got closer and closer to the prince."

"Commander? "

"Second in command. Prince Adom's most trusted warrior. I was at his side today when he came to… meet you. Instead, I found an imposter in your place."

"Belle. Poor thing."

"I think he's quite taken with her."

I reached for Jorge's hand, the prosthetic one. "Is that where you got this?"

"I made it myself. No iron."

"I wouldn't care if it was iron. I'd burn for you."

"Fuck, Charlotte," he sighed, closing his prosthetic fingers around mine.

"Yes. I want you to do exactly that. I want you to fuck me."

The feel of his real fingers wrapped tightly around mine was the last memory I had of him. I didn't let go, even after they severed his hand. They had to pry it away from me.

There was no one to disentangle him from me now. I flung myself at him. He was caught off guard, but he caught me.

I captured his lips, and he let me.

I drank him down, and he let me.

I bit his lip, and he let me.

He was Jorge. He was mine. And I had him back.