Page 39 of The Breeding Cave

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

YEOSIN

The fire crackled in front of me. I pulled the blanket further around my shoulders and curled up next to it. While I wasn’t in that nightmare any longer, my body still burned, especially my mark. I didn’t know what to think, what to do.

“Do you think it’s the Colossals?” Brent whispered to Luciano.

Luciano and Brent stood at the edge of the cave, speaking quietly to each other, but I could hear them crystal clear. I gently brushed my fingers against the bite marks that Luciano had given me earlier.

My body had gone through so many transformations over the course of the last few weeks, but this was definitely the biggest one. If I focused hard enough, I could hear the forest noises from miles away.

“The nightmares?” Luciano growled, canines lengthened. “No.”

The Colossals must’ve been what that giant monster was earlier, who had paid me a visit in the cave, the one who had saved me from that monster who, if I was putting this together correctly, must’ve been Alf. Luciano and Brent had been talking about Alpha Alf too.

“Who are the Colossals?” I asked.

Whoever the hell they were … I didn’t know if they were enemies or allies. That woman earlier had saved me, yes, but … I couldn’t shake the feeling that she had secretly wanted me dead. And for Ruby to show up in my dream as an enemy?

“Nobody,” Luciano snarled, snapping his gaze to me. “You should be resting.”

“No,” I said, standing. “I want to know what’s happening. They’re torturing me.”

“It’s too dangerous for you,” Luciano said.

I crossed my arms. “No, it’s not.”

“Rest,” he snarled. “Or I will send you to the mountain where I sent Molly.”

After marching over to him, I poked him hard in the chest. Sure, he was always possessive and controlling, but ever since he had bitten me, it seemed to be knocked up a few notches. I didn’t know if I thought it was the hottest thing or if it pissed me the fuck off more.

“I thought you said that she wasn’t fit to watch me,” I said.

“She isn’t the only person living in the mountains. There—actually, you know what?” The moonlight bounced off Luciano’s sculpted face. “That’s the perfect fucking place for you. The dragons will never find you.”

“Then you won’t see me either,” I said.

He clenched his chiseled jaw. “I won’t.”

“Is that what you want?”

“Of course not,” he growled. “I want you alive .”

We glared at each other for a few more minutes, and my gaze drifted to his lips.

Control yourself, Yeosin! I am supposed to hate him right now. I should not want to fuck him, especially in front of Brent.

“Should I leave?” Brent asked, hiking his thumb back. “Are you going to hate fuck again?” He waved his arms in the air. “Because that is not something I would like to see for a second time today.”

“No,” Luciano and I both said at the same time.

But his gaze dropped to my lips, and that gleam returned to his eyes.

“You sure?” Brent said, stepping back. “Because?—”

“The Colossals can’t mind-control a human,” Luciano said, pulling his gaze away.

“You marked her, and then they showed up in her nightmare,” Brent said.

“How does that explain the burns on her body from her first nightmare?”

“All I’m saying is, it’s suspicious,” he said. “And she might’ve gotten burns in her first nightmare, but Molly and Ella didn’t say anything about her body igniting on fire. If it had, your sheets would’ve been burned.”

I tugged the blanket tighter and turned around to put distance between us because what the fuck was going on with me? Luciano didn’t need me to be a horny mess right now, and he really didn’t need to wake up nightly to my nightmares. Honestly, I wasn’t sure why he didn’t just dump me off for Ruby.

Because he loves me.

The thought crossed my mind, but I pushed it away. He couldn’t. He had said he didn’t.

After sitting back down next to the fire, I stared into it and saw my nightmare in the flames. The fire licked my toes, and I inched them closer to stay warm. The pain in my dreams had always been worse than the pain of fire in real life—at least as of lately.

It was a sick illusion. My mind was playing tricks on me, or maybe I was becoming numb to the pain in real life. The fire didn’t hurt me the way that it did in my dreams.

“Get your toes away from the fire,” Luciano growled. “Are you fucking crazy?”

But I didn’t move them away.

Within the flames, I saw that barren field. I saw the ash. I saw the burned bodies of beasts, just like Luciano. I could smell the horror, the blood, the rotting bodies. Within the flames, I could see the future.

“They won’t get away with this,” I whispered, tears burning my eyes. “I refuse.”

If I hated Alvin before, I really loathed him now. I wanted to see every single one of them in his stupid little clan dead. Burned to ashes themselves. Body parts littering the forest. All while torturing him with my two hands.

“So, what do you want me to do with Alpha Alf?” Brent asked, peering outside the cave.

“Let me do it,” I said, standing up.

All I felt was pain, and I wanted him to feel it too. I wanted him to feel the fear run through his veins like I had felt when he rushed into the cave and tried to fuck me. I wanted him to fear for his life, to beg me not to touch him.

“Yeosin, you need to rest,” Luciano growled.

“No.” I walked over to Luciano and Brent, peering out into the forest. “Bring him to me. I want him to feel the pain, the fear that I did. I want to kill him myself.”