Chapter 99 The Black Flag
SERAPHINA
I couldn’t move
Not because I was frozen with fear, but due to the fact that there were trees stacked above me. Heavy. Pressing. Sealing the world into a narrow, airless coffin.
But what stole the air from my lungs wasn’t the weight. A pair of dark blue wolf eyes stared down at me unblinking, unbothered, locked to mine like chains I couldn’t break.
Ryker
It was him.
He was inches above me, the sharp line of his jaw bleeding onto my skin from a wound somewhere near his temple. His arms were planted on either side of my head, muscles tensed into rigid cords as he held up the weight of what should have crushed. us both.
Not one branch had touched me.
Because he had taken the weight of it all
While I was beneath them.
Shouldering all of it on his back like a beast. Like a demon. Like something that wasn’t.normal.
I swallowed. My lips parted in disbelief. “Why did you save me?”
A dead silence fell between us increasing the tension in the darkness as I met his gaze with my wolf’s eyes.
His voice was a velvet blade dark, rich, and cutting. “Why? Only Ronan gets to play the hero?“/
I held my breath at the mention of Ronan. He just called the Ronan hero.
My muscles jerked. I wore a man’s disguise at the moment. So, him calling Ronan my hero was as dangerous as it sounded.
i steadied my breathing, forcing the tremor from my voice. “I don’t know about him being a hero,” I said coldly, “but you definitely aren’t one.”
A soft chuckle escaped his lips. Low and lazy, like he enjoyed every second of this.
–
Then what am I?” he asked, one brow arching. “A villain?” in the darkness his handsomeness was even more breathtaking when he ached that brow like that.
I didn’t hesitate “Probably I met his gaze head–on. “More like black flag.” I murmured, pulse hammering in my ears. They said that women had a great sense when it came to men and since the day I had seen Ryker, I could tell that this man was not even close to a red but a completely black flag.
His smule faded, replaced by something quieter. Something darker. He leaned in slightly, the trees on his back shitung with the movement. My heartbeat secretly quickened in my chest thinking ove, his reaction to the black flag comment.
“You got me,” he whispered, voice so close I felt it on my lips more than I heard it
I felt paralyzed. A tremor slid down my spine.
He admitted it
He admitted it
My
lists i lenched at my sides as I met his gaze without blinking
“What are you?” I whispered. “Who are you really!”
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Chapter 99 The Black Flag
“Hmm! What’s with your question? By now I believe everyone knows. I am Ryker Wraithe.” he said, deadpan. “Not your name. I asked who you are.”
Another slow chuckle vibrated from his chest, through the thick silence.
“What’s with the fear in your eyes?” he asked, voice dropping lower. “Did you do something wrong to me? Something that would make someone like me come after you?”
My heart skipped. Then raced.
It meant my suspicion was correct.
He wasn’t just here by chance. He wasn’t just curious.
He was after me.
-What do you want from me?” I finally asked, the question I’d been burying for days. The one that haunted me every time he looked at me like he could see straight through the disguise. Through my skin. Into my soul.
He leaned in further. Our noses nearly touched now. “If I told you,” he murmured. “would you give it to me?”
I flinched, head snapping away, eyes darting to the tiny sliver of dim light between two broken branches. My pulse thundered. My skin burned.
His presence soaked into me, raw and suffocating. It wasn’t just how close he was. It was that…he could crush me at any second, physically, emotionally, dangerously. And yet, he hadn’t.
He laughed, slow and amused. “Why ask,” he whispered, “when you don’t dare!”
I snapped my gaze back to him. “Why would I dare anything unknown…for someone like you?”
“Someone like me?” he e
echoed, tilting his head. “You mean…
crazy?”
He shifted again.
The trees groaned, the entire pile straining above us. His weight bore down harder,his body lowering. My breath hitched. “What the hell are you doing?!”
His lips brushed near my jawline, close enough to taste my panic. I feel an itch on innocently, “Can’t help it.”
my
back,” he m
murmured, almost
A drop of blood slid from his cheek onto mine. Warm. Fresh.
My eyes widened.
He was hurt. The more he moved, the more he pressed into me, his body heavy and lean, muscles tightening.
What was worse, his lower half grazed me.
My eyes flew wide
Oh no. No
Ir
e couldn’t press there. He couldn’t
Because led feel it.
The lack of what should’ve been there. The manhood
Pane roared through ine
*Don’t movel” I lussed. “We’ll both be crushed!
ked, resting his forehead against mine “Then scratch my back.”
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Chapter 99 The Black Flag
“What?” I stared at him dumbfounded.
“Scratch it. Or I keep moving, he smirked.
I clenched my jaw, glaring at him. Was he not taking advantage of the situation?!
I wanted to slap him.
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Instead, I stared at his sharp, brutal face, and then at the splintering weight above us. My breathing was shaky. His body heat sank into mine. The air was damp, suffocating, heavy with sweat, blood, and something darker that I couldn’t name.
He was staring right at me.
I looked away quickly, cursing under my breath. This wasn’t about pride. Or anger. This was survival.
After a long moment of cursing every deity that ever created him-
My hand lifted–hesitantly, trembling like I was reaching toward a live wire. My fingers hovered over his bare skin, just above his spine.
Don’t think. Just do it. I said to myself.
My fingertips touched his back
His muscles jumped beneath my palm. Hard. Warm. Unreasonably solid.
The moment I made contact, heat flooded my face. Not the kind that stirred desire but the kind that came from rage and shame and unwanted awareness.
I kept my eyes on the shadows above, on the crushing weight balanced just inches from my skull.
Then slowly, mechanically, I began to scratch.
His
eyes burned into me the entire time. I could feel it. Watching. Reading
But I refused to meet his gaze.
My hand scratched upward, avoiding the bloodied places, brushing over raw skin. My face flushed, not just from lack of air. but the sheer intimacy of the moment. We were pinned beneath the world, and he was making this a joke.
But his body didn’t laugh.
His breaths were shallow. Controlled. Yet every one of them dragged across my skin like heat waves.
“Aith now it’s itchy somewhere else too,” he whispered.
My hand froze as I mei his eyes. “Where?”
I instantly regretted asking because the next second, he brushed his manhood on my lower belly and whispered in my ears, “Here”
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