บททั้งหมดของ Tainted Desires; Demons. Darkness. Damnation : บทที่ 131 - บทที่ 140

The screams outside the den had changed. They weren’t his men’s screams of victory — they were cut short, sharp, silenced. Warren’s brows furrowed as he tried his radio again. No answer. Another channel. Nothing.“What the hell is happening out there?” he snapped, tossing the useless device aside. He turned to the cluster of guards inside the den. “Check the perimeter. Now!”They rushed out, rifles ready. Warren waited for the echo of their boots to fade before turning toward the cage at the far end of the room.Castelle hung against the bars, wrists raw from shackles, hair matted with blood. And she was laughing as he pulled her out.Not the broken laugh of a woman beaten too long. Not the cracked whimper of prey. No — this was a wild, sharp sound, hysterical enough to crawl under his skin.“What’s so funny?” he growled, stalking toward her.She threw her head back, laughter spilling like broken glass. Her voice rose until it scraped the ceiling, until it echoed down the hallways out

The chaos of Warren’s den was a fading roar behind them — the smoke, the gunfire, the wreckage. Kane carried Castelle in his arms as though she were made of porcelain, every breath of hers carving deeper into his chest.Her body was battered, her face bruised, blood staining her dress in dark streaks. Yet her eyes, half-lidded with exhaustion, still found his.“Kane…” she whispered.He bent low, pressing his forehead to hers as he knelt on the blood-soaked floor, shielding her from the violence around them. “I’m here, little dove. It’s over. He can’t touch you again.”Her lips trembled, a whisper torn from her like the last ember of a flame. “Please… save our babies.”Kane stilled.The words didn’t register at first. His chest froze, his grip tightening around her as though he’d misheard. His breath caught, his throat working but no sound came.Our… babies?Shock rattled through him, sharper than any blade. For a moment, the world went silent — no gunfire, no shouts, only the thunderi

The hallway detonated in chaos.The nurse’s cry still rang in the air — “He’s crashing!” — when Matteo hurled himself through the double doors. His boots pounded against the tile, his hands already reaching, as though he could drag Lucien back to life by sheer force of will.“Lucien!” Matteo’s roar cracked the sterile air, desperate, wild. He shoved past two doctors, planting himself at his brother’s side. “Don’t you dare leave me, you son of a bitch. Don’t you dare.”Lucien’s body arched against the table, monitors screeching flat lines, his skin pale, lips blue. Blood soaked through the fresh bandages. His chest convulsed weakly, then stilled.“No, no, no—” Matteo pressed his palms against Lucien’s chest, starting compressions before anyone else could react. “Stay with me, damn it!”A doctor tried to pull him back. “We have to—”Matteo bared his teeth, eyes blazing. “I said stay the fuck back. He’s mine.” His voice cracked, but his arms didn’t falter, each push on Lucien’s chest a c

The days after Warren’s death blurred into an exhausting rhythm. Castelle slept in fragments, her body stitched together by machines and whispered prayers. And Kane — Kane never left her side.For forty-eight hours straight, he sat beside her bed. He fed her spoonfuls of broth when she stirred, he adjusted her blankets when she shivered, he wiped the sheen of fever-sweat from her brow.He did not trust anyone else with her.Doctors hovered but never touched without his explicit nod. Nurses avoided the room unless summoned. Even Rem and Leo, who tried to linger close, were dismissed by the icy authority in his eyes.Castelle was his world, and for two days, the world narrowed to her heartbeat.By the third dawn, Kareen finally stepped into the room, Matteo trailing behind her.Her maternal warmth softened the cold edges of the sterile wing. She stood silently for a while, watching Kane stroke Castelle’s limp hand as though it were the only thread holding her to him.“You’ll break yours

Kane had finally fallen into a shallow, exhausted sleep with Castelle’s hand still in his. The machines hummed a lullaby in the dim room; the night outside was a soft wash of distant city noise and wind against the estate stone. For a long time he’d sat rigid as a guard, but at some hour after the doctors left and the family thinned into whispered watchfulness, even his knives of worry dulled enough for his body to stop fighting the fatigue.Castelle woke to the ache of it all—her ribs, the phantom sting in her hair, the hollow that hunger and fear made in her chest—and the weight of her emotions finally broke. Tears leaked free, small and silent down bruised cheeks. She turned her face to the pillow, ashamed for letting herself fall apart. She didn’t want him to see. She was no longer the woman who would be broken into pieces for anyone’s consumption; she had rebuilt. But tonight the weight of what everyone had endured—the blood, Lucien’s near-death, the babies, Warren—rolled over he