All Chapters of Caught In Between Lust And Desires Book 2: Chapter 81 - Chapter 90

🖱️ Victor 🖱️‘You won't dare.‘My monster's voice cracked through my skull like a whip, sharper than I'd ever heard him, all trace of dry humor or weary patience completely gone."I already dared once," I said quietly, staring down at my own trembling hands. "It worked, didn't it? I died, and Jayden lived. Sammy lived. That's the only version of this story where the math actually adds up in anyone's favor."‘You already sacrificed yourself once,’ my monster snarled, ‘and you were dragged back into another body against your will, against every law of nature that should have kept you dead. What makes you think dying again ends anything? What makes you think the Keepers won't simply find another door to shove your soul through, another life to ruin, another decade of grief to inflict on the people who love you?’"I don't know," I admitted, my voice hollow. "But I know sitting here, alive, is what got that baby killed tonight. I know my existence is the reason seven elders are dead, the

🖱️ River 🖱️ Ten years. Ten years married to Jane after finding out she’s my mate after months of knowing and hating each other , and somehow, impossibly, in the middle of the single worst week of both our lives, she'd just handed me the best news I'd ever received. I sat there with her curled in my lap, her face pressed against my shoulder, and let myself feel it fully for the first time not the exhaustion, not the dread still coiled tight in my chest over everything happening beyond this room, but the sheer, overwhelming joy of it. A baby. Our baby. After ten years of building a life together, of watching her throw herself into palace work with the same fierce, exhausting dedication she brought to absolutely everything, of quietly wondering, some nights, whether children were even a conversation she wanted to have given how much of herself she'd already poured into this kingdom. And here we were. Ten years in, and the universe had apparently decided tonight, of all nights, was t

🖱️ Sammy 🖱️I carried Jayden through the palace corridors because he insisted on moving faster than his own body could manage, and because some stubborn, aching part of me needed to be doing something with my hands besides clenching them into useless fists.He didn't argue when I lifted him. That, more than anything, told me exactly how much the last hour had actually cost him."Which way," he kept asking, over and over, his voice raw and hoarse from crying, from grief that hadn't even begun to finish carving itself into him yet. "Sammy, which way did Jane say he went?""The eastern gate," I said again, for the third time, my own voice barely holding together. "The guards saw him leave twenty minutes ago. On fire, apparently. Nobody stopped him.""Of course nobody stopped him." A broken, humorless laugh escaped him. "He's the Victor after all. Who exactly was going to stop him."We reached the gate to find River and Jane already there, Jane's face pale and tight with the same fear c

🖱️ Dala 🖱️"Is everything going according to plan?""Yes," the kneeling figure answered, head bowed low against the cold stone floor of my chamber, his voice tight with the particular reverence I'd spent centuries cultivating in everyone who served beneath me."And Wren?""Dead, my lord."I said nothing for a long moment, letting the silence stretch until the tension in the room grew thick enough to taste, watching the way my servant's shoulders trembled beneath the weight of it."Good," I said finally. "She's not useful to us anymore anyway. A tool that has served its purpose and lingers past its usefulness becomes a liability, and I have no patience left for liabilities."I rose from my seat carved into living black stone, old enough that moss no longer bothered growing across its surface, and crossed toward the great window overlooking the sunken valley below a place no map in the mortal world had ever managed to record correctly, hidden behind layers of forgetting older than the

🖱️ Sammy 🖱️I found Jayden on the small balcony outside our room well past midnight, wrapped in a blanket he'd clearly stolen off the bed, staring out at the dark palace grounds with an expression I'd learned to recognize over ten years of marriage the particular, quiet stillness he wore when grief had finally caught up with him enough to stop performing strength for anyone else's benefit.I didn't say anything at first. I just crossed the balcony and wrapped my arms around him from behind, resting my chin against the top of his head, letting my presence be the only thing I offered for a while."You should be asleep," he murmured eventually, though he leaned back into me instead of pulling away."So should you.""I couldn't.""Neither could I." I pressed a slow kiss to his temple, breathing in the familiar scent of him beneath the cool night air. "Victor?""Finally asleep. I checked twice." His voice wavered slightly. "I keep waiting to wake up and discover none of tonight actually