Chapter 12 Chapter 10 – Crown of Thorns

The EMP pulse had killed the heartbeat detonators, but it hadn’t killed the woman wearing Elena’s mother’s face. Alessandro carried Elena from the blood-soaked bed to the black marble shower without a word. Hot water cascaded over them both—scalding enough to make the torn stitches in her side hiss and the fresh cut under her jaw burn like acid. He washed her with ruthless tenderness: soaping the drying come from between her thighs, rinsing the mingled blood from their matching chest wounds, massaging shampoo into her matted hair until the water ran clear again. His cock—still half-hard from the violence of their last coupling—brushed her hip repeatedly, but he made no move to take her again. Not yet. When they