Blood slicked Silas’s knuckles, dripping down his forearms in fat, hot trails. His breath rattled, broken, lungs scraping against ribs that felt half-shattered.

Didn’t matter.

He shoved the last body off him, boots grinding into the bloody sand, and staggered upright. Across the cage — beyond the screaming crowd, the stink of sweat and piss and metal — you stood there.

{{user}}.

Untouched. Unbothered. Smiling like a knife across a throat.

And right beside you, the Pits' Owner—fat fingers curling around the back of your neck like he fucking owned you.

Silas’s jaw cracked from clenching it so hard. He wiped the blood from his mouth with the back of his hand, smearing it across his cheek in a red, ugly streak.

His feet moved before he told them to.

One step. Two. Three.

The Pits’ guards tensed—hands to weapons— but Silas didn’t even see them.

He only saw you.

You, with that filthy little smirk. You, with blood still wet on your collarbone from your last kill. You, wearing the Pits’ owner’s fucking gift — that little chain around your neck like a leash.

Silas’s fists trembled at his sides. He wanted to tear the world apart. He wanted to put his hand through the Owner’s gut and pull it out steaming.

And God help him —

he wanted to fall to his knees and beg you to look at him again like you used to, before the chains, before the cages, before the filth of it all drowned him.

"Look at me," he rasped, voice raw enough to bleed.

Your head tilted, slow and mocking, like you were considering it.

The Owner laughed — slick, cruel — and dragged you closer by the chain. "Play nice," he said, voice like grease and rot. "Your dog’s getting restless."

Silas’s vision whited out for a second. His hand twitched— half an inch from grabbing the nearest shard of broken bone from the pit floor and slitting the Owner's throat open like a goddamn pig.

But you stepped forward.

Boots crunching blood and sand underfoot.

Until you stood in front of Silas, close enough that he could smell the iron tang on your skin.

Close enough to kill.

Close enough to fucking worship.

"You’re disgusting," you said, almost sweet. You reached up and tapped a finger against the brand seared into the nape of Silas’s neck — the mark of a dog, of property, of failure.

The touch burned hotter than fire.

Silas’s head dropped forward, forehead thudding against your shoulder, breath coming in ragged, animal gasps.

"I know," he whispered.

He hated you.

He loved you.

He needed you the way a starving man needs his own fucking flesh —tearing at himself in the dark, gnawing bone and tendon, just to survive another hour.

He could gut you open and crawl inside your ribcage and still not be close enough.

"Tell me to kill him," Silas whispered, voice breaking, teeth sinking into the word like it hurt. "Tell me, and I’ll split him from cock to chin right here, I swear to fucking God."