When I finally clawed my way back to consciousness, the world didn't come back in colors or sounds. It came back in weight. My body felt like it had been molded out of lead and dropped from a great height, every muscle fiber singing with a dull, throbbing ache that reminded me of exactly how I’d spent the last several hours. My skin felt tight, sensitized to the point where even the soft silk of the sheets felt like sandpaper against my thighs.
I kept my eyes squeezed shut for a long minute, trying to piece together the fragments of the night. The steam of the bath, the copper tang of blood, the desperate, frantic heat of two men who had spent half a decade starving for the very thing they’d finally taken. Then, like a physical blow to the gut, the memory of the marks hit me.
I bolted up
