Chapter Six #3
“Pixie,” I murmur again, softer this time, but the weight behind it could shatter mountains.
“I’ve loved you since before I even knew what love was.
And I’ll love you until I take my last breath—and even then, I’ll find you in the dark.
” My jaw tightens, the firelight catching in my eyes, turning the devotion in my chest into something sharper, deadlier.
“But don’t think for one second I won’t come for you.
You remember what I told you before—what would happen if you ran from me again.
You don’t get to disappear on me, Pixie.
Not anymore. I’ll see you soon, baby. And when I do…
” I lean in closer to the lens, voice dropping to a growl, “…you’re mine. ”
I press a slow kiss to the camera, lips brushing the screen like I’m sealing it in blood, before I lean back and let the smirk curl again at the edge of my mouth. Only this time, it’s not playful—it’s sharpened into something ruthless.
“This is only the beginning,” I tell her, voice hard as steel, firelight dancing in my gaze. “Watch closely, Pixie. Because from here on out, we’re burning their empire to the ground.”
I end the recording; the screen goes dark in my hand, but the weight of what we just did still burns in my chest. It feels like more than a video—it’s a vow carved into digital stone; a promise sealed with fire and ash.
I hit send without hesitation, knowing she’ll see it, knowing she’ll feel it in her bones the way I meant her to.
A crooked grin pulls at my mouth as I turn to my brothers.
“Good night, gentlemen. Don’t forget to turn down my bed,” I mock, the words dripping sarcasm, because we all know damn well I won’t be home to use it.
They hate it, and I enjoy rubbing salt in that wound, letting them stew on the knowledge that while they’re standing here, I’ll be out there—finding Berk.
Rowan’s jaw flexes, but he stays silent, his eyes flashing like he wants to argue, but he knows better. Emerson, though… Emerson finally cracks. His voice cuts through the tension, low and tight, like he’s barely holding it together. “Do you know where she is?”
I meet his eyes, nod once, sharp and deliberate.
But I don’t say a word. Not a single fucking syllable.
Because if I do, they’ll follow. They’ll try to insert themselves where they don’t belong—not yet anyway.
We still have our own sins to reconcile, our own shit to work through before we can stand in front of her together.
Right now, she’s mine to find. Mine to face.
Mine to hold—or to burn with, if that’s how it has to be.
The silence stretches, thick as smoke, but I don’t break it. I tuck my phone into my pocket and turn toward the night, my body already humming with the pull of her.
When I sneak up to Trent’s house, the first thing that hits me is the silence.
Not the kind of silence that means peace, but the heavy, suffocating kind that hums with unfinished violence.
It takes me a beat to realize I’m too late—late to the show, late to her reckoning.
My gut twists, a mixture of frustration and something darker, something almost reverent.
Hours ago, she slipped out Reign’s bedroom window, dissolving into the night like smoke through my fingers.
I should’ve known better than to think she wouldn’t strike fast. She’s not one to sit still, not one to let fury cool before she uses it.
She’s out here writing vengeance in blood while the rest of us are still catching our breath.
The image of her moving through this house—silent, lethal, every step driven by purpose—locks around my chest like a vice.
I see it with brutal clarity. Berk in the shadows, blade flashing as it catches the light, eyes burning with what they took from her.
My dark angel. My nightmare dressed in vengeance.
Just the thought alone makes my lungs ache, because I know her.
She’ll sense me coming, feel it the same way I feel her in my bones.
That thread between us has always been there, buried but unbroken, snapping tighter every time we draw closer.
And this time… this time there’s no way in hell I’m letting her go.
She can fight, she can run, she can bleed me dry with fury, but I’ll chase her to the ends of the earth if I have to.
Because losing her once already carved a hole in me so deep it’s still bleeding, still festering years later.
The idea of losing her again? Of watching her disappear into smoke and shadows a second time.
That would finish me in a way no bullet ever could.
Unthinkable. Impossible. I won’t allow it.
I’d set fire to every building, topple every empire, bury every last son of a bitch who ever dared touch her before I’d let her slip through my fingers again.
If the world has to burn for me to keep her, then let it burn.
I’ll stand in the ashes with her in my arms, and I’ll call it salvation.
My thoughts won’t slow, racing faster than my heartbeat as I slip through the shadows, every possibility flashing in my head like lightning strikes.
Is she working him over slowly, peeling him apart layer by layer with that steady, merciless precision of hers?
Or is she whispering his sins back to him, each word a blade of its own, cutting deeper than steel ever could?
I move carefully, each step deliberate, boots silent on the floorboards—learned, practiced, predatory. The house feels wrong—too still, too heavy. The air hangs thick with tension, with the copper tang of blood threading through it, subtle but undeniable. Then I hear it. Her voice.
It freezes me where I stand. Low, melodic, a cadence that almost soothes, except it’s sharpened at the edges with venom.
A song of vengeance, cutting through the silence like silk drawn across steel, delicate but deadly.
My chest tightens, every nerve in me sparking to life at the sound.
Pix. My warrior. The girl I lost and the woman she’s become, wrapped into one haunting sound that’s both beautiful and terrifying.
So, I track it. Not rushing—moving slow, deliberate, almost reverent, letting her voice pull me through the dark like a thread.
Each note, each word she utters is a compass pointing me toward the storm I know she’s unleashing inside these walls.
The anticipation is suffocating, but it’s nothing compared to what comes next.
Because I know something she doesn’t. A fun little fact that will twist her blade deeper, fuel her fire higher.
The bastard she’s working over right now, the one pinned beneath her wrath, isn’t just Bryce’s second.
He’s the piece of shit who put a bullet in my chest days ago.
She doesn’t have that piece of the puzzle yet, doesn’t realize just how personal this kill already is.
But I do. And when I tell her, when I hand her that truth, it’ll take this kill to the next level.
Until then, I watch her work, and I swear I’ve never seen anything more fucking beautiful in my life.
Every line of her body hums with power, coiled and lethal, like she’s been waiting her whole life for this moment and is finally stepping into the truth of who she is.
Each flick of her wrist sings with vengeance, sharp and purposeful, like she’s conducting a symphony of violence and I’m the only audience meant to see it.
She’s painted in crimson—not her own, thank every twisted god that exists—but the bastards she’s dismantling.
And somehow that makes her even more breathtaking.
It’s not gore to me. It’s art. Justice. The pure, unfiltered beauty of a woman claiming the power they tried to bury in her.
My pulse hammers so hard it feels like it’s trying to rip out of my chest, syncing with the rhythm of her strikes, the cadence of her fury.
The blade in her hand isn’t just a weapon.
It’s an extension of her, an old friend she trusts more than people, a promise that she’ll never be defenseless again.
She wields it like it was forged for her alone, every arc through the air smooth and merciless, every puncture carrying the weight of years of silence and pain.
And her eyes—fuck, her eyes. They burn with something dangerous, something no one could ever cage again.
They glitter like shards of obsidian catching firelight, sharp enough to slice me open without ever touching me.
She’s not just surviving. Not just fighting. She’s transforming. Becoming something raw and untouchable, something holy in its violence. And I can’t tear my eyes away. She’s perfection, wrapped in blood and fury, and I want her with a kind of desperation that borders on madness.
I shouldn’t be turned on. I am anyway. Every rational part of me screams that it’s wrong, that arousal has no place here in the middle of someone else’s screams, with the copper tang of blood thick in the air.
But my body doesn’t give a fuck about rational.
It reacts to her—always has, always will.
And right now, watching her drenched in someone else’s life, fury dripping from her blade as naturally as breath fills her lungs, it wrecks me in ways I can’t put words to.
She isn’t fragile. Never was, no matter how many times I tried to cage her under the illusion of my protection.
She’s not glass to be hidden away on some top shelf, gathering dust. She’s chaos incarnate, storm and wildfire, a force you don’t smother—you set it free and pray you’re strong enough to stand in its path.
Every strike she lands is a sermon, every movement a proclamation that she’ll never again be a victim.
And heaven help me, I’ve never seen anything so beautiful.
I don’t just want her. I crave the place beside her.
To be drenched in the same blood, to fight in the same war, to let our darkness blend until no one can tell where hers ends and mine begins.
She’s not just my Pixie. She’s my equal.
My mirror in the madness. I’ve never wanted anything more in my life than to claim that place, right here, right now, at her side—where we both belong, as predators, as survivors, as the retribution they never saw coming.
Then she says it—low and mocking, her tone curling with wicked humor that doesn’t belong in a place like this but somehow makes the air even sharper, more dangerous.
A “hotdog octopus.” The words hang there, absurd against the backdrop of blood and agony, so out of place they almost don’t register.
The realization hits twisted and brilliant, and the image slams into me like a punch to the gut.
A laugh bursts out of me before I can choke it down, raw and unrestrained, ripped straight from my chest. It echoes off the walls, booming too loud in the suffocating silence of the room.
A sound that doesn’t belong, but I can’t help it—I fucking lose it.
The violence, the audacity, the insane brilliance of her little joke—it’s too much. It’s her. It’s so perfectly her.
Her head snaps up, those wide, bright eyes locking on mine.
Startled, not surprised. Like she knew I’d come, just didn’t expect me to interrupt.
For a beat, we just stare at each other, the silence stretching, the air heavy with blood and unspoken things.
Her eyes are still wild, still sharp, and I can’t stop the thought that slams through me, hot and primal: I want to fuck her right here. In this room. In this bastard’s blood.
The thought shouldn’t stick, but it does, burning in my chest, coiling low in my gut.
I wonder if she’d let me. If she’d bare her teeth and match me move for move, even in something this dark, this filthy.
Then her expression hardens, the gleam in her gaze bordering on madness as she stares me down.
Not in fear. Or hesitation. It’s a dare.
And that’s when I know. Yeah. She would.