1. Xander, DemonX Pack
XANDER, DEMONX PACK
{Seven months ago}
One little slice is all it would take...
The shard caught the minimal light in my room; it gleamed in a taunting, persistent way.
Malevolent intent winking up at me. I rolled it slowly, testing its edges against my thumb, not enough to break skin.
Not yet, anyways. The whiskey bottle it came from lay shattered on my floor, amber liquid seeping from its fractured body, slipping into cracks between floorboards.
The bottle. Bleeding.
From a wound I’d made.
Like my own injuries, some visible and others invisible.
Spreading wider with each passing moment.
I'd decorated this room to match what lived inside me—all dark walls painted in shadowy strokes of different deep grays, black leather furniture worn enough to feel honest—not staged but undeniably lived upon—and metal fixtures that gleamed cold and unforgiving. The space was a confession; one I couldn’t voice.
That my life had long ago gone monochrome.
I didn’t even remember the warmth of color.
The whiskey bottle hadn't fallen by accident.
I’d tossed it brutally hard into my dresser; one drawer was cracked down the middle now. I’d watched the bottle sail through the air, knowing full well it would shatter, but making no move to save it. The sound of impact had been brief, yet satisfying.
Now I held the largest, jagged piece between my fingers, turning it this way and that. The edges were uneven, unpredictable. Perfect. I settled back against the headboard of my bed, my breathing steady despite what I was contemplating.
It would be so easy.
I hovered the glass over my left wrist, not quite touching.
The thick veins were visible through my pale skin, complex pathways carrying life through my body.
One decisive slice and I'd have release.
Even if the guys found me in time, I felt like nearly dying would make the pressure behind my eyes and in my chest abate for a while.
"Do it," I whispered to the empty room. "Just fucking do it."
But I didn't. Because I was Xander, the guy who’d pushed DemonX into reality. I couldn’t abandon everything. Couldn’t leave my pack behind to deal with the fallout.
Instead, I touched the glass to my skin just below my wrist and dragged it upward.
Not pressing, just grazing. The lightest kiss of sharp against soft.
I watched a thin white line appear, then fade, not even breaking the surface.
I traced the path of my veins, moving slowly up my forearm, feeling the anticipation of pain more acutely than any actual sensation.
At the crook of my elbow, I stopped.
A fresh wave of melancholy washed over me. I stared at the unblemished path I'd traced, feeling cheated somehow. Even in this, I couldn't let go.
There was nothing left to try.
Or if there was, I couldn’t fucking think of it!
What would happen when we couldn’t keep our heads together enough to ride?
We’d lose contracts. We’d lose our home.
I couldn’t become that fucking kid again, the one living at the mercy of the system with nothing to call his own.
From basically birth, I’d been a ward of the state.
Parents dead, no extended family. You’d think, with Alphas being so fucking important, that the government would have strict regulations on care.
But the Alpha Protection System got gamed just like every other program.
Alphas and Omegas signed up as foster parents, and they were trusted because of their status, and kids like me got tossed to wolves nine times out of ten.
People always thought people like me had it so damn good.
But, just like Betas, Alphas and Omegas could get the shit end of the stick.
Right now, that shit end of the stick was losing our damn minds for want of a mate.
But we’d tried everything. Even the ‘can’t fail’ people at Eros had taken our money and given us nothing for the ridiculously high investment. They hadn’t updated us in months. Maybe they thought we were a lost cause.
Too dark. Too dangerous. Too deviant to match with an Omega. If we did match? What unstable psycho would want to be with us? She’d have to be strong. She’d have to take punches and keep standing.
My phone buzzed on the nightstand, and I glanced at the screen.
Asher. Again. Third time tonight. I let it ring until it stopped, knowing he was probably neck-deep in some chaos of his own making.
He'd been more erratic lately—we all had been.
Something was unraveling in all of us, and I was the one who was supposed to see it coming, to have a solution before the problem fully manifested.
I was failing.
Nitro had missed three knife throws today.
I'd watched him from the window of the compound, saw the frustration in every line of his body.
Fallon had disappeared again last night, returning with that distant look that meant he'd been seeking something he couldn't find.
And Kane—Kane had been buried in machine parts for days, fixing things that weren't broken while ignoring the ones that were.
We were all breaking, each in our own way.
I leaned my head back against the wall and closed my eyes.
DemonX was our ragtag found family. Busted ass orphans with nothing to lose and no one to care.
We were too intense and too damaged to function separately in normal society.
Together, we created a brutal, breathtaking balance.
All our rage and bad habits knitted together into something that could almost pass for home.
The makeshift weapon was still in my hand, still tempting me with its simple solution. A physical pain to override the emotional one. I wouldn't have to worry about anything if I just sliced and waited until, bit by bit, the life drained away.
I'd been carrying too much on my shoulders, even though my pack brothers never asked me too. They were all capable, easily able to survive without me. I was the one who needed them. Not the leader at all. Not the glue. The hanger-on who, in the end, wasn’t all that fucking important.
My fingers tightened around the glass, and I felt it bite into my palm. A small satisfaction as a trickle of warmth ran down my wrist—blood, not intentionally drawn but welcome, nonetheless. I unfurled my fingers to examine the cut, a neat slice across my palm. I hadn't even felt it happen.
That seemed fitting somehow.
The blood pooled in every line, rivers of crimson. I wondered what the broken, shallow canal that ran from between my pointer and middle fingers to the base of my palm meant. I studied it intensely. It didn’t feel like part of me, even as the proof sat before my eyes.
Someone pounded on my door; the sound should have jarred me to reality. But the slamming of fist paled in comparison to the cacophony inside my brain.
"Xander! You alive in there?" Kane's voice was not exactly concerned but edging towards it. He pounded hard on the door again. Bang! Bang! Bang!
I didn't answer immediately. I watched another drop of blood form and fall onto my dark sheets, disappearing into the fabric.
"I'm fine," I called back, my voice steady and controlled. Always controlled.
"Bullshit," he replied, but I heard his footsteps retreating. He knew better than to push.
I set the blood-smeared glass on my nightstand and yanked open the drawer to snag a bandana. I wrapped it around the wound. Black, so even if I kept bleeding, I wouldn’t see the telltale red.
Not deep enough for stitches.
Deep enough to remind me that flesh is fragile.
So easily sliced.
Life easily ended.
That fact used to make our stunts thrilling.
In the shadows of my room, with blood seeping slowly through the cloth wrapped around my hand, I allowed myself to face the truth.
I was changed.
DemonX was changed.
None of us were admitting that the end was coming.
What time was it in Seattle?
I reached for my phone and opened my contacts, scrolling to the number of our Eros Institute rep. The fifth one assigned. We’d scared the others off.
My thumb hovered over the call button, just as the glass had hovered over my skin.
This time, I pressed down without hesitation.
Those assholes needed to refund us or fix this shit.
Our pack was on the precipice of signing the biggest touring deal of our lives.
Cirque du Sang didn’t let fuck ups into their operation.
That’s why the continued to be the darkest, most elite performance company in the damn world.
No Alpha, ‘ticking time bomb’ bullshit was going to cock block DemonX.