Chapter 5 Xavier #2
I knew what he was indicating, everyone knew, but when that one girl two years ago came out, mentioning that Rhett assaulted her, she quickly turned her story around just a couple of days later and disappeared. Her family apologized to Rhett and his parents, and most of us didn't question it.
At least I didn't.
But now that Ryder had mentioned it again between the lines, maybe we should have questioned it. Maybe things weren't exactly as they seemed, especially if Ryder was the one mentioning it.
For someone who most of the time pretended that he didn't care, he knew more about every single one of us than we knew about him. Ryder was a whiz with computers, a fucking mastermind in executing things, and right now there was an unmistakable anger brewing behind his eyes.
"What are you trying to say?"
"If you need me to spell it out for you, then you might be dumber than I thought."
I've had it with him and his behavior lately. "Fuck you!"
"No." He got up from his seat, seething, "Fuck.
You." He pointed at me as the vein in his forehead pulsed.
"You know as much as I do that we live a privileged life.
We have more than most people, but that doesn't give us the right to behave like complete assholes.
If you actually had just a little bit of heart you would—"
"Hey guys," the new voice shut him up.
The feminine voice with just a little bit of raspy quality to it.
The one I wanted to drown in.
I turned around quickly, giving myself whiplash from the force, and looked at her.
She stood at the bottom of the staircase, her silver eyes jumping from me to Caleb and then to Ryder, only to end up back on me.
I knew she was home, but this was the first time she ever dared to come down when my friends were here with me.
Most days she avoided me completely, choosing to stay in her room and do whatever the hell she was doing there.
"I'm sorry for interrupting, so I'm just gonna go now." She chuckled nervously, and it was at that moment that I finally realized what she was wearing.
My heart climbed into my throat, practically trying to jump out of me as my eyes dragged over her body, those slender shoulders, the creamy skin begging to be bitten, but worst of all—over the black two-piece bikini that was being held in place by the flimsy strings I could imagine opening just with my teeth.
Yara stood there, her hip perched and that tattoo covering her entire right arm taunting me to look closer, to see what scenes she put on her skin.
The dark swirls inked into her skin were a complete contrast to the rest of her and I didn't even realize when I took the step toward her.
I had no idea when I started clenching my fists or at which point my ribs became too tight and the air I was inhaling barely reached my lungs.
The ice in her eyes was only directed at me, but Caleb and Ryder got one of those shy smiles she seemed to be gifting to everyone but me. Every single person deserved it more than me, there was no doubt in that, but that didn't mean I liked it.
I. Fucking. Hated. It.
I wanted them directed at me. I wanted to be her sun, her moon and every fucking star on the sky, making it hard for her to ever look at another.
I wanted her carved in my skin, in my bones, because hiding her in the darkest parts of my soul was no longer doing it for me.
I wanted her to look at me and see her beginning, her fucking ending, her entire life carved out with me.
Because I could see it with her.
I could see her painting on those lazy Sunday mornings when neither one of us wanted to get out of the house, living somewhere far away from here, unburdened with the expectations from our parents.
She had no idea I saw her paintings. She had no idea I dragged my fingers over those violent strokes she left behind, as if she was trying to exorcise the demons I could sometimes see behind her eyes.
She had no idea that my own wanted to reach out, desperate to soothe the violence that lived inside her.
"Xavier," Caleb's voice suddenly reverberated through my skull, stopping me in my tracks, and I could see why.
I was mere feet away from her now as she stood with her back plastered to the wall, and those eyes wide with fear lingering on the edges of the look she was giving me.
The first time I saw her I hated every single thing about my new stepsister.
I hated her smile.
I hated her eyes.
I hated the pretty black hair I often wondered about and if it would feel as silky in my hand as it looked.
I fucking hated the tattoos she had and most of all I hated the way my heart started thundering as if it too was trying to tell me that this was it. That she was it.
At that moment she was a problem I needed to be gone. She was a distraction I couldn't afford.
She was a weakness others could exploit, mostly my father if he only knew that late night when the entire house slept, I sat in front of her door, pressing my nose to the keyhole, desperate to get just one more hit, one more fucking whiff of that sweet honey and vanilla scent she carried everywhere she went.
It lingered all over the house wherever she passed, but at night, after she spent most of the time hiding behind the closed doors of her room, the scent would almost disappear, only apparent in front of her room.
I tried telling myself that it shouldn't happen, not like this. I tried lying to myself, because apparently that's what I do the best, but after the scene in the Lounge and after the insane green monster inside of me showing its teeth, I knew I couldn't lie anymore.
"Hey, Yara," Ryder said, and I blamed the lack of the blood in my brain for my slow reaction when he pushed me aside and went straight for her, pulling her into a tight embrace.
"Here we go," Caleb grunted just as Yara wrapped her arms around Ryder, looking at me over his shoulder.
She knew what she was doing.
She fucking knew I hated this, even if she didn't know the reason, but she was playing me.
My new stepsister wasn't as innocent as she appeared to be at first. I saw the teeny tiny smirk appearing on her face, and the dangerous flash in her eyes, but none of that could calm the monster that found its home somewhere inside my chest.
The rational part of my brain did not exist any longer, taken over by the beast who operated on the primal basis. It knew what it wanted. It knew what belonged to him and he was ready to take it.
Mine, roared in my head.
Only. Fucking. Mine.
My legs closed the distance between me and the two of them, and without thinking, without a second to fucking spare, I pulled Ryder back, pushing him away from us. My hand wrapped around her upper arm, over the cold skin, and pushed her behind me.
My nostrils flared when I looked back at the man I considered my friend—most days.
But now he was an enemy. Now he was someone who had his arms around the woman that belonged only to me.
The woman who fried my fucking brain that I didn't even realize I was breathing heavily, resembling an angry bull more than a human being.
Ryder fucking smirked at me, and before I could charge toward him, before I could fucking wipe that smirk away forever, two hands much smaller than my own, landed on my chest, wrapping her arms around me.
There were moments in life that determined the rest of our paths, the way how things would go, and this one was one of them.
"Xavier," she whispered, pressing her forehead between my shoulder blades. "Calm down."
"He touched you," I spat out, shaking from head to toe. "He fucking touched you."
"He didn't mean to," she argued, but we both knew that wasn't the truth. Ryder had every intention of hugging her, pushing me over the edge and into the abyss, just so that he could see my reaction.
The fucker was counting on doing something, anything to piss me off, and I shouldn't have been surprised. Had I been in the same situation as him, I probably would've done the same. Yet knowing I would've done it and being the recipient of this fucking burn in my heart were two different things.
"I think we should go," Caleb said, approaching slowly toward Ryder, yet his eyes never left me. "We can discuss the rest of the things later."
"Yes!" I said at the same time as Yara yelled out, "No!"
Two daggers logged themselves inside the center of me, right where she was touching me, rubbing her hands over my chest.
Did she want them here?
Did she like them?
Did she want to be with one of them?
Ryder had a shit eating grin on his face, and if it wasn't for Yara wrapped around me, I would've erased it, friendship be damned. I didn't like the way he looked at her.
I didn't want him anywhere near her.
He was a motherfucker I didn't trust.
Because you know he's a much better option for her than you.
Fuck. Off.
There was no other option for the little spitfire than me. Acidic burn spread through my stomach at the mere thought of her with anyone else.
Touching them.
Kissing them.
Fucking. Them.
"No." I shook my head, trying to erase the pictures from my mind, but every time my eyes closed I could see it almost as clear as the day. They would love her without darkness brimming on the edge of their love. They wouldn't be violently obsessive, yearning for even the smallest of touches.
She deserved the light. She deserved a fucking sun, and I would never be able to give it to her. But I was a selfish bastard who didn't care if she drowned in my darkness, because we would be drowning together.
I would suffocate her with the feelings I had. I would make her see that there was no one else in this world for her but me.
That was a promise.
"Don't be rude, Xavier," Ryder mocked. "Yara doesn't mind us staying, do you pretty girl?"
Motherfucking cock sucking piece of—
"Xavier," the little kitten behind me growled at me—fucking growled—when I tried to take another step toward Ryder. "Behave. These are your friends."
"Yeah, Xavier." Ryder smirked. "Behave. We're all friends here."
Friends, my ass. Ryder was only doing this to rile me up, and he was succeeding.
I didn't want them here. I didn't want their eyes on Yara.
When I warned her to stay away from my friends, I told her it was because she wasn't good enough to even be in their orbit. But deep inside I already knew I was fucking free falling, and I just hoped she would catch me. Deep down I knew they weren’t good enough to be anywhere near her.
"I was gonna go for a swim," Yara said. "Maybe you guys would want to join me?"
Did she want them to die?
My mouth opened to say no once again, but Ryder beat me. "I think that's a great idea. I have my swim trunks in my car. Caleb?" He turned toward the silent observer here, whose eyes kept bouncing between the three of us, waiting to see what would happen. "Are you joining?"
Caleb closed his eyes and started rubbing at his temples, shaking his head slightly.
I knew him well enough to be able to recognize defeat on him even before he said anything.
There was no fucking way he'd be leaving now, even if he didn't want to swim.
He was too worried I would kill Ryder, and that wasn't something any of us needed right now.
After The Harvest last year, the Council was on our assess to make sure this year was successful.
Last year several of the girls didn't show up, and quite a lot of the guys that were pretty much left without a possibility of getting someone, ended up wreaking havoc on the town, burning shit down and breaking things they shouldn't have.
One of those people was Ryder, which was why he was going to participate again this year. It made no sense, but none of us questioned the Council, especially since his grandfather sat on it, dictating what needed to be done.
I knew that Ryder never wanted to participate, and his little tantrum last year was a nice little fuck-you to his family. But none of us could outrun our destiny. Our lives were never our own, even if we thought they were.
"I'll stay," Caleb finally said after a minute too long, looking at me with resignation in his eyes.
We didn't have time for this rivalry between Ryder and me, but ever since that last Harvest, Ryder wasn't the same. In the past he would never have gone against the group decisions. He would have never questioned any of us, mostly because he didn't really give a fuck, but something changed.
I had no idea what, and I didn't like this new version of him, probably mostly because he was using Yara to fucking piss me off. That rational part of my brain understood that he didn't really like Yara like that, but this other, insane fucking part of me, didn't want him anywhere near her.
"Great," Yara chirped. Her hands started lowering, moving away from my body, and I hated the lack of her heat on me more than the fact that the bane of my existence would be able to see her wet, in her bathing suit, smiling at him as if he deserved it.
She oofed but didn't say a thing as I tightened my hold, keeping her temporarily as a hostage. If I had to suffer for the next however many hours with Ryder and Caleb looking at her, then I would make it damn right obvious that she was mine.
Mine and no one fucking else's.