Chapter 7 Xavier
XAVIER
"What crawled up your ass and died?"
For a moment I almost didn't hear the question coming from my right, thinking that it might have been directed at someone else, but as the silence descended on us, and as I felt the eyes on me, I knew that Caleb was asking me.
And I couldn't formulate a proper answer for the fuckery happening in my head.
"I'm just tired," I said instead, ignoring the ache in the center of my chest. "Didn't sleep very well." Which wasn't a complete lie.
I've spent half of the night sitting in front of her room, talking myself out of breaking the door down and demanding things I had no right to ask for.
I hated the way we parted yesterday, but most of all I hated seeing the shattered pieces of her in those moments when she thought I wasn't paying attention.
Whoever had put those emotions there deserved to die. No one else but me had the right to make her cry. No one else deserved to see her at her rawest, when she thought that her little threats did anything else but spur me on.
She thought that by telling me she could fuck whoever she wanted I would step away? Nah, she should have thought better, because now I would be her shadow. I would be the one person she would never be able to run away from.
I let her go yesterday because I needed to control myself not to take her right then and there.
I was seconds from tearing off the barely there bikini she wore, and burying myself deep inside her pussy, marking her for eternity.
I wanted her full of my cum, my babies, my fucking legacy, and damned be anyone who dared to stand in my way.
This was no longer about just wanting her pain.
I wanted her tears, her smiles, her lips, her fucking touch, her fucking belly swollen with our kids.
I didn't care who wanted to stop me because they would die if they even tried.
They would fucking perish even if it was the last thing I would ever do.
And the Harvest was just the first step to tie her to me for an eternity.
"Do we have everything ready for the event?
" I asked, completely ignoring the concerned look on my best friend's face.
Caleb tried talking to me yesterday after I came back to the pool, but I shut him up almost immediately.
I didn't want him to know I was crawling out of my skin just by staying there with him and Ryder, who I wanted to punch in the face.
I didn't want to tell Caleb that my new stepsister had my head spinning and my heart racing, because I would rather let him think that I was simply playing a game because he knew what my father did. Not just my father—what Yara's mother did.
But both of them would get what they deserved. I promised that to my mom as I knelt at her grave, after all those battles, for all those scars she wore. And just when she was getting better, her life was taken by the evil living in the same house as she did.
"Did you manage to get what I've asked for?" I looked at Ryder, halfway expecting him to tell me to fuck off. But instead of brushing me off, he pulled out a manilla envelope, and handed it over to me.
"Pictures are inside," he simply said, "With time stamps." Ryder cleared his throat and shifted on the sofa chair he was occupying. "I know it's not what you want to hear from me, but I am sorry these pictures exist."
An emotion logged itself in my throat, making it impossible to speak, to do anything but accept the envelope and nod in appreciation.
Ryder himself wasn't a man of too many words, and I knew he would understand.
His own situation wasn't something out of the fairytale, but he hid it from most of us, masking it under this apathetic behavior he perfected.
"Is that what I think it is?" It was Caleb that asked this time.
"It is," I said, looking down at the envelope that would give me the leverage I needed. "I was starting to lose hope we would ever find this."
Ryder smirked and leaned back. "There's nothing that could stay hidden forever," he said pointedly, "You know that."
I knew, but I didn't like the insinuation in his tone, as if he knew something I didn't. If he knew something about Yara, he better tell me.
The moment she came into the picture, Ryder ran a background check on her, but apart from her place of birth, her parents and her grades, there was nothing else that popped up. At least nothing he shared with me.
But right now, I didn't want to focus on the fact that Ryder might be hiding something from me, not when an answer to all my problems was right here in my hands.
My father wouldn't have been able to stop me from taking Yara as my bride, but he would be able to make our life a living hell if he wasn’t dealt with.
Not to mention her mother who seemed to thrive on hurting her own daughter, disregarding everything she ever wanted.
In the beginning I loved it, craved hearing those filthy words her own mother said to her, but the more time I spent around her, the more I wanted to kill her mother for simply existing.
She didn't deserve to breathe the same air Yara breathed. She didn't deserve the happiness she thought she had found in my father.
She had no idea that the trust fund set aside for me was the only leverage my father had, because he thought I wouldn't go to my grandpa, who was on the Council.
The bastard thought he could still control me, and after all these years instead of trying to mend things, he was only making them worse.
William Thornton would learn what happens to those who try to control me, thinking they were winning.
He would learn what happens to those who betray their own blood, their own family, turning toward the sick and depraved parts of this world.
I was biding my time, waiting for these documents that would make him somebody else's problem.
I had no feelings left for the man who was nothing more but a sperm donor at this point.
A man who thought it would be a good idea to blackmail his only son when I told him I would go to speak to my grandpa once he announced he was getting married.
My grandfather loved my mother, and when she died, he was the only support I had.
My father destroyed his relationship with his own father by being a shitty son, a shitty husband and an even shittier father, and instead of changing, trying to be better, he was only becoming worse.
I was glad he wasn't home right now, because I could only imagine what would be happening had both him and Yara’s mother been there.
Especially now—after I found out more details about his past.
He put such a pretty facade for Yara, but I could see right through him.
He was the worst type of man—an addict who thought the world revolved around him, uncaring who got hurt as long as he got everything he wanted. A sick and depraved individual, thriving on the pain of others.
"What are you going to do now?" Caleb asked, and as I looked at him, I noticed the doors to the Lounge opening. My mouth parted as the words came to the forefront, ready to answer, but the moment I saw the person walking through the doors those same words logged in my throat.
I couldn't look away.
I couldn't stop staring at her, and as if she could feel my eyes on her, Yara looked straight at me, those icy eyes narrowing at me and my friends.
Her hair was high in the ponytail, those eyes that looked like starlight rounded with dark eyeshadow, and even from this distance I could feel the anger radiating from her.
Yeah, there was no way in hell I would have ever been able to stay away from her, but seeing her here today was a surprise I didn't see coming.
I thought she wasn't working today, but it was as if the Universe kept on putting us both in the same place at the same time, and I'd be lying if I said I didn't like it. The same obviously couldn't be said for her, at least not judging by the angry look she was throwing my way.
I liked this version of her. This fierce, angry, version of her.
For almost two months she's been taking every single one of my insults, every jab, every comment, and she rarely ever did anything to stop me.
I had no idea why because it was obvious she was not someone who would back down from the challenge.
She taunted me daily, pushing every single one of my buttons as if she knew that she was the only one who could do that. And I loved it.
Craved it even.
There was not a single person in this fucking place who ever went against my wishes. There wasn't a single person who dared talking back to me, whether it was in front of my friends or in private, and she did.
Caleb turned around, following my gaze and the moment he saw her standing there he turned back around, shaking his head. "Xavier." There was a warning in his voice. "Don't."
"I'm not doing anything." But she was about to.
Her head tilted and an evil little smirk came over her face just as she started walking in our direction. I straightened, looking at her as she smiled at an older couple occupying one of the tables closer to the entrance, but the moment she looked back at us there it was again.
That evil smirk.
The mischief lingering in her eyes.
Her long legs were clad in the black pants, an usual uniform for anyone who worked here, but if she turned around I would be able to see that peachy, round ass I couldn't get out of my mind. She was tiny compared to me, but her personality was what made her seem larger than life.
I craved the poison she carried.
I craved the little knives she had hidden in the sleeves of her shirts, wanting her to cut me, to make me bleed only so that she could mend me again.
Her words yesterday were like blades of the sharpest knife, cutting through my flesh with viciousness only she possessed.
She wanted to hurt me, to make me see I was nothing to her, but she failed to hide her eyes.
She failed to hide the need living inside her.