Chapter Six
XADEN
The fury flowing through my veins has lulled me into a state of numbness.
It was perfect until she baited me.
Her voice shattered my sanctuary, ripped me out of that cold, dark place where I don't have to feel anything and dragged me back to this fucking moment, where I'm forced to sense the ghosts of my best friends and sister surrounding me.
Their loss is paramount. Always there. Present with every breath I take, every beat of my heart.
The void inside me is one they filled. But not anymore.
Never again.
Toren Kellar.
This bitch was supposed to be my golden ticket to destroying her family. She had no idea she was spreading her legs for the devil himself. She thought she could best me, thought she could take me down with her little plans and schemes.
But I was ten steps ahead. I heard everything. All her calculated moves were for nothing.
She's just like her father and brother, a fucking snake.
“I see you.”
The resignation in her voice should satisfy me, should fill the emptiness with something resembling victory. She knows there's no escape from this. I'll be the last thing she sees before I send her straight to hell where she belongs.
“Make him feel the pain you felt.”
The words hit me like a physical blow.
She wants me to hurt her instead.
Wants to take her brother's place.
Wants me to carve into her flesh so Masen can feel even a fraction of the agony that's been eating me alive for nearly two years.
My breath catches in my throat.
It makes me sick, physically fucking sick to admit this, but I respect her for it. For sitting there watching without flinching. For offering herself up as a sacrifice.
The Toren I thought I knew would have been begging by now. Screaming. Breaking.
But this version? She's steel wrapped in skin.
“Caspian.” My voice sounds strange to my own ears, hollow, distant. “Bring the cart.”
“Xaden—”
“The fucking cart, now!”
The roar tears from somewhere primal and violent. If he doesn't have the stomach to watch this, he can get the fuck out. But this is happening whether he likes it or not.
The warehouse falls into deathly silence, so still you could hear a heartbeat from across the room as Cas wheels the cart to my side and stands there like a statue.
Toren doesn't move.
Doesn't take her eyes off me as I select the scalpel from the array of instruments.
I reach out and glide the tip along her cheek, not hard enough to cut. Just enough to feel the warmth of her skin against cold steel.
I'm taunting her.
Testing her.
Waiting for the moment she breaks.
I need it.
Need to hear her beg and plead for her worthless life. Need to see fear replace that goddamn understanding in her eyes.
But she just stares at me with that look, that fucking look that says she sees straight through to my rotten core and somehow doesn't hate me for it.
It pisses me off more than anything else could.
“It's okay,” she whispers, so quietly only I can hear.
The words detonate something inside me.
It's okay?
How the fuck is any of this okay?
How can she sit there wearing my jersey, pregnant, and tell me it's okay that I'm about to carve her apart?
Fucking slice the bitch! Do it! Make her pay!
The voice in my head is screaming but my hand is shaking.
I press the tip of the scalpel into the side of her neck, right where her pulse flutters like a trapped bird. I grit my teeth so hard my jaw aches, forcing all thoughts from my mind, willing the numbness to come back and wash over me.
But it doesn't.
I dig the blade in just enough to draw a single drop of blood. It wells up, crimson and perfect, then slides down the pale column of her throat.
Her eyes twitch. She flinches, barely, just a micro-movement but still she doesn't pull away. Doesn't scream.
Doesn't give me what I need.
The blood drips and I suddenly envision my sister’s pendant around her neck. She wore it every day without fail until the night of the bonfire.
Something inside me breaks.
My sister's necklace, stained with Toren's blood.
The symbolism is too much. Too heavy. Too fucking real.
“Do it,” Toren whispers again, her voice steady despite the tear that escapes down her cheek. “I know you need this. So do it.”
But I can't.
God fucking help me, I can't.
Because pressing that blade deeper means admitting that I've become exactly what I swore I'd never be. It means crossing a line I can never uncross.
It means killing the girl pregnant with my kid.
Killing the girl I—
No.
No.
I don't love her. I can't love her. Love is weakness and I can't afford to be weak.
But my hand is still shaking and the scalpel isn't moving and everyone in this warehouse is watching me fail.
“Xaden.” Cas's voice cuts through the chaos in my head. “You don't have to do this.”
“Yes, I do,” I rasp. “She's one of them. She's—”
“She's pregnant with your kid,” Cas says quietly. “And she just watched you beat her brother half to death without looking away once. What more do you need from her?”
Everything.
I need everything.
“She needs to pay,” I grit out.
“For what?” Toren's voice is so soft I almost miss it. “For being born into the wrong family? For loving a brother who turned out to be a monster? For falling in love with you?”
The last words hang in the air like a grenade with the pin pulled.
She didn't just say that.
She didn't just—
“I don't love you,” I snarl, pressing the blade harder. Another drop of blood. “I hate you.”
“I know.” Her smile is devastating in its sadness. “But I love you anyway. And I'm so sorry, Xaden. I'm sorry about Em. I'm sorry about Neave and Miles.”
Tears are streaming down her face now but her voice never wavers.
“So if killing me is what you need to find peace, then do it. I won't fight you. I won't run. I'll give you this if it's the only thing I can give you that matters.”
The scalpel clatters to the floor.
I didn't mean to drop it. Didn't consciously make that choice.
But suddenly it's on the concrete and my hands are empty and the girl who just offered me her life like it's nothing is staring up at me with shock plastered across her face.
Like she's nothing.
“You stupid—” My voice cracks. “You stupid fucking—”
I can't finish. Can't force the words past the tightness in my throat.
Because she's not nothing.
And that realization is more terrifying than any violence I could inflict.
“Incoming, we have ten maybe more cops heading this way fast, we need to go, boss,” one of my soldiers calls out, pulling me from my fucking turmoil.
The sound of sirens reaches my ears and I know we have minutes to get the fuck out of here.
I know whoever these fucking assholes are, they aren’t on my payroll.
It has to be that cunt Meekan’s guys, they are the only ones who would dare come to my turf and interrupt me.
“Get them out of here,” I rasp to Cas.
“Xaden, there’s no time, you can hear the sirens.” His reply pisses me off, I know he’s right but I’m not thinking straight right now. He grabs my arm and tries to drag me away from her but I don’t budge, I stare down at her and sneer.
“This isn’t over, Tink,” I vow.
“Till death do us part, Devlin.” I hear her call out as I walk away and I pause, grab the gun from my waistband then whirl around and fire a shot.