103. Summer
Chapter One Hundred Three
Summer
M y eyes snap open, the horrible feeling in my gut pulling me from sleep.
Nothing seems out of place. Everything is quiet except for Alice snoring lightly next to me, but something feels wrong.
I grab my phone. There are still no messages from the stranger, and I can’t explain it but something feels?. .?.
Summer
Are you okay?
There is still no answer. I climb out of bed and pull on a hoodie and my shoes. I leave my room and hurry down the stairs. Slipping out the front door, I stand on the porch to dial his number. It goes straight to voicemail, which means he’s blocked my number or his phone is dead.
I can’t shake this feeling.
Something wrong. Something wrong. Something wrong.
Not knowing what else to do, I push into a run to clear my head, taking the familiar path that will lead me around campus. To be honest, I’m also hoping that he’ll start watching me, that he’ll show up, that he’ll yell at me, punish me, kiss me. I don’t fucking care. I just want him here.
I try to call him again when I slow down in front of the gym.
All the lights are off, but then my attention is drawn to Max’s apartment building next to it.
Most of the lights are off, but it’s the shattered window on the fourth floor that catches my attention.
The feeling that something is wrong intensifies, and I press every button at the door of Max’s building until someone lets me in.
They curse rudely at me down the intercom, but I barely hear it.
I’m already up a flight and a half of stairs, heading toward Max’s floor.
When I arrive on his landing I see his door is ajar. “Max?” I call, knocking tentatively before pushing his door open.
The room is loud with silence as I step into his apartment.
It is sheathed in near complete darkness, the only light filtering through the thin curtains over the windows, but it’s enough to show the signs of a struggle.
The succulent I got for him is on the floor, soil spilled from its small pot.
The couch cushions have been ripped off the couch and are now strewn across the floor, but it’s the bloodied cloth discarded on the floor next to the mattress that terrifies me.
“Max?” I call louder, rushing to the bathroom, looking for any sign of him. I grab my phone and try to call him, but his phone shrieks loudly from under the coffee table.
Fuck.
I grab it and leave his apartment, sprinting toward the only logical place.
The infirmary. If he’s not there, it’ll be straight to the headmaster.
I run across campus and burst through the infirmary doors, earning a severe look from the Matron, but I don’t care, because I spot Max lying on one of the cots.
His arm is at an odd angle, and he’s getting bandaged from his fingers to his shoulders.
“Max! What happened?” I ask, running to him to cup his cheek, looking him over. His nose is bloody, and he has a split lip. “Are you okay?”
“Summer?” Max frowns. “What are you doing here?”
“What happened?” I ask, continuing to catalog his injuries.
Max hisses as the nurse tugs on his bandage. “Not sure. I woke up in pain, and there was?.?.?. something there,” he says. “The nurse says my arm’s been shattered, hand too. She said a curse, but whatever it was got a few shots in before he left.”
I glance at the nurse before looking back at Max.
“Don’t think he would have punched me if I’d just let him leave without a fight.”
The nurse nods solemnly, and I stare at his swollen arm and hand, suspecting exactly what happened.
“Fuck.”
“It’s fine, Sum. I’ll heal. ”
I meet Max’s eyes, the guilt compounding and threatening to consume me because this is all my fault. Everything is my fault. I cup his cheek again. “Max, I am?.?.?. so sorry.”
“For what? You didn’t break my arm,” Max says, shaking his head.
I stroke his cheek, tears filling my eyes again. What have I done? I may not have broken his arm directly, but I am the cause, and being here is just putting him in even more danger.
“Max, I should go, but if you need anything, text me.” I place his phone on the bedside table.
Max frowns. “Sum?” he says, watching me. “Maybe you should stay. I have a bad feeling that if you leave, something bad is going to happen.”
He felt the danger. He experienced it, but he doesn’t understand what it all means or that he still isn’t safe.
I lean in and kiss his forehead. “I have something to take care of, but I’ll check in with you tomorrow, okay?”
Max grabs my arm as I start to rise. “Be careful?” he says, not noticing my grimace of pain.
I nod and smile. “I’ll be okay. Take all the pain meds they offer. Don’t be an idiot.” Max chuckles, and I squeeze his hand. “I’m so sorry, Max.”
I leave the ward, anger pulsing through me. With every step, with every reverberation of my foot against the pathway, my rage builds. When he hurt me, I understood. I saw where he was coming from because I related to him, but he hurt Max. He broke Max.
I walk into the forest as the sun begins to rise.
The shifters have left, and there is an eerie silence bouncing between the trees.
It doesn’t take me long to find him. He’s standing in our clearing with his back to me, and I stop at the mouth of the meadow, watching him.
My anger hasn’t receded. It’s still surging through me.
He glances at me over his shoulder, and I just stare at him.
My skin feels hot beneath the surface, my fury simmering so close to the surface.
He turns to face me.
“You?.?.?.” I begin, but the words turn to charred embers against my tongue.
He remains silent, watching me.
“You broke his arm,” I say. My voice is quiet, and the danger in it surprises even me. I like the way it sounds. “His hand. His fingers,” I add, standing still as a statue. “You hit him.”
“And?” he says, just standing and continuing to stare at me.
My anger flickers with uncertainty at his nonchalance. “Because he kissed me. Because he kissed someone who is unattached.”
“He should consider himself lucky ,” he sneers, flexing his fingers menacingly. “I don’t usually show such restraint.”
I snarl, taking a few steps toward him. “He is innocent of everything but kissing someone. Someone he has kissed before. Many times.” I know I’m playing a dangerous game, but I want to punish him.
He needs to know that I cannot forgive this.
I want him to hurt like he hurt me. Like he hurt Max.
“Kissing someone who hadn’t told him that she was in some twisted deal with her faceless stalker! ” I yell, venom seeping into my voice.
He stares at me, his gaze piercing. Very deliberately, he opens his hand and holds it out to his side. Suddenly, I am surrounded by the clinging weight of his power, and the trees that line the clearing begin to age and then wilt, before turning to dust.
“And he is lucky to be alive,” he says, his voice guttural, his power threatening to smother me completely with the vastness of it.
My darkness swirls deliciously inside me, desperate to be free, to play with his.
He takes a menacing step toward me, the devastating impact of his power growing more terrifying.
This male could destroy realms, destroy species.
So could you.
The voice whispers in my head, but I can barely hear it over the roar of his power, the words tumbling through the void separating us.
He closes the distance, malice and something close to wrath radiating from him.
My power stretches toward his as if hungry for the chaos, instinctively seeking something only he can give.
I shake my head. I can’t be like this because I refuse to be like him.
Connor helped me be good. This isn’t me.
I am not like him. My power is not like his. Please?.?.?.
“You’re a fucking psycho,” I snarl, shaking my head, struggling to contain my power.
“Many have begged for my mercy,” he says.
His voice is terrifyingly calm, yet there is a slight echo of something?.?.?. I don’t know what it is, but it’s dark, monstrous, and inviting .
“And only once have I granted it to them,” he continues.
His power is so immense that it hurts to take a deep breath, making me feel as if I am still suffocating.
“The boy should be grateful,” he growls, his voice sending a shiver down my spine, “to be the sole exception.”
Fear grips me, though I’m not sure what exactly I’m afraid of. Him. It must be him. I need it to be him.
My chest heaves as I look up at him, forcing myself to look down at him though he towers over me. “I am not yours, and now I never will be,” I growl. “Tonight made the decision very easy for me.”
I allow a tendril of my power out, hoping it’ll prompt him to draw his back in a little.
Instead, the two come together almost gleefully.
His power dances with mine, caressing as mine twines about his, the two coalescing as if they belong together.
It is uncontrollable and terrifying because together they feel apoplectic.
“Max did nothing. It was my fault,” I say, refusing to back down.
I put Max in danger. It was my cowardice that kept me from telling him, and I am the reason he is hurt.
“Your response was to physically assault me and then break his bones.” The stranger’s eyes flicker a little to the bruises on my neck, and I lift my chin.
“You hurt me.” His eyes flicker again. “Me.”
He meets my gaze again and grabs my jaw, pulling me to him. This isn’t the same grip from before. This is what I’m used to. The one he uses to tease me, to warn me if I’m being a brat. It’s not meant to hurt me, not in any way that won’t bring me some satisfaction or pleasure.
“You are mine. You have always been mine.” He leans in. “From your first breath to your last.”
“Or what?” I ask, feeling emboldened. His fingers tighten on me, and I snarl.
“You going to hurt me again? Kill me?” I ask, letting out a humorless laugh.
“All because another kissed me. When you’re too chickenshit to do it.
” His fingers don’t tighten, but I can tell my words are affecting him.
“Too scared to show me the real you.” I lift a brow, assessing him.
“Or perhaps that is what you’re doing right now. ”
He grabs my hair, fisting it close to my scalp and yanking hard. My head snaps back, and I snarl, trying not to let a moan slip free.
“Is that what you want? To feel something? ”
“I want you to leave me alone.” We were past this. We had moved past this. He has ruined everything.
He scoffs cruelly. “Never.”
My lip curls in a snarl. “I will never, ever want anything from you except your demise,” I say, my voice strong with promise.
“And if I have to be the one to do it, if that is the only way to get you to stay the fuck away from me,” I smile, my lips tugging up at the corners, “then I’ll smile as your blood stains the floor beneath my feet. ”
He tightens his fingers in my hair, smirking. “If my end comes at your hands. Yours will come at mine. You are mine. From beginning to end. Just as I am yours.”
“You are nothing but a coward,” I scoff. “Hiding behind magic and power. Using it like a shield because you’re afraid.” I shake my head. “Pathetic. Wanting someone who will never want you back.”
He leans in closer. If he were actually here, our breath would be mingling in the space between us.
“Your moans and whimpers for me say different, little fae. You begged for more.” His smirk deepens.
“I could kiss you right now and make you melt for me.” He glances at my lips.
“Maybe I will?.?.?.” He leans in, and I start to panic. I need to get away from him.
“It was all a lie. Every second.” My lips tingle at the memory of our one kiss. “You’re not even really here.”
“Yet I can make you feel more than any other. Even as a shadow,” he whispers, and somehow I feel his breath brush over my lips.
When he gripped my jaw, I began tunneling into my power, and now I’m well sunk into it, but I only have one shot.
“You’re nothing but a stalker, and you will never have me,” I growl, slamming my hand against his chest. I blast through his avatar, feeling his actual body beneath, launching him into the tree line.