I shoved my hands through my unkempt hair and fought the urge to snarl like a wild animal.
Just barely, I kept control of the fire raging through my soul.
Walter pointed out yet another massive bedroom with a four-poster bed, hearth, and bathroom en suite. He was giving us a tour of all the rooms before we decided which ones to take.
Truthfully, I didn’t hear a fucking word he said.
Piece by careful piece, I rebuilt my facade of indifference.
My face was stony like hard marble, while my chest burned with an inferno of rage.
Nothing could stop the pain.
With every cell in my being, I wanted to slam my fist into the wood carvings that neatly decorated the arched hall. Xerxes had old money, and his house was a mansion of exquisite caliber.
I didn’t give a single shit.
All I cared about was Sadie, and the wicked black-and-green bruises that covered every inch of her skin.
I kept my expression bland and pretended I was unbothered and calm. A chill person like Jax.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
The fires inside my chest burned me alive, and I had to bite down on my tongue to stop myself from screaming.
Scream at Sadie for putting herself in harm’s way; scream at the fucker Spike for hurting her; scream at the don; scream at everyone.
The more Sadie put herself in danger, the more one thing became apparent: I wasn’t like the other alphas.
I couldn’t let her put herself in harm’s way because she had her own convictions and blah, blah, blah. She was a fucking princess.
My princess.
My fingernails dug into my palms hard enough to draw blood.
I’d always known I had issues with women. The syndicate had been a vile place, and I’d thought I was different from my father. Better.
But the truths of my past still haunted me.
Growing up, I’d learned that women were commodities. Sluts that were good for fucking and nothing else. If you gave them too much, they’d take it all. Greedy, lazy whores that used their bodies.
My teeth dug into my bottom lip, and blood flooded my mouth.
The mantra of a woman’s purpose had been hammered into my head from a young age. My father had made sure of it.
But in one respect, he’d failed.
For each slap he’d doled out to a woman, I’d received a worse beating. It didn’t take a genius to put two and two together.
My father was fucking unhinged.
Nothing that man said was correct.
I promised myself I would never be like him, that I would never abuse women and use them.
Until now, I’d thought I succeeded at being different from that piece of shit.
I was turning twenty-four years old soon, and I could safely say I’d never hurt a woman and had never lifted a hand against one.
Never wanted to.
Sure, I’d fucked them until they screamed with release, worshipped their bodies until they cried my name, but I’d never once asserted my power over their smaller bodies.
But I’d never felt anything more than a surface-level attachment to a woman. Done nothing more than traded pleasure for pleasure.
I realized my problem.
My temperament had swung too far the other way.
Now that I’d grown attached to a woman, I fucking cared too much.
The horrors of growing up had warped me.
The pain, fear, and tears of women as they’d run from my father’s room, his fist slamming against their heads casually when they upset him.
Fire raged inside my soul.
I wanted to throw Sadie over my shoulder and lock her in a room because I couldn’t stand to see her injured.
It killed me inside.
If it weren’t for the rest of the men accepting Sadie’s decisions, I would have physically stopped her from initiating. I’d have fucking knocked her out before I’d have allowed her to go through with it.
But I couldn’t.
I was held back by how badly I’d fucked up with the fae queen. I was a hypocritical ass, because I’d been the one to put her in danger.
But holy fuck.
Jax talked about giving her the freedom to make her own decisions—what a crock of shit.
I couldn’t fucking comprehend how he held himself back from ordering her around. I saw the inferno in his eyes, the way his jaw tensed when she’d marched forward to get tortured.
Somehow, he’d held himself back.
I’d forced my body to mimic his. With every ounce of control in my being, I’d fashioned my features into granite and stood idly by while she put herself in danger.
It had killed me.
Now I trembled with the urge to make her mine.
In that way, I understood Cobra.
If I possessed her, if she was mine, then I could forbid her from doing things for her own safety. Then she would never get hurt again, and I could relax.
I dragged my hands roughly across my sensitive horns, and the pain cleared my jumbled thoughts.
No.
I was a product of a fucked-up childhood, and I couldn’t think straight around Sadie. If I acted like I wanted to, just like Jax kept telling Cobra, I would lose her for good.
That wasn’t an option.
Somewhere in our time together in the shifter and fae realms, my obsession had become something more. I woke up thinking about her, and I went to bed worrying about her.
My life had always felt rudderless. I was highly skilled, a perfect soldier of control and violence, but there had always been something missing.
An ennui of sorts.
It was all too easy to play the soldier; it didn’t take any effort to kill someone or beat them into submission. Another day, another tattoo carved into my flesh.
But holy fuck, I wasn’t bored anymore.
The emptiness in my chest was now an inferno of obsession.
Sadie, my fucking princess, gave the violence a reason.
Now I knew I was a killing machine of strength and sinew because I had to be the one to protect her.
If I gave a shit about any of the sun god’s lore, I would call it destiny. Moon fate or whatever the mystical bullshit was when people whispered about destined mates.
As I battled my internal control issues, Aran arched one of her eyebrows at me like she could sense my tormented thoughts.
She shouldn’t be able to tell shit.
We walked down the hall as a group, and my face was a stony mask of indifference.
I stared back at her.
Aran’s unnaturally blue eyes were bright as arctic water, and I wondered for the millionth time how I’d thought she was a boy.
Even enchanted with short hair and a boy’s build, her features were too feminine, and her eyes didn’t fit her masculine face.
It was hard to put into words because it wasn’t anything about the physical features themselves.
There was a hauntedness in them, a melancholic gleam of sadness that screamed of soul-deep secrets and endless pain. The type of pain that could only be caused by having the mad fae queen as your mother.
Aran’s eyes were her giveaway.
They were what had made me turn her over to her mother on that fucked-up day.
My stomach cramped as Aran kept staring at me.
The teenage girls walked around us, chattering to one another. Jax smiled at his family. Cobra bantered with them, and my princess walked ahead with her sister.
A burst of light twisted through my chest as she smiled. Finally, Sadie was safe and content after too many hours of fucking pain.
Even beaten half to death, the group exuded palpable happiness.
Aran and I were the odd ones out.
My stomach pinched again as I looked over at Sadie’s best friend.
I claimed to be better than my father, but it was also my fault that Aran’s cover had been blown and that she’d done the unthinkable.
I tried to relax my features and give her a small smile.
Instead, my face hardened into a grimace, and the sourness in my throat burned. I’d never learned how to express emotions.
You fucked women and didn’t get attached, patted men on the back, and focused on being the best soldier you could be.
Emotions were for the weak because facial expressions and feelings could be exploited and used against you.
Logically, I knew this.
It didn’t make the ache in my stomach go away every time I thought about Sadie’s pain or looked over at Aran’s haunted gaze.
Aran walked silently as the group smiled around her.
Fae royalty among shifters.
Now, because of my own actions, she was the queen of a fucking dreadful realm.
I fisted my palms and willed myself to forget about it. There was enough on my plate trying to keep Sadie safe; why did it fucking matter that her best friend was clearly not okay?
Other people’s problems weren’t my issues, and I obviously had no fucking clue how to deal with women.
Aran huffed and rolled her eyes at me. “You got a problem with something?” Her tone was scathing, but it didn’t have its usual sass.
I didn’t miss the way her arms shook slightly.
Back in the shifter realm, she’d been bursting with energy, always defending Sadie, and throwing herself into training.
I’d been trained to spot the signs of lying, and her words were too clipped. Her resonance was off.
She had the body tics of someone who was under extreme duress and trying to act like they were fine when they weren’t.
She wasn’t well.
My stomach cramped, and I asked myself what Jax would do in the situation.
His sisters were literally hanging off his arms and beaming up at him as he listened to every one of their ridiculous statements, like they were of the utmost importance.
“I’m sorry,” I blurted out, and the words caught in the back of my throat. “It was my fault…your mother…I didn’t know.” I stared down at the polished mahogany wood floor as Walter showed the group yet another room.
Aran stopped walking and gaped at me like I’d grown two heads. “Wow.”
“What?” My hackles rose, and I snapped back. Of course I was fucking this up. I should have just stayed fucking quiet and not tried. Emotions were weakness, and I needed to rebuild my defen—
Aran nudged me with her elbow, and it cut off my train of thought. “It is totally your fault.”
I nodded in agreement; I was the ass who’d ruined her life.
“But it’s also not. My mother was going to find me eventually, and her existence was always hanging over my head. Even if I wanted to, I couldn’t escape my birthright.”
Aran shrugged in an attempt to look casual, but she itched aggressively at her back.
Suddenly, an idea struck me. The inferno in my chest leaped with a new purpose.
“I see what you are to Sadie, and I know how much you mean to her, so I won’t let the fae take you back. I vow to you my allegiance.”
The darkness in Aran’s eyes abated slightly, and for the first time since she’d done the unthinkable, a smile split her face. She stopped itching at her back.
The pain in my stomach lessened, and I marveled at the lightness that burst through me.
I put my hand out.
Aran shook it vigorously and said, “Deal. I’m taking you up on that shit. Do you know how hard it is going to be to evade the fae looking for their queen?”
She smirked, her eyes lit up with an edge of violence, and I couldn’t help but smirk back.
Aran was a fellow soldier. Violence recognized violence.
I smirked. “It’s gonna get messy.”
Aran grinned. “We’re probably going to have to kill some people.”
“We’re going to need to find weapons.”
A cough down the hall caught my attention, and when I looked away from Aran, I was surprised to find everyone standing in the hall, staring at us oddly.
“What?” I snapped.
Had I somehow fucked up again?
Sadie smiled, walked up to me, and patted my chest. “You just earned some major brownie points for not being a total dick for once.” She paused, then ran down the hall, shouting, “Also, I call the biggest room!”
I gaped at her retreating form, noting once again that something close to happiness had sparked in me at her words. The feeling quickly dissipated into confusion.
“I call sharing. I get night terrors!” Aran yelled, and sprinted after her.
Sadie laughed. “Bitch, I definitely have worse PTSD. Get your own room.”
“Literally, I’m not sleeping alone. So get used to me, roomie.” Aran followed Sadie.
They cackled at each other, and then all four of the teen girls raced down the hall after them, fighting over who was bunking with who.
Noodle, the damn ferret, even squealed loudly like he wanted to add to the noise.
I sighed heavily and followed like a normal, sane person who didn’t want a roommate.
Walter had literally just shown us over twenty rooms.
Jax smiled and clapped me on the back as I walked up to him, and Cobra nodded at me.
I didn’t know what had just happened, but for the first time in my life, the inferno in my chest wasn’t eating me alive.
And I had earned something called brownie points.
It felt nice.
