Page 37

Della

Rushing out of Xavier’s bedroom, I duck into mine, firmly closing the door behind me.

Xavier was right about many things. I am afraid of being hurt, and I will do almost anything I can to protect myself from more pain.

My eyes settle on my balcony, and suddenly, I feel sick.

Everything comes crashing back.

The dark room. The freezing concrete floor. The belt whipping my back.

And pain. An ocean of it.

Just when I’m starting to forget, it always comes back.

It’s a gray morning on the other side of that wall of glass. I inadvertently shiver, though I’m not so much cold as I am afraid.

Fear sinks into me, and I hate it almost as much as I hate the stupid fucking alphas who abducted me for making me feel so weak.

Clenching my hands into fists, I glare at the sliding glass door. I stride over to it, wrench the door open, and walk right to the balcony edge, curling my fingers around the cool metal as I force myself to look down.

I don’t blink, even when the wind whips into my eyes, causing them to tear up.

They made me feel broken.

Maybe I’ll always feel this way.

Another gust of wind rushes through the trees, tousles my hair, and dislodges tears from my eyes.

I don’t see where the tear goes. I stand there, gripping the edge of the balcony with my bare feet freezing on the cold stone floor, forcing myself to keep looking down.

I need to know I’m not broken. That what they did to me did not change me into someone I don’t recognize.

I refuse to let them hurt my soul even more than they hurt my body.

Zach squats in front of me, thighs wide, palms resting on them as he tilts his head and scrutinizes me like a bug under a scope. "Betas can't take knots, can they?"

He would tear something inside me if he tried. It wouldn’t just hurt. It would be agony.

I press my back to the wall, anxiety swelling inside me as I stare at the dark-haired, blue-eyed alpha who smells of maple and tobacco.

A tiny, cruel smile lifts one side of his mouth. "Maybe we should test that out."

He grabs my ankle and pulls. My heart squeezes, and I panic.

I kick out with my left leg.

He grunts and falls back as I shoot to my feet, rushing toward a black metal door.

A fist grips the back of my hair. Yanks. I cry out at the sting on my scalp. My fingers fight to dislodge his hand as my back slams against the cold concrete, stunning me.

A man laughs. "Not so fast, pretend omega. Now is the time for play."

I blink away tears of pain as the alpha approaches, his face contorted with rage and a taser in hand.

I’m scrambling to my feet when he flings himself on top of me.

An electric crackle makes my heart skip a beat.

“Hold her,” a cold male voice orders as two alphas approach, unbuckling their belts.

I scream as white-hot agony floods my body. I’m still screaming when he pins me to the floor and shoves my thighs apart.

I shoot up, sweating and panting so hard that I can hardly breathe.

Just a nightmare.

Outside, my balcony is pitch black. I’m in bed, still wearing my clothes, even though I had no intention of going to sleep. I hadn’t felt ready to confront Levi, Vincent, or Xavier about my feelings for them, so I hid in my room, trying to identify the killer at Haven Academy.

Someone left a tray outside my room.

This time, it didn’t end up flushed down the toilet.

I had a breakfast of scrambled eggs, bacon, and toast, along with coffee and orange juice.

Later, a quiet knock at my door signaled the arrival of another tray: leftover Chinese food, heated and served on plates instead of in a container. And a soda.

The last tray had been pasta rigatoni with meat sauce, salad, and an ungodly amount of grated parmesan cheese. There was a glass of red wine and another soda. The pasta dish looked and tasted homemade.

I imagined Vincent quietly cooking in the kitchen for me and carrying the tray upstairs.

Something about that image made my heart feel warm and soft, though I’m not sure why.

Maybe it’s the idea of being taken care of that I’m struggling to get used to.

How new it is, and how much it makes me feel loved.

I ate everything.

I must have crawled under my sheets and fallen asleep after leaving the tray outside my room to be quietly removed, just like all the previous trays had silently disappeared.

“Just a nightmare,” I remind myself, fingers clenching the cool cotton sheets as the terror forces its way back into my mind. “That’s all it was. Stop thinking about it.”

Trembling, I get out of bed and cross the room to the bathroom. I need something to shock me awake, something to chase away my desire to sleep so I can’t fall back into that terrifying nightmare.

I turn on the shower, step inside, and sit down, wrapping my arms around my raised legs.

I don’t know how long I sit in the shower, cold and shivering in my clothes, eyes wide open as the water washes away my tears, when I jump, startled as the water temperature rises.

I blink up at the man wearing black pants and a blue shirt as he steps under the spray, dropping into a crouch in front of me.

Vincent.

“Go away.” I swipe at the moisture on my cheeks with a shaking hand.

His expression doesn’t change, and he doesn’t seem to care that he’s getting as soaked as I am. “I can’t do that.”

“You can,” I snap at him, furious and wanting him gone so I can cry. “You just don’t want to. Go. Away .”

He offers me a towel.

I knock it away.

He offers it again.

I snatch it off him and fling it across the bathroom, turning my face away as more water slides down my cheeks.

“Della?” A new, softer note in his voice makes me shove him away when he switches off the water and reaches for me.

“ Fuck off .”

He won’t go away, and I can’t swallow more tears. They want to drown me.

I shove him, and when that isn’t enough, I yell at him.

He doesn’t seem to notice my eyes filling with tears when he pulls me close and wraps his arms around me, his fingers careful not to brush against the healing scars on my back.

Suddenly, I’m no longer shoving him away. I’m sobbing as I grip his waterlogged shirt while he holds me against his chest.

The next time he comes at me with a towel, I don’t fling it across the room.

He picks me up and carries me into the bedroom, wrapped in a big fluffy white towel.

While I was busy falling apart, someone turned on a bedside lamp, made my bed with fresh sheets, and left a clean pair of white satin pajamas alongside a pair of men's sweatpants and a T-shirt.

The pajamas aren’t familiar, but they look like they’ll fit me.

Vincent sets me down on the side of the freshly made bed. “You shouldn’t sleep in wet clothes. I’ll get changed in the bathroom, and you get changed here. Do you need help?”

I must be in shock not to ask why he needs to get changed in my bathroom instead of his bedroom.

I shake my head, and he picks up the men's sweats, walks into the bathroom, and closes the door behind him. After a moment, I stand up and quickly strip out of my soaked clothes and into the warm, dry pajamas. I fling the wet clothes into a corner to deal with when I care more.

“Can I come in?” Vincent asks as I slip into bed.

I thought he’d be changed sooner than me, but he must have taken his time. “I’m dressed.”

He looks different in sweats rather than smart business attire. Relaxed and homey. His dark hair is damp and tousled. Mine must be too, since I didn’t bother with a brush, towel-drying my hair as best I could.

I’m not sure what to think when he sits beside me on the bed, his back against the headboard, and picks up a file from the other nightstand.

I observe him for a moment, one hand tucked under my pillow on a bed with sheets that smell like a fresh spring day. “Isn’t it bad for your eyes to be reading dull papers with a single lamp like that?”

He turns a page. “Probably.”

Watching him is relaxing in a strange, unidentifiable way. “Who changed my sheets?”

“Levi.”

“Why not Xavier?”

He looks at me. “Have you seen Xavier’s bed?”

I recall the unmade bed and the unfolded clothes on top of his dresser. “It was Levi.”

He resumes reading.

“I could have done it if you’d told me where you keep the linen,” I say.

“Now you don’t have to.”

“And you didn’t have to cook or bring me food.”

“I know.”

But he— they —did those things because they wanted to. That’s what the look in his eyes tells me. “Thanks.”

He nods and continues with his work.

“Has anyone tried to kill you recently?”

His gaze shifts from the open file on his lap to me, an eyebrow arched. “Should I be concerned?”

I smile. “Not me. Xavier said someone would try to take you out because you’re not doing enough for the city.” We’d talked a bit about it while eating Chinese food the other day.

I still can’t believe he’s Dexter Pieter, head of the Council, the body that runs the city. The most powerful man in the city is sitting beside me in bed, and no matter how many times I tell myself it’s true, it doesn’t stop feeling surreal.

“Someone will try. They will fail,” he says calmly.

Life must be so much easier when you’re an alpha. They all seem so fearless. As if the world owes them everything, and all they have to do is reach out and take what they want.

Then I remember Levi.

Alphas hurt too. They’re just better at hiding it than the rest of us.

I muffle a yawn and snuggle deeper into the sheets. Then I frown at my white satin sleeve. “Where did the PJs come from?”

He turns a page. “Your dresser.”

“But they weren’t ones my sister brought.”

“Weren’t they?”

I scowl at him. “Do you even know how to answer a straight question?”

He looks down at me. “Of course I do.”

I growl.

A flicker of amusement crosses his gaze. “I had some time after a meeting in town.”

My eyebrows must touch my hairline. “To go shopping for me?”

“It wasn’t difficult.”

“Oh. Thanks.”

“It was a small thing.”

We stare at each other for several seconds, and I clear my throat. I’m not sure what possesses me to say, “Xavier said you like me.”

I wait for him to laugh in my face and immediately deny it.

His expression is unreadable. “Did he?”

“You’re not denying it,” I point out.

“Should I be?”

This man is as infuriating as he is attractive. I want to shake answers out of him constantly, and I keep getting this overwhelming sense that he’s secretly laughing at me. He knows how much it kills me not to have straight answers, and he is purposefully driving me crazy.

“Yes, because it’s not true.” The new clothes have made me wonder. And now, he’s here with me instead of down in his office doing important Council stuff.

“My brother has a big mouth.”

“And you have a frustratingly small one.” I stifle a yawn, fighting sleep. The fear of falling into a nightmare makes me shiver. If I freak out again, I don’t want him to see. Once was enough. “I-I’m okay now,” I stutter, though I’m not cold. “You can leave.”

Vincent closes his file and sets it on the nightstand.

“What are you doing?” I ask.

“Putting my work aside to focus on something that matters more.”

“What?”

A yawn sneaks up on me, and I miss what he says, but it sounds almost like, ‘you.’

As my eyelids get heavy, he’s sitting beside me.

When my eyes fly open just before I fall asleep, terrified that I’ll plunge into another nightmare, he’s still there, stroking my hair. Concern softens the hard angles of his face.

“You’re safe, Della Jackson,” he says quietly. “Nothing can hurt you here. You’re safe.”

Something sticks in my throat. Pain. Fear. The memory of what was done to me and the sense that a piece of me is broken forever.

He takes the hand closest to him, squeezing it. Strength and warmth in those calloused fingers. “You’re safe.”

I want to tell him that he doesn’t need to keep repeating himself, but hearing him repeat those two words helps. Maybe it’s the hand he’s squeezing in his larger, warmer one that does the most to comfort me.

I believe him.

I believe him like I've rarely believed anything else.

My eyelids flutter shut.