Page 9

EIGHT

Alexia

I pull out of the hazy fog of sleep and snuggle into the warm, soft bed. I can’t remember the last time I slept that good. It certainly hasn’t been in the days that I’ve been at the Braxton house. But in Xander’s bed...

Shit. I slept in Xander’s bed.

What am I doing? I’m pretty sure I fell asleep with his hand tucked under my face last night. Burying my head in the pillow, I groan as embarrassment washes over me. I also poured out my heart to him and he probably thinks I am such a fool. I flop onto my back and stare at the ceiling.

Except... he doesn’t. Xander listened to me last night. He actually let me talk and didn’t make me feel like I was overreacting or like I was wrong for feeling the way I do. I meant what I said: He is the only one who makes me feel safe right now.

I glance over at his side of the bed, hoping he isn’t still here since I’ve been flopping around on the man’s mattress like a fish. Of course, he isn’t. He’s probably been up for hours and run five miles by now.

It’s already after nine o’clock. There’s no telling what happened outside of this room after we went to sleep. When Xander was in the bathroom last night, I sent Kai a text explaining where I was and why. He said he understood, and to be honest, that made me feel even worse. It was one of the reasons I let all my feelings out with Xander. I guess I thought that as my mate, Kai would be like... flipping out with jealousy or something? But instead, I just got a text back that said, ok, I understand. Night.

While Xander did listen and let me get out my feelings with no judgment, I know he was just saying it’s all going to work out for my benefit. Something is wrong. I’m just not sure what it is.

I slip out of bed and, albeit a little sloppily, pull the blankets up the way Xander did on his side. With one last look at his sparse room, I slip out and tiptoe down the hall to Kai’s bedroom to grab a change of clothes. The house is dead silent, and I wonder if everyone is already out for the day. I can only hope that Clayton is. He’s the one person I do not want to see.

After my morning routine, I get dressed and jog downstairs to see Carrington sitting at the kitchen island, her head in her hands.

“What’s wrong?” I ask, leaning on the counter next to her and resting a hand on her shoulder.

She jerks away, startling me. I jump backward and place my hand over my chest to calm my racing heart. Before I can ask what’s going on, she says, “What the hell did you do last night?”

I recoil and shake my head. “What? What are you talking about?”

She scoffs and flips her hair over her shoulder. “After Dad talked to you guys and told you that you needed to sleep in Kai’s room. What the hell happened?”

“Nothing happened. Kai and I are not ready to take the next step yet, and your dad would not let it go. So instead of making us both uncomfortable, I—” I pause. Do I really want to talk about sleeping in Xander’s bed right now? While she’s already mad? “I decided to give him space.”

Carrington chuckles, a dry laugh that holds zero joy. “Well, good job, Lex. You gave him plenty of it. He’s gone.”

My lips part and my insides begin to quiver with anxiety and dread. “What? Gone? What are you talking about?”

“He left. He took all his things that are important to him, and he is gone .” Her green eyes bore into mine, and her anger is masking the hurt she’s feeling. “What did you say to him?”

“I didn’t say anything, Carrington, truly. We didn’t even argue about it. We are both on the same page here. If I thought he was going to take off, I would’ve stayed and suffered through an awkward night,” I say, and it’s true. Kai being gone isn’t something I know how to handle.

She paces behind the counter, pulling at the roots of her hair. “I don’t get it. You felt the draw to him. Why wouldn’t y’all want to make things official? Our kind pray to the goddess for a mate, and you two have found each other. You obviously feel it, why doesn’t he?”

This is exactly why I didn’t want to stay in her room last night. She holds the same opinion as her father. She’s just not as harsh about it.

And even as she’s practically yelling at me, the panic etched into her face breaks my heart. She is normally so calm, like nothing in the world gets to her. Yet Kai not being here this morning is her breaking point.

I drop my elbows on the counter and plant my face in my palms. “I don’t know.”

My tears spill into my hands. This is such a mess. I felt a pull to Kai when I went through the ceremony. I know I did. And I was happy I chose him, but none of that negates the nagging feeling in the pit of my stomach. Something between us is wrong. But it could possibly be fixed and our bond could be so strong. We just have to make it past this hurdle.

My phone buzzes in my pocket. I wipe my eyes with the heels of my hands and retrieve it. When I see the name on the screen and the words underneath it, I feel like I’m going to be sick.

I’m sorry, Lex. I just can’t do this.-K

The entire world goes fuzzy at the edges and my hands shake. I can’t look away from the text. This can’t be it.

“Lex?” Carrington’s voice cuts through the haze.

I drop the phone on the counter and glance up at her. “He... I think he just rejected me.”

“What? Did he say those exact words?” She grabs my phone, and her fingers frantically move over the screen. After hitting send, she holds it between us so we can both watch as she sends a text that says:

What do you mean, Malakai?

Seconds pass, the message sitting in limbo with no Delivered notification.

Carrington presses the button to call him, but it goes straight to voicemail.

“What the fuck?” she growls, and if I didn’t know better, I’d swear her wolf nearly makes an appearance for a second. “He blocked your number.”

“He’s really gone,” I whisper, sliding down onto the floor against the cabinet behind me. “He rejected me, Care.”

She doesn’t answer. She just looks at me for a moment, tilting her head as if she’s seeing me for the first time. Then she goes to the couch and sits down, staring out the window in silence. She’s frozen, shocked. And I can’t blame her. This is her twin, and he left her behind too.

Because he doesn’t want me .

Humiliation washes over me in a tidal wave as I draw my knees to my chest and rest my head on top, wishing I could disappear into the center of the earth. This is the worst kind of rejection I can imagine. The one person in the world that the goddess intended to be mine would rather leave his entire home and family behind than be with me. I can’t remember the last wolf that was rejected in our pack. I don’t even know what comes next. What is going to happen to Kai? I know there’s some kind of “official” statement you have to make to reject your mate, and Kai didn’t say those words, but... this is not good.

The back door opens followed by steady steps. They stop on the other side of the counter. “What the hell is going on?”

I know it’s Xander, but there is no way in hell I can face him right now. Scrambling to my feet, I try to get past him and run toward the stairs, but he grabs my wrist and spins me around.

I keep my eyes on the floor. “Please, Xander,” I beg, not even knowing what I’m asking for.

“Carrington!” Xander barks, but when his sister doesn’t answer, he tries again with me, his voice gentler. “Alexia, please, talk to me. What’s wrong?”

Telling him Kai rejected me feels impossible. I can’t. “Leave me alone, Xander,” I say instead, yanking my wrist out of his grip and fleeing up the stairs to the last place I want to be but the only place I have to go—Kai’s room.

I slam the door, the impulse too tempting to ignore, before laying down on my stomach. I bury my head in the pillows before I can notice how empty the room is. The tears flow freely now, soaking the soft material under my cheeks. Goddess help me, I can even smell him on the sheets.

How did everything get so messed up? I may not have known exactly how I feel about Kai, but for him to just give up and leave? What do I do with that? And I know Carrington blames me. She practically said it before he texted me, and I could see it in her eyes when we realized he’d cut off communication with us.

And then a terrible question enters my mind. What is Clayton going to do?

He terrifies me. What he wanted Kai to do... he didn’t have to outright say it. I knew. He wanted him to just... take me . Whether I wanted it or not. Thank the goddess Kai is better than that, but Clayton still scares me.

The only person I feel is on my side is Xander. And I just pushed him away. Because I was too embarrassed to talk to him.

“Fuck!” I scream into the pillow, the noise thankfully muffled by the stuffing.

My door swings open and I freeze, praying it’s not Clayton.

“Alexia, I know you don’t want to talk about?—”

I turn my head to the side and peer at Xander through the curtain of my hair. “It’s okay. Please come in.”

Without hesitation, he walks to the side of the bed and looks down at me. “Where is Kai?”

“Gone,” I say, my voice cracking on the single word.

“What do you mean gone? For the day?”

I shake my head, unable to say anymore. The best I can do is show him. I unlock my phone and hand it to him, the message front and center.

“He can’t do that. He can’t just leave you,” he says disbelievingly.

I turn over on my side and look up at him, fully aware that I look as pathetic as I feel and not bringing myself to care. “He can. And he did.” Xander starts to respond but I wave my hand around the room. “Look around, Xan. He took everything that he really cares about—that stupid basketball card he’s had since we were six, his ratty Hokies hat, and the keepsake box that had a lock of your mom’s hair in it. And he blocked my phone number after he sent this text. I bet if you or Care tried to text him, the same thing would happen. I don’t think he wants to talk to any of us. Or he would have let y’all know where he was going.”

Xander tilts his head side to side, his neck cracking. With a sigh, he sits on the edge of the bed and runs his hand up and down my upper arm.

“Maybe he’s not rejecting you. He didn’t formally?—”

“No more maybes. No more excuses for him. His actions are speaking loud and clear. He rejected me. Even if he didn’t make it official yet. The sentiment is there, and I get the message.”

“What can I do to help make this easier for you?”

Touch me and ? —

I blink and avert my gaze from him, grateful that he can’t read my mind. Where did that even come from? That’s so inappropriate.

Isn’t it? I mean, it’s not like he’s my mate’s brother anymore. I don’t have a mate.

I take a deep breath and say something that may or may not get me into a bigger mess than I’m already in, but I’m at a loss of what to do next.

“Will you let me come into your room? And maybe stay with me? I really don’t want to be alone with my thoughts, and being in here feels weird.”

Xander stands and slips his hands in his pockets. “Yeah. Of course. Whatever you need.”

“That’s all,” I mutter, getting to my feet.

I follow him out of the room and down the hallway. He opens his door for me, revealing his room exactly how I left it. I didn’t expect to be back in here, and I feel a little embarrassed that I didn’t do a better job of making the bed before I left. Xander comes across as the type of person who always has his shit together.

“Do you need me to get anything for you?” he asks, closing the door.

I shake my head and sit on the end of the bed, pulling my legs crisscross under my ass. “No, this is perfect. I just want to be somewhere quiet and safe.”

Xander smiles and sits in his desk chair at the end of his bed, turning to face me, our knees inches apart. “Well, you know you’re safe with me. And if you want to just sit here in silence, we can.”

I chew on my lip and glance at my lap before meeting his icy gaze. It pierces me all the way to my core, and I realize that never once did Kai make me feel like this.

“Can I ask for one thing, actually?” I say, taking a chance on being rejected by both princes of the pack twice in one day.

“What’s that?”

“Can we lay here in silence instead?” I ask, picking at the skin around my nails, a nervous habit that I have tried my whole life to stop. His jaw clenches like he’s annoyed. Or maybe like he’s desperately trying to cling to some shred of control. I think it’s the latter. I adjust my position on the bed so I can squeeze my thighs together. “Emphasis on the we .” I don’t know why I say it. It’s inappropriate. But I’ve already determined that me being in here at all and seeking solace from Xander is probably not exactly proper, yet here we are. So I might as well keep it up.

“I got you.” He moves to the bed and lays down, holding his arm out to me.

I slide in beside him and rest my head on his chest. Immediately, every muscle in my body relaxes. Before the past couple days, it had been years since I held any kind of conversation with Xander, and the gap in our age meant that we were never physical with one another. But there is something so comforting about the steady beat of his heart under my ear and the innocent graze of his fingers along my arm. I’ve only felt a semblance of this feeling once since I entered this house—last night when I slept beside him.

“Are you all right?” he asks, stretching his neck so he can see my face. “I’m questioning if you’re even breathing.”

“Yes,” I whisper, snuggling into him. “I’m more than okay.”

I feel his chest expand and contract with a sharp breath. “Oh? Just a few minutes ago I thought you were going to have a meltdown,” he teases, and I can’t help but crack a smile.

“Something about being close to you like this makes me feel...” I pause and close my eyes, trying to think of the words. “At peace.”

“I get that a lot,” he says with a chuckle.

“Really?”

“No. Not ever. I think it’s hard for a lot of people to feel at peace with a bunch of needles pushing ink into their skin—especially when I get to the white highlights. You’d think their souls were leaving their bodies.”

“You’re a tattoo artist?” I ask, wondering how I never knew this about him. “I thought you like, worked in corporate real estate or something.”

“Well, that’s my full-time job now. But real estate is pretty damn boring a lot of the time. I keep a spot at a local shop so I can tattoo a few people on the weekends. To tell you the truth, I’d rather just do that full-time again like I did in my twenties,” he says, and he sounds wistful.

“Wow,” I say, thinking again about all that beautiful ink covering his even more gorgeous body. “I guess it makes sense with you having so many.”

“Yeah, occupational hazard,” he jokes.

“If that’s a hazard, then consider me in danger because I’m really into it,” I admit. Unlike when I tried to flirt with Kai, I’m not embarrassed or questioning myself. I feel confident. Even if that line was borderline cheesy—okay, it was more than borderline—I’m not sorry I said it.

“So you mentioned before that you have one tattoo... tell me about it. When did you get it?” he asks.

“18. It’s small. Easy to hide from my parents.”

He laughs at that, and the deep baritone sound rumbles through me. “I got my first one at sixteen and hid it. It cost me three times what it should have, but it was the only way I could get a halfway decent artist to do it without my mom’s consent.”

I’m dying to know what it is— where it is. Maybe we can share a little and get to know each other.

“I’ll show you mine if you show me yours,” I say slyly.

His lips part and he actually blushes, which gives me goosebumps on every inch of my body. “I—okay, I won’t turn that down.”

“You’ll only be like, the fifth person to ever see it, just so you know,” I say, sitting up so I’m leaning against the headboard. I don’t take my eyes off his as I hook my fingers in the waistband of my leggings and tug them down on the right side, noticing the way he tracks every move I’m making with what I swear is a hungry gaze.

It’s only as I’m uncovering my tattoo that I remember... I don’t wear panties with leggings. Oops.

Careful not to reveal too much, I show him the blue morpho butterfly I have tattooed right where my hip and pelvic bone meet. “I love butterflies. They’re just so... happy . They flit around from flower to flower and no one ever fusses at them for being all over the place,” I explain, wanting him to know I didn’t get a butterfly because it was one of the designs hanging on the wall. “And this is my favorite kind.”

“That might be the best explanation I’ve ever heard for a basic tattoo. Which makes it not basic at all.”

I smile at that. It wasn’t until a couple years ago that I felt like it might have been just a trendy design, and maybe something I should be ashamed of. But having his seal of approval makes me feel like it was a good choice. “And what about yours?” I ask as I position my pants back in place.

He sighs and lifts his hips from the bed. He pulls his pants down, revealing his boxer briefs and an onslaught of black ink on his thighs. With his pants sitting at his knees, he pulls up the leg of his underwear and points to a skull and crossbones surrounded by other tattoos. “No deep meaning. It was just an act of rebellion.”

I’m not going to lie; I can barely keep my eyes on the tattoo. The other scenery is too enticing. Those boxer briefs are deliciously tight and if I’m not mistaken, the view I just gave him is having a bit of an effect on him. My nipples harden and I suddenly wish I were wearing something else besides this bralette and white t-shirt.

I drag my eyes away and back to his face, certain that my cheeks are blazing. “I—It’s nice. G—good line work,” I stammer. Line work. That’s a tattoo thing, right?

“It should be with how much I paid for it,” he says, pulling up his pants. “If you ever feel up to getting another tattoo, I’m game.”

I side-eye him as he returns to leaning back against the pillows. “I don’t know. I’d have to see your portfolio. You might be a shit artist.”

He laughs again, and goddess help me, that sound does something to me. I just might spend my night spewing playful banter to hear it again and again.

“You got me pegged. It is complete garbage. But I’ll still let you see it. Maybe you can find a piece in there that will redeem me.”

“It’s a deal.” I look around his room when he doesn’t move off the bed. “Well?”

“Well what?”

“Can I see it?”

“My portfolio? Right now?” he asks, that laugh dancing in his voice.

“You got somewhere else to be? Another girl to cuddle with?”

His gaze meets mine and he shakes his head. “No. Absolutely not.”

The way his tone changed to answer that question shouldn’t turn me on. I shouldn’t have even noticed it. But of course I did. I notice everything.

I smile. “Then let me see.”

“I don’t have the whole thing here, but...” He reaches over to the bedside table, grabbing his phone. He taps a few times on the screen and hands it to me. “Scroll right. There are a few photos for you.”

I take the phone and do as he says, and holy hell. I could never even joke about him being a shitty artist ever again.

The tattoos are all very different—some color, some black and grey—but somehow have the same flair to them. I can tell, now that I know he’s the artist, that they’re all his pieces. There are wolves, portraits, sunsets, desert scenes, quotes, music notes, floral designs, watercolors. They’re all unique, all flawlessly beautiful.

“Xander, these are gorgeous,” I say, looking up at him in awe. “Damn, you’re really talented.”

He dips his head in a charmingly humble way. “Thank you.”

I don’t know if it’s my heightened emotions getting the better of me, but I’m fascinated by everything about him. From the way he spins a ring around his middle finger to how the beard around his mouth makes his lips an unreal shade of pink, I’m utterly captivated by him. Deep down, I know it’s wrong, that it’s a line I can’t cross. Even though Kai rejected me, to get involved with his brother wouldn’t be right. But I can’t help flirting with that forbidden line. Every time I do, it’s like a shot of adrenaline through my system.

When I’m around Xander, every worry that plagues me seems so trivial. These are the moments I want to be swept away in—good conversation and a calming presence. I’m hanging on tightly to that feeling because I know what happens next will be the complete opposite. Word is bound to get out about my rejection. And when that happens, I’m going to be drowning in embarrassment. So I cling to this moment and any others Xander will give me until he has to go and leaves me to face a sea of misery alone.