Total pages in book: 106
Estimated words: 99917 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 500(@200wpm)___ 400(@250wpm)___ 333(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 99917 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 500(@200wpm)___ 400(@250wpm)___ 333(@300wpm)
“Then how will this ever work?” My voice cracks, the question splintering between us.
He only shrugs, muscles taut as he reaches for his jeans and yanks them on. “I don’t know. But I know this—I want you. And I’ll do whatever I have to do to keep you safe. To keep you… here.”
I swallow hard, my throat raw. “Even if it means letting go of your hate? Of your revenge against him?”
Suddenly, it feels like a million miles are between us. Arson freezes, his back half turned as he zips his jeans. His mouth shuts hard, jaw ticking like he’s grinding down the urge to fight me. The silence stretches, seconds dragging out until I’m not sure if he’s even going to answer or if there is an answer to be had.
Then his shoulders bunch, his whole frame tight as wire. “It’s not something I can just let go of,” he snarls, voice rough and dangerous. “You think it’s that simple? That I snap my fingers and the blood, the years, the rot just vanish? No.” He turns halfway toward me, chest heaving, eyes lit with a fire that sears through the space between us. “That hate is carved into my bones, Lilian. It’s the only thing that kept me breathing when everything else was ripped away. Strip me of it”—his hand fists at his side, trembling with restraint—”and there’s nothing left.”
My grip tightens on the blanket, nails digging into the fabric. I meet his eyes, steady even as my voice splinters. “I understand that, but if you can’t learn to cope with it…learn to control it, then you’ll lose me, too. Because I won’t compete with your hate. I won’t let it devour me the way it’s devoured you.”
NINE
ARIES
Imake it only feet down the hall before I lose control and smash my fist into the concrete wall. The pain barely registers in my mind as the skin splits across my knuckles.
It’s a distant, secondary feeling to the white-hot rage coursing through my veins at this moment. Seeing her naked body pressed against his chest. Fuck. The memory makes me mental, makes me want to spill blood.
She says she’s not choosing him, but it feels like she is. It looks like she is.
“Whoa,” Drew says from somewhere behind me. “Maybe don’t break your hand? We’ve got enough problems without adding more injuries to the pot.”
I round on him, all the accumulated betrayal of the past months finding a convenient target. “Shut the fuck up. You don’t get to joke. Not now. Not after everything.”
Drew’s expression shifts, warmth draining from his features until I’m looking at a stranger wearing my friend’s face. His posture straightens, shoulders squaring as he meets my gaze with cold calculation.
“I thought we would wait to hash this out, but it seems like you’re looking for a fight so maybe we will discuss it now,” he announces, his voice flat.
The sudden transformation throws me off balance. I’ve seen Drew drunk, angry, even in a few fights over the years, but never like this—clinical, detached, like he’s assessing a business risk rather than facing his supposed best friend.
No, that’s not true. I’ve seen this side of him before, when he faced down his father. He only shows this side of himself when facing the enemy, so when did I become the enemy to him? That only adds fuel to the raging inferno of emotions coursing through me. It’s childish to allow my anger toward Arson and Lilian to bleed over into my issues with Drew, but I need to direct these feelings somewhere or I might explode.
“How could you not know?” I advance on him, undeterred. “How could you not have seen the difference and done something, said something, anything?” Some tiny part in my brain wants to protest that he has Bel, and that we’d all graduated, and that we weren’t seeing each other every day anymore, but that’s just an excuse in my mind.
I don’t want excuses. I want somewhere to bury my fist. Drew doesn’t flinch, doesn’t back away. He simply watches me with those suddenly unreadable eyes.
“What do you want me to say, Aries?” He shrugs, the gesture deliberately casual. “That I’m sorry? That I made a mistake? Would that make you feel better?”
“No. It wouldn’t. I want the truth,” I growl, grabbing the front of his shirt. “I want to know how my best friend could watch me disappear and not take notice when a completely different person took over my life. I want to know why you did nothing? Why none of you seemed to notice a damn thing.”
There’s a dangerous flicker in his eyes—a reminder that beneath the easygoing frat boy exterior is someone darker, harder, more complex and misunderstood than we realize. A dark, menacing beast that’s always on the cusp of being unleashed.