He stalks away without waiting for a response. I drag myself out of bed, padding through the house, ignoring the guys as I pass. I yank the front door open and my blood turns to acid.
Caspian.
Leaning against his bike at the curb, arms crossed, looking every inch the loyal soldier of the man I've sworn to destroy.
I don’t move from the doorway. “How the fuck did you find me?”
Cas scoffs. “Wasn’t that hard to follow them after they left the rink.”
I almost laugh. “The only reason you found this place is because they let you follow them.” The fact that he’s standing here breathing means the guys allowed it, and that means they have a reason. Everything is a chess move now.
“Terror—”
“What the fuck do you want?” The words are a whip crack. I don’t have the bandwidth for his bullshit. I’m still trying to keep my seams from splitting.
His gaze drops to my stomach. “That really his kid?”
A sigh escapes me like the last breath of something dying. I nod. “I wish it wasn't.” And God, the weight of that truth. Because this child, this tiny, impossible, inconvenient miracle is the chain that will bind me to Xaden Devlin for the rest of my life. I can’t hate him cleanly. I can’t destroy him completely. Because every time I look at my child, I’ll see his eyes, and the war inside me will start all over again.
Cas purses his lips. Silence stretches between us like a wire about to snap, and my patience frays with it. He’s here about the baby, not about Kellan. Not about the friend who just bled out on the ice while they both watched.
“If that’s all you came for, you can leave.” My voice could cut diamonds.
He pushes off his bike and marches toward me, but a red laser dot blooms on his chest like a deadly flower and he freezes. I lean around the doorframe to see Carnage at the living room window, rifle raised, perfectly still. So that’s why Cas kept his distance.
“Want to call your guard dog off?”
“Nope.” I pop the'P'with relish.
He glares. I feel nothing. “We need to talk.”
“About what? We have nothing to discuss. You're with him. I'm not.”
“You carrying his kid changes everything, Toren.”
“Go home, Cas. This conversation is over.” I turn to flee inside to my bed, to my ceiling, to the war in my head but his next words sink into me like hooks.
“He's at her grave.”
I stop. My hand grips the doorframe so hard my knuckles turn white. Don’t feel anything. Don’t you dare feel anything.
“He went there with enough booze to drown a horse.”
The image blooms in my mind unbidden. Xaden alone in a graveyard, drunk, hunched over his sister’s headstone, all that rage and armor stripped away until there’s nothing left but a broken boy mourning the people he couldn’t save. And my stupid, stupid heart lurches toward him like a plant turning toward poison sunlight.
He killed Kellan.
He's at his sister’s grave.
He killed Kellan.
He’s never been to her grave before. Not once.
He. Killed. Kellan.
I spin around, and my eyes are burning. “And what the fuck does Xaden drinking have to do with me?”
Cas's jaw tightens. “He’s never gone to their graves. I know you know this.” He takes a breath, and I can see how carefully he’s choosing his words. “He’s a complicated bastard, Terror, I know that. But he’s a good?—”
