Page 11 of Pucked Around and Found Out

I’m powerless to turn away.

I sit here still as a statue and watch. Unable to stomach the sight but unable to look away. I need to see it. I have to. I was blinded by him before, but not anymore. My eyes are wide open and I see him for who he really is.

The devil in the flesh.

Masen’s eyes find mine for a brief second, a second that feels like hours. I see the brother I once loved, idolized and who cared about me more than anything in this world. The person who raised me. My protector. Not the monster my father shaped him to be or the murderer who blamed me and sent me away to take the fall for his crime.

I see my Masen.

“Take me,” I choke out barely above a whisper. I don’t expect Xaden to stop or even hear me over the grunts of pain coming from my brother but he does. He stills with his fist raised ready to land another blow. I watch as his body grows tense. Cas shoots me a warning look, but I ignore it as I swallow and meet my brother’s gaze once more and tell him with a look that I will take Xaden’s anger for him. This is my last gift to him, the last thing I will ever do for the brother I once loved beyond measure. “Give me your anger. I know you want to.”

Xaden slowly drops his arm then straightens, the muscles in his back ripple. I brace myself for his fury, I prepare my body for the pain as best as I can. When he turns to face me, I swallow the gasp.

For a moment, I don’t see him as I look into those gray eyes.

I see her.

For a fleeting moment I find comfort in those eyes until I remember she isn’t here. It’s not Emery looking at me with disdain, it's her brother who embodies death and darkness like a cloak. I begin to tremble as he stalks toward me, slowly. My breathing turns shallow. He no longer looks like my Xaden—or the version of him I fooled myself into thinking cared about me. The version in front of me is the Xaden Devlin the world knows, the man, the monster who cuts the lips of his victims from their face and stores them in his treasure jar, to reminisce with when he gets lonely.

He’s a killer.

Believe half of what you hear and all of what you see. When you see it for yourself, then make a judgment call, but don't presume to know me based on rumors you have heard about my family, because I can promise you, Tink, the rumors aren't even close. We are much, much worse.

He told me the first time we met that he was worse than the rumors and now, I believe him.

He stands before me, covered in the blood of my father, brother and old friend. His face is harsh, cold and emotionless. His body is taut with tension begging to be released but it’s his eyes that spear me. The look of hatred is present but I see beneath it. I see the broken boy who couldn’t stomach seeing his best friends’ graves because he refused to feel the loss fully. I see the brother who lost the light of his sister. I see the boy who thinks he isn’t good, that he’s unloveable and beyond repair.

“I see you,” I whisper brokenly. The pain exploding inside my chest isn’t for my family, it’s for the life I envisioned with him being ripped away. “Make him feel the pain you felt,” I implore him with a sad smile.

If my death is what he needs to feel whole, then so be it.

I’ll die knowing what love is. Even if it's not reciprocated, I can die knowing what it felt like to feel it because I feel it for him and our unborn child.

Wars have casualties.

I’m one of them.

CHAPTER SIX

XADEN

The fury flowing through my veins has lulled me into a state of numbness.

It was perfect until she baited me.

Her voice shattered my sanctuary, ripped me out of that cold, dark place where I don't have to feel anything and dragged me back to this fucking moment, where I'm forced to sense the ghosts of my best friends and sister surrounding me.

Their loss is paramount. Always there. Present with every breath I take, every beat of my heart.

The void inside me is one they filled. But not anymore.

Never again.

Toren Kellar.

This bitch was supposed to be my golden ticket to destroying her family. She had no idea she was spreading her legs for the devil himself. She thought she could best me, thought she could take me down with her little plans and schemes.

But I was ten steps ahead. I heard everything. All her calculated moves were for nothing.