Page 44 of Pucked Around and Found Out

“I will. I'll tear your world apart. Burn your empire to the ground and force you out if you make me.”

His free hand bands around my waist and anchors me against him, making me gasp. His gray eyes darken. The grip on my throat vanishes. Instead, he tangles that hand in my hair and tips my head back, giving himself the advantage of staring down at me.

“There has to be something left inside me to kill, Tink.” His voice is raw, anguished. “I have nothing left worth living for. All I am was torn from me, buried under mountains of dirt. The person who would have cared about you and wanted what you're offering died when my sister did. What you’re looking at is the only part of me that’s left. Even Emery wouldn't recognize this black soul.”

His words shatter something inside me. I've never heard him be so open, so honest before.

I fight the tears burning behind my eyes.

“A world where you don't exist isn't a world I want to be in,” I whisper fiercely. “You have something worth living for and we created it together. It may have been out of spite on your part, but not mine.”

“You're a fucking idiot.” The cruelty in his voice makes me flinch. “That thing inside you is a reminder of my fuck-up. Do you really think I could ever look at it and not see the cunt who murdered my sister and best friends?”

The words are like a sucker punch.

The air rushes out of me. Everything inside me screams to run back to land.

But I know him. I know what he's doing, trying to push me away with cruelty because he doesn't know how else to protect himself.

Words aren't working.

So I do the only thing I know how.

I mesh my lips to his and show him without words that I'll fight for both of us, even if it means I wind up getting burned in the end.

Because not all love stories are flowers and roses.

Some are born from hate and thorns.

And ours?

Ours is forged in fire, darkness and the kind of desperate, devastating love that destroys everything in its path.

Including us.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

XADEN

She's kissing me like it's the only thing keeping her alive.

And fuck me, I'm kissing her back like it's the only thing keeping me from drowning.

Her lips are soft and desperate against mine, tasting of salt water and something uniquely her. Something that's been driving me insane since the first moment I touched her.

I should push her away. Should remind myself that she's a Kellar, that her blood is tainted with the same poison that killed my sister.

But when she whimpers into my mouth and presses closer, when her hands slide up my chest and tangle in my hair, all rational thought evaporates.

I deepen the kiss, my tongue sliding against hers, claiming her mouth the way I want to claim every part of her. The hand in her hair tightens, angling her head so I can take more, consume more, destroy more.

Because that's what we do to each other.

Destroy.

She breaks the kiss first, gasping for air, her chest heaving against mine. Her eyes are wild. pupils blown wide with desire and something that looks dangerously like hope.

“Xaden—”