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The first barrier he dropped was two weeks ago, during our first session. It had been intense, to put it mildly. The emotions had been so strong, they’d almost knocked me over.

He obviously needed time to recover, but he insisted on doing this as fast as possible. I wanted this over as well, so I could go home to my family, to Zinnia who would be home in a matter of days—to Ren. But that meant my magic was almost constantly drained, leaving me weak, and fucking defenseless.

Xavier was a desperate male, emotionally unstable, confused and conflicted, and right now he was capable of anything.

I wrapped my arms around his waist and had to stop myself from shuddering. I didn’t want to touch him, be near him—I didn’t want to be anywhere near what was inside this male. Something lurked deep, something that sent ice down my spine, and I’d been getting closer to it with every wall he dropped.

But I had no choice, so I poured my powers into him. It flowed through every part of him, seeking out the biggest wounds. Xavier had lived in this house all his life, and he’d compartmentalized his emotions like an internal replica of his home. He’d locked unwanted emotional responses in different “rooms” of his mental house. There were blind spots and rooms I couldn’t even get close to, and behind those thick barriers, Xavier was still the little boy he’d been when he’d built them. So vulnerable, so scared, and so incredibly sad.

Within moments, I was shaking. The emotions of the little boy were agonizing, and tears immediately sprang to my eyes. “Do it,” I rasped.

He shuddered a moment before his arms wrapped around me, and he dropped the walls, exposing another emotional wound.

I whimpered and held him tighter. “You’re a good boy, Xavier. Y-you did nothing wrong. You didn’t deserve to be punished.”

He gasped, and his arms tightened around me, so tight it was painful.

“You didn’t deserve it,” I said again.

He made an inhuman sound, like a wounded animal, and I braced. His nails elongated, digging into my sides through my shirt, making me cry out.

Another wall dropped.

Oh goddess. It was bad. I thought I’d find abuse or neglect, but what I found was something else entirely.

A longing for blood, for death, a need to hurt and torture, flooded me. Pushing back against my powers was the desire to kill, so strong inside him, it was like riding a raging tide.

This was Xavier. This was his true self. Evil in its purest form flowed from him into me. I cried out again, trying desperately to heal the wounds he’d exposed, but terror made it impossible to do what I needed to. This was what his mother had forced him to wall in—the sadistic monster that he truly was—to protect herself and those around him.

He was panting, and the way he hissed, the strange sounds he made, I knew his fangs had extended.

“Yes,” he snarled. “Fuck.”

I tried to push away, but he held me with inhuman strength. His fangs scraped along my shoulder, tearing the fabric. “No!” I screamed. “Don’t…p-please.”

A dark chuckle rumbled through him, then he struck. His fangs pushed through the flesh at my throat and agony fired through me. It hurt, oh goddess, it hurt worse than anything I’d ever endured. A dhampir’s bite, like a vampire’s, could give pleasure or pain. He chose this, he chose pain.

If this was the end, I was glad he chose the latter. I’d take pain over pleasure from this monster every single day if I had to endure it. The last time I experienced pleasure was with Ren, and that’s how I wanted it.

He pulled more deeply from my vein, and I tried to scream, but the sounds wouldn’t come. My vision blurred and my head spun, my limbs growing heavy and weak.

He pulled his fangs from my throat suddenly, his tongue rasping across my flesh. “You want to feel the love you have for your mate again, witch?” He pressed his mouth to my ear. “Then I’ll give it to you.”

I did. I wanted to feel my love for Ren again, so badly I ached, but the damage the block coming down would create would be vast. I’d seen it in Xavier, and I wasn’t strong enough to heal myself, not like this. But I didn’t care. If I was going to die, I wanted to do it loving my mate.

“Are you afraid of the pain?” He tilted my head back and stared down at me. My blood smeared his lips. His lavender eyes were black now that he’d fed.

I shook my head.

He brushed my hair away from my face. “Liar. I can hear your heart beating. It hurts, but you can heal yourself, Jasmine. I know you can. I’ve watched you do it.”

He’d watched me?

“You look confused. Let me enlighten you. When I was trying to discover if you could help me, I decided to do an experiment, to see if you could use your gift on yourself. So when you were tucked up in your bed, I went to your favorite field, the one you often go to, the one you told me about on our date, where your tiny familiars live, and I poisoned them.”

I whimpered, and a tear streaked down my face. He’d done it. He’d killed them. Even when the walls inside him had been intact, locking the monster in, the evil had seeped out of him.

“You’re such a pretty little thing, even more so when you cry. I had planned to free you after you healed me, but now I think not.” His head tilted to the side. “I finally know my own mind, Jasmine.” He tapped the side of his head. “It’s all in here now, just how it was before Mother forced me to lock it away, back again in glorious vivid color, down to the minutest detail.” He grinned, flashing his sharp fangs. “And I know exactly what I want to do with you. Should I tell you?”