Chapter 35

Piper

This wasn't the Zander I'd grown to know over the last couple of weeks. This was a scared child with trauma, guilt, and with the weight of the world on his shoulders.

With his head resting in my lap, I ran my fingers into his auburn locks and stroked his strong jaw. Hearing his side of the story had torn my heart into two pieces and slipped in seeds of doubt.

I'd only known him for two weeks. But I knew that this Zander wouldn't do something like that again. Would he?

She'd pleaded with him, and he didn't believe her.

I wasn't sure if I understood that or not. To say I understood their world would be a lie. I didn't even know it existed two weeks ago. Their rules ... none of it made sense. Was a treaty to keep people from loving one another a thing in their world?

I didn't know.

There was more to Zander than I ever realized. That mean—merciless—streak was fed to him growing up. Not that it justified what he did, because it was cruel. Zander had options to check the house for Xavier, and he didn't.

His blood was on his hands, and the pain sat in the middle of his chest, where his heart used to be.

He'd been tortured by the mistake.

Beaten inwardly.

Now his entire life depended on ... me. It depended on if I fell in love with him. I already held his mark, my feelings intertwined with his twisted life, but love?

That was a farfetched notion after finding Henry in the shower with another woman. Swiping the sweat from my forehead, I swallowed the angry lump in my throat.

It wasn't fair.

I'd found the one person that made my insides burn and turned my world upside down—for what? For him to be the beast forever? Or for him to rip off this fa?ade and turn into the man he used to be?

God wouldn't have brought me here for that.

I knew it deep down.

But that didn't stop the seed of doubt from traveling through my veins in an attempt to dominate my choices.

The chill in the room didn't leave when I shifted Zander to the rug to his left and began to drag him toward his room. I wasn't even sure why he fainted. If it was the bottle of liquor spilled on my floor, or the overwhelming pain of his truth.

Either way, I didn't want to see what the beast thought about it.

By the time I had him to his shackles, the sun had begun to set. When he woke, his eyes were hazy, a honeycomb yellow, but that beauty didn't last long.

The beast roared, fought, and tried with everything in him to get free. Watching him torment himself wasn't on my agenda after the crappiest day of my life.

I shut the wooden door without looking back at him and walked toward my room. If Priscilla wanted to visit me, I didn't care. My body was tired, and I needed sleep.

William must have sensed something was wrong because he was at the kitchen table when I woke the next morning. He looked tense, his fingers tapping against the table, his foot bouncing off his knee.

His light gaze met mine, and he stalled.

"Good morning—,"

"He told you," William said, rolling up the sleeves of his button-down.

I let the swinging door slam behind me. "Well, she told me."

"The voodoo queen?" he asked, watching me closely as I walked over to my place and began to make my plate with the food he heated up from the fridge.

"Yes," I said sipping my juice. "She came to me. She told me everything."

William's worry was evident on his face, and he had every right to be worried. This was his brother. Standing up, he left me sitting in the kitchen with my food.

His heavy footsteps thundered up the stairs, and Zander's door opened moments later. My stomach twisted into knots. Seeing him after everything that happened the night before made me want to vomit.

I didn't know what to say.

I didn't know what to do.

Minutes ticked by before Zander walked through the kitchen door. The sight of him took my breath away. He was shirtless, those ungodly sweats low on his hips.

But his eyes. They had dark circles mirrored beneath them, and he looked so tired.

"Piper," he whispered my name. "Are you finished eating? We need to talk."

I took a slow bite of my bacon. Technically I was finished eating, though I had a little left on my plate.

But to buy myself some time, I took a lazy bite. "I'll be finished in a moment."

"I'll meet you in the library."

I let out a deep sigh when the door swung shut behind him. Rubbing my eyes, I tried to gather myself before talking to him. I didn't want to overload him with my emotion, even though I wanted to.

I wanted to let everything out.

I sipped the last of my juice before following the aftermath of his scent into the library. He stood by the lounge, his fingers curled around the arm of the chair, his body tense.

Bruises lined his torso, etching around the side of his oblique. "You're hurt."

He chuckled. "In many ways, Little One."

I shut the door with my bare foot but didn't move toward him.

His intense stare stripped me of my insecurities, and the two of us bled in front of one another. "Are you scared of me?"

My palms grew sweaty, but I didn't dare move. "Should I be?"

Zander's gaze slid down my body, which made me squirm. "Probably," he whispered, stepping toward me. "I can't read your face, and it's driving me crazy. Tell me. Tell me how you're feeling. I need to feel it."

I closed my eyes to avoid the way his stare warmed my blood. This wasn't a good time for his looks to make me feel this way. "I'm confused."

He slowly walked around the room, trailing his fingertip against the line of books. I watched him carefully, judging his shoulders and the tightening of his fingers. "I'm confused because part of me can't believe that the man I know would have thought twice about checking if a child was in that house. The other part doesn't care. The part of me that is linked—addicted—fated—whatever you want to call it. I do believe that you wouldn't do it again, but how do I know that? I've known you for two weeks."

Zander ended his circle around the room in front of me. I lifted my chin to meet his gaze. He didn't reach out to touch me but stood close enough that I could taste his breath.

"I told you that I was groomed to be a monster, Piper. You should have believed that."

"What changed?" I asked with a shrug. "The beast? Reality. Or being stuck in this castle."

"No," he whispered. "When I saw his body. My entire life flashed before my eyes. Everything my father showed me, and told me, it all burst into flames within me. I tried to say I was sorry, but it was far too late for that. I—I've hated myself for so long, and when you came, hope slid over my skin like silk. Now," he closed his eyes. "Now it's sliding off, and I'm trying to catch it, but it's slipping through my fingers."

Tears brimmed the corners of my eyes.

My bottom lip trembled.

I believed every word he said. Call me na?ve, call me a stupid young girl, but I believed him.

Reaching forward, I snaked my arms around his waist, feeling his heartbeat against my cheek. Zander palmed the back of my head and held me close. "I want to know what your father did to you," I whispered.

When Zander didn't answer, I pulled back and stared up at him. "It wasn't just what he did to me, Piper. It's what he made me do to others. What he did to my mother."

"He hurt your mother? Wasn't she human?"

"He killed my mother, and forced William and me to help bury her body in the garden."

My palm lifted to my mouth and I covered my gasp. "Zander," I whispered. "I don't know what to say."

"It's the tip of the iceberg," he whispered. "You don't say anything. I just want your forgiveness. Your ... touch."

I frowned. "It's not me that needs to forgive you, Zander."

"You think I haven't apologized to her? It's all I've done for most of my life. I've asked for mercy that I didn't have for her people. She isn't going to give it."

I reached out and touched his jaw. "We will overcome all of this. Together."

He reached up and wrapped his hand around my wrist, his fingers gliding against my skin, his touch warming my body. All my emotions from the day before tumbled out of me.

I lifted onto my tip-toes and kissed him.

It was innocent.

Until it wasn't.

Zander's feelings were rough, angry, and fragile all at once. The sharp edges seemed like they would slit my skin, but one bump and they would shatter along the floor.

His palms slid down my sides, and roughly pulled up the skirt of my dress, lifting me to the door, he barricaded me against his chest.

Despite the confusion and depth of my state of mind, I felt everything tumbling out of me and into our kiss.

His rough palms tightened against my cheeks, and he rolled his hips into mine. Shifting me to one hand, he tangled the other in my hair and angled my mouth to his.

His eyes searched my eyes—my soul—and I saw the little boy inside of him. Afraid and desperate to impress his father. It made my soul ache. Without another word, he slid my underwear to the side and shoved himself into me.

Tears fell from the corners of my eyes from the sweet pain it brought.

"You feel so damn good," he whispered into my ear. "Everything about you. I love it."

Love. I knew he was in the heat of the moment, and he meant physically, but it didn't seem so farfetched to think he meant me. "I want this forever. The good and the bad."

I dug my fingers into his shoulder as he thrust harder into me, and a cry of pleasure slipped out. It was insane to think he'd been on the floor of my bedroom the night before, passed out from the truth he wanted to hide, to drilling me into the library wall the next.

I wanted to rationalize it, but I couldn't.

"Please," I begged, feeling myself grow closer.

Zander pulled back to look at me, his irises dancing, and then I noticed it.

Her.

Standing in the corner of the room. The look on her face. The hurt. The anger. It was evident. She hadn't thought I would forgive him for lying to me. She didn"t think I would stay once I heard the truth. But how could I not?

He made a huge mistake, but he regretted it.

He ruined her life, and she planned to make him pay forever.

She didn't think that I would show up, and trust him.

I was ruining her plan, and by the look on her face, I knew she planned to ruin ours.

Zander's palm traveled up my breast to wrap around my neck. I blinked, and she disappeared, leaving a spiral of dust floating in the one stream of light from the window. My orgasm tumbled out of me, and I felt myself growing closer to my fate, despite the evil he'd been raised in.

Only, my fear of the voodoo queen grew, too. I feared that I hadn't truly seen evil, but she planned to show it to me.