“That,” I say, “is a very long story.”
“Hmm.” Jackson grabs the box of penne off the island and opens the box, dumping its contents into the boiling water. “Well, I’m here to listen if you’d like to share it with me.” He sets the empty box on the counter and closes the distance between us, lifting his arm and resting his hand on my shoulder.
I arch a brow at him, not expecting the supportive gesture, but appreciating it nonetheless. Blowing out a breath, I say, “You really want to know?”
He pulls his hand back, and I immediately notice the missing warmth of his touch. “You’re surprised?”
“I don’t know. I guess I just figured—”
“That I’m as shallow as I am attractive?” he cuts in.
Rolling my eyes, I clear my throat to muffle the laugh that tries to escape. “I don’t think you’re shallow, Jax. A little immature at times, absolutely. But not shallow.”
He wrinkles his nose, walking back to the stove and stirring the pasta before setting the wooden spoon on the counter. “Thanks . . . I think.”
Silence hangs in the air for a few minutes before I speak again. I may as well tell him. I won’t be around too much longer to worry about him knowing the most personal and horrific details of my past and my transition into fae life. And as much as it freaks me out, something tells me I can trust Jackson.
Once the tray is in the oven, I wash my hands and prop my hip against the counter. With a deep breath, I say, “Before Tristan came into my life . . . it wasn’t great.”
Jackson turns toward me and steps closer. “You don’t have to tell me, Kelsey,” he murmurs. “Honestly, I didn’t mean to pry.”
I smile without looking at him. “No, it’s okay. You deserve to know a little bit about the person who’s responsible for your life.”
“Damn. When you put it like that—”
“Intense, isn’t it?” I offer, and he nods. “So, yeah,” I continue, “I was abandoned as a child. My birth parents—from what I’ve heard about them—were young and scared, and they didn’t want a baby. But they tried—for a while. I was taken from them at six months old after a neighbor called the police on them for suspicion of drug dealing.”
I choke on a brutal laugh, and Jackson frowns faintly.
“Classy, right?” I joke. “Anyway, my biological parents didn’t have any family members that wanted me, either. So I wound up in the system. I don’t remember a lot of it. My first real memory was being taken from school by my social worker. I was scared and confused, and she wouldn’t tell me anything until we got to the police station. Apparently, my foster parents were on their way to pick me up and got into a car accident. My foster father was driving and was killed on impact. A transport truck had veered into their lane on the highway. My foster mom survived for the next few hours, but died in the hospital.
“I blamed myself for their deaths for a long time. They were on their way to pick me up from school. They wouldn’t have been in that car if it weren’t for me.”
“It wasn’t your fault,” Jax whispers, reaching for me, but he stops himself when I flinch. Instead, he reaches over and turns down the heat to stop the pasta from boiling over.
I smile at him. “I know that now, but I was so young. After that, I bounced from home to home. I acted out, destroyed things, got suspended on a regular basis. No foster parents could keep me longer than a few months. The longest managed to hang on for just over a year. No matter what I pulled, they handled me with grace and compassion.”
He smiles thoughtfully. “I’m not saying this to try to make you feel better, but I feel that you should know. My parents left me as a child, too.”
I frown at him, my chest tightening. I read his file—twice. “I thought your parents died during the fae war before everyone was forced to make the human world their home?”
He purses his lips. “Yeah, they did. But that was years after they abandoned me. I grew up pretty much on my own, out West. Though Nikolai was around sometimes, it got lonely a lot.”
“I’m sorry,” I tell him, sincerity in my voice. When it comes to parental baggage, I understand his pain more than I care to admit.
He nods. “So how did you end up with Tristan? As fae?”
I wet my lips, debating on whether or not I really want to dive that deep into my history.
Tell him, a voice at the back of my mind says.
Maybe if he understands me on a more personal level, when it comes to following my direction, we’ll be more in tune.
“I was dying the night Tristan found me,” I tell him. “He saved my life, which is why I’m fae.”
Jackson’s eyes widen. “He saved your life?”
“He did. The next family I ended up with was . . . they were fine, I guess. At least in the beginning. There were a couple of other foster kids living there when I arrived. The husband, Mark, spent a lot of time at work. He was a corporate lawyer at a big firm downtown, and his wife, Claire, worked from home selling some all-natural cosmetic stuff.
“All the kids got along. For the most part, we were the picture-perfect foster family. Until Mark got mixed up with some dangerous people through work. He wound up invested in an illegal scheme that had to do with insider trading or something. I never found out why. It doesn’t matter, really. What does matter is that it led to our home being shot up in the middle of the night.”
Jackson sucks in a soft breath, and his hand reaches for where mine is resting on the counter. This time, I don’t pull away when he takes it in his. It’s better to have something—even if it’s Jackson Hawthorne—anchoring me to reality as I recollect the worst night of my life.
“Claire was killed trying to protect her family. Shot twice in the back of the head while her husband bled out in front of her from stab wounds inflicted by one of the hit men that invaded the house after the first round of gunfire.”
“Where were you while this was happening?” he asks.
I shift my gaze to the pot on the stove, watching the bubbles simmer as I continue my story. “Asleep in my room upstairs. The gunshots didn’t wake me—they must’ve used silencers. It was the shouting and commotion downstairs that did, but I was too scared to move. Until Claire started screaming. I slipped out of my room and found my foster sister already dead in the hallway, a bullet between her eyes. By that point, my heart was beating so hard my chest hurt, but I kept moving, knowing the only family I had—or what was left of it by then—was in danger. My foster brother’s bedroom was in the basement, so I made it my mission to get to him. I knew once we were together, we could get help.”
“You were close,” he observes, his thumb moving over the back of my hand in small circles.
I shift my attention to his hand on mine. “We were. When I made it to his room and he wasn’t there . . .” I swallow hard, remembering that moment of utter horror as if it were yesterday. “I’d never felt fear like that in all my years in the system. I didn’t know at the time, but he had gone out with friends that night and ended up crashing on one of their couches.”
Something like relief passes over Jackson’s face. “What happened then?”
“I went back upstairs. By the time I managed to sneak into the room, I could see that Mark was going to die if he didn’t get help soon. I couldn’t remember where I’d left my phone and I didn’t want to risk looking for it. The man who stabbed Mark stood over him, laughing. I wanted to cry and vomit, but I had to keep it together so I wasn’t caught. I had to get out of the house and get help. First, I needed to make it past the man in the living room who was taunting Mark as he bled out, and the three other men upstairs doing what sounded like raiding the rooms for anything of value. I figured it out fairly quickly that Mark must’ve owed them money. His wife and his foster daughter were dead because he pissed off the wrong people.”
“That’s awful,” Jax says, squeezing my hand. “I can’t imagine what must’ve been going through your head.”
“Everything seemed to be happening both too
fast and too slow. Nothing made sense. I can’t tell you why I survived that night. I don’t remember much of what happened after I decided I needed to get out of the house. I must’ve been injured somewhere between the kitchen and getting outside, because I was bleeding from several wounds. Tristan told me that when I finally regained consciousness—three days after the attack—in one of the suites at the Westbrook, with him and Seth by my side. Tristan had been in the area and came across me. He said I was bleeding to death on someone’s front lawn. He shifted me back to his home and tried to heal me, but nothing worked. Seth was the one who suggested turning me. It was a last resort. They didn’t even know if it was going to work.”
“But it did,” Jackson realizes, his eyes locked on mine.
“Yeah,” I say simply.
His brows tug closer. “What happened to your foster brother? And the men who killed your family?” Anger deepens his voice at the end, and I cringe inwardly.
I blow out a shaky breath. “Seth told me that Kyle was relocated to a new family and aged out of the system shortly after. The men responsible for the massacre were sentenced to life in prison.” I shrug. “I didn’t follow the trial or anything, but Seth let me know once it was over, and I could finally breathe again.”
“That’s . . .” he starts, and the rage in his eyes makes me hold my breath.
If I didn’t know any better, I’d say he was about to go off on how much he’d make those men pay.
I’ve been there. I’ve felt that rage. Sometimes, I still do.
Jackson closes his eyes for a moment, squeezing my hand again. When he looks at me again, his gaze is soft. “I’m really sorry that happened.”
I glance down at our hands and smile softly, leaning into him a little. “Thanks, Jax.”
There’s a beat of silence between us, and then he asks, “Can I . . . hug you?”
An unexpected laugh escapes me, and I lift my eyes to his. “I’d like that.”
Without hesitation, Jackson wraps his arms around me, resting his chin on the top of my head, and holds me close to him. I cling to him, inhaling the scent that is uniquely him, and—in this moment—terrifyingly comforting. I should step away, pull back, but instead, I close my eyes and listen to the steady beat of his heart.
Chapter 12
After last night’s conversation with Jackson, I’ve never been so happy to have a day off. After letting him inside that dark part of my life, I feel weird about facing him. I’m sure he’s seen and heard far worse, but I need some space to breathe and figure out why the hell I can’t stop thinking about the way he looked at me. It was as if . . . as if he was ready to hunt down the men who took everything from me and make them pay for what they did. Some days, I have to fight the urge to do just that.
Getting into the prison where the men are incarcerated would be challenging, but I helped take down an entire organization. I’d figure it out. I shiver at the thought and wrap my arms around myself. I can still feel Jackson’s arms encasing me, can still recall how protected and safe I felt, which is a little funny considering I’m here to protect him.
I stretch my legs out and yawn, rolling over to look out the window as the sun rises. Jackson is working from home today, which means his security is covered. He has the added layer of protection considering no fae who might want him dead knows what the inside of this house looks like. With that being the case, they can’t shift here, and they’d never get past the guards on feet.
My phone dings on the table next to my bed, and I sigh as I reach for it and see a message from Allison.
I have the day off and Monica is working, so I’m free. Want to meet for coffee?
I press my lips together, scanning her message. I really don’t want to get out of bed on my only day off this week, but I haven’t seen Allison in a while.
Sure. Meet you downtown in an hour.
I have to drive around downtown Rockdale for fifteen minutes before I find an open parking spot, making me late to meet Allison.
She waves off my apology and hugs me. “I’m just glad you came. I’m sure you could use a few hours away from the house anyway.”
“You have no idea,” I say, walking beside her toward the café. Before the Hawthorne assignment, we frequented a different coffee place closer to the Westbrook, but Allison sent me this address, wanting to check it out.
The large front window is decorated with small, twinkling lights which have been hung inside, and there’s a bell above the door that chimes when we walk in. The space is cozy, with wood floors and soft gray walls. Small tables are placed around the room with a handful of people sipping coffee and chatting softly, and there’s a long table at the far end of the counter that looks perfect for patrons with laptops to work at. My eyes flit around the room, taking it in before turning toward the counter, and to the barista behind it.
Without warning, I stop dead in my tracks, and Allison bumps into me, quickly following my line of sight to the shaggy-haired guy behind the counter.
“Who is that?” Her voice is a mix of curiosity and concern.
I try to swallow, but my throat is too dry. “That’s Kyle.”
She nods. “And Kyle is . . . ?”
I force my eyes away from my old foster brother and meet Allison’s gaze. “We lived in the same home for a while. The, uh, last home before I became fae.” I’d told her the story of the end of my human life one night after several glasses of wine.
Recognition flares to life on her face. “Oh my god.”
“Yeah.” I shake my head. “I doubt he remembers me.”
“Kelsey?” he asks.
Or maybe he does.
I look away from Allison and force a smile. “Hey, Kyle,” I say as I approach the counter. “How are you?”
“Surprised to see you,” he says with a grin, setting down the dishtowel in his hand. “You look great.”
My cheeks flush, and I force a laugh. “Thanks. You too.” And he does. I haven’t seen the guy in over five years, and time has been kind to him. He shot up like a tree and really filled out. He looks like a giant teddy bear.
He walks closer to the end of the counter where Allison and I are standing. “What are you up to these days? You’re not online.”
I nod. “Social media isn’t really my thing.” I wrack my brain for a normal-sounding way to explain my current job situation. “I’m working as security for a private company.”
“Damn.” He whistles and then, “That’s impressive.”
“It’s interesting, that’s for sure.” Interesting is one of many, though far less colorful words I could use to describe my life with Jackson.
His grin widens. “I bet.”
Allison clears her throat, and I fight the urge to roll my eyes. “Kyle,” I say, “this is Allison. She’s a friend from . . . work.”
“Nice to meet you,” Kyle says, sticking his hand out toward her.
She shakes it, smiling brightly, and shuffles out of the way of an incoming customer. “You too. So, you lived with Kelsey back in the day?”
He pulls his hand back, shifting his gaze between us. “That’s right. Kelsey aged out of the system before I did, so we lost touch.”
That’s what he believes.
The day after Tristan saved my life, he made sure Kyle was relocated to a reputable home in the area. I was close enough to aging out of the system that he took me in until I could get on my feet.
I wet my lips. “It’s good to see you, Kyle. How is everything?”
He gestures around where he’s standing. “You know, living the dream.” He laughs. “I’m in grad school, so whenever I’m not studying, I’m here. Because that shit is expensive.”
“Right. Of course,” I say.
“Anyways,” he says, jerking his thumb toward the menu on the wall behind him, “what can I get you ladies? My treat.”
I wave him off. “You don’t have to do that.”
“I insist,” he counters, grinning. “I haven’t seen you in years.
Let me buy you a coffee.”
“Just let the guy pay, Kels,” Allison cuts in, then orders a vanilla hazelnut latte.
Reluctantly, I give in and order a matcha latte, watching Kyle work at the coffee bar while Allison natters on about the mediocre date she went on last night. She and Monica have been seeing each other, but neither seems ready to call it a relationship. Evidently, that means they’re both still seeing other people. We met up with Monica while traveling in search of allies against The Experiment. She was Max’s sister, and Max was Tristan’s best friend. Max died to save Aurora, and after that, Monica and Allison started spending a lot of time together.
After our drinks are ready, I thank Kyle and say, “Let me grab your number. We should get together and catch up sometime.” I’m still going to be around for a while, so there’s no harm in seeing an old friend.
“Absolutely.” He grabs a coffee cup sleeve and scribbles his number on it, holding it out to me. “I work most weekends, but I’m free some nights during the week.”
“Great,” I say. “We’ll figure something out. I’ll text you so you have my number.”
“Sounds good to me. It was really nice to see you, Kelsey. You were always my favorite.” His cheeks are tinted pink and the aura clouding around him is light and fluffy. It’s not romantic, but the affection is there, and it warms my heart.
I shoot him a wink and the moment I realize I’ve done it, the image of Jackson winking at me flashes in my mind.
Ugh.
He’s rubbing off on me.
“Right back at you,” I tell Kyle.
Allison grabs my arm the second the café door closes behind us, and my latte sloshes around in my cup. “Okay, spill. There’s definitely a story there.”
I shoot her a dry look and pull my hand away. “I told you the story. He was one of the kids in the last foster house I was in before aging out of the system,”
Her eyes narrow slightly. “There’s more, though, isn’t there?”
“I’m not sure what you mean by more, but I’m inclined to disagree.”
Twisted Devotion: A Fae Paranormal Romance Page 9