Page 34 of Twisted Devotion

“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 divethatdeep 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.”

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