Page 104 of Twisted Ties
I groan. The pain in my head isn’t helped when someone comes banging on my door. The pound of their fist becomes more and more intensive until I give up and yell, “Go the fuck away!” throwing my phone at the door for good goddamn measure.
Instead of doing as I say, the door flings open and Tristan fucking Kennedy swaggers in, the door slamming behind him and making me wince with the whack. No wait, he’s not swaggering, he’s limping and there are scratch marks down one side of his face, bruises covering the other.
“You’re a fucking idiot,” I tell him, not even bothering toattempt to sit up, not if I don’t want to spill my guts all over the floor.
“I’m the idiot?” he hisses. A hint of amusement hovers over his face, but I’ve known the dude long enough. I can see the rage right there, simmering below the surface.
“You could have got yourself killed.”
He snorts. “Not a chance. You on the other hand …”
I certainly feel like I was fucking close. Not that I am going to admit that to the asshole.
He rolls my desk chair across my bedroom floor and drops down on it, kicking his feet up onto my bed. There’s a half-smoked joint tucked behind his ear, his eyes are ringed with dark circles, a graze marks his cheek and his hair is a fucking mess.
“You look fucking awful,” I tell him.
“I haven’t slept. And you don’t look so great yourself.”
He leans forward, resting his forearms on his knees, his leg jiggling. He’s trying to hold back that rage I can see.
“Whatever the fuck you have to say, say it. I’m due a lecture from the principal in half an hour so you can get yours in first.”
He stares at me. His leg continues to jiggle.
“Kennedy–”
“He attacked her,” he says.
“Her?” I say, like I don’t know who the fuck he’s talking about.
“Rhianna Blackwaters. Why the fuck would he attack her?”
I roll my gaze away from him and up to the ceiling. “She probably crossed his path.”
“Bullshit. He was going to rip her throat out.” His voice is so full of tension, I can’t help but snap my focus back to him.
“Don’t tell me you actually give a damn. The girl isfucking annoying.” The words sound hollow and I wonder if he notices. Because it’s clear we’re both intrigued by the little thing. The little thing who just happens to be able to wield crimson magic.
The little thing pursued by the werebeast.
I point to his ear and hold out my hand. He drops the joint into my palm and I light it with a flick of my fingers. For a moment, I watch the end smolder, smoke curling up into the air, and then take a long drag.
“You know you’ll be in even deeper shit with York if you turn up stinking of weed.”
“I’m not going to be in the shit. I’ll get a lecture, a slap on the wrist–”
“Rhianna Blackwaters was attacked.” That tension is clear in his voice.
I take another long drag, letting the smoke curl around my mouth and down my throat, then breathe it out, the buzz killing some of the pain in my body.
“He wasn’t going to hurt her.”
“How the hell would you know?”
What do I say? It’s not something a magical like Tristan would ever understand, thatanyof the others could ever understand. Living with this monster inside me, constantly clawing to break free, and when he does, trapped inside him, feeling all his emotions and not being able to escape. How could I ever explain it?
What did I feel from him when he had her pinned to the ground, when all I could do was scream in the abyss, spinning in the blackness of nowhere? What had I felt? The same damn emotion the little pig girl evokes from me? Intrigue?
