Page 22 of Out of the Darkness

“Which part?”

“Any of it! All of it! You are the one who keeps saying that we are destined to be together. How can you even say that if you keep all this shit from me?”

“I was planning on telling you, Madelyn. But only after you accepted me, when you were ready to hear it,” he admitted truthfully. “What I am is not something I can broadcast.”

“Who the fuck are you to tell me when I’m ready to hear anything?” she exclaimed.

Xavier sighed and rolled his neck. Once again, arguing and screaming at one another wasn’t going to get them anywhere. He needed to diffuse the situation before either one of them said something they were going to regret. Keeping all of this from her had hurt her, and he could understand that. But they needed to talk to one another, not yell, scream, or argue.

“Madelyn—” he began carefully.

“Get out,” she interrupted.

He blinked. “What?”

She sneered at him, baring her teeth like a feral animal, and pointed toward the door. “Get the fuck out of my house.”

As much as he didn’t want to, he nodded, though mostly to himself. Trying to talk to her about all this wasn’t going to work out the way he hoped while she was still angry and hurt. She needed time, and he had recently learned that he could be a very patient man where she was concerned. His wolf, on the other hand…

Closing the distance between them quickly, and before she could get away, he gripped the back of her neck and pulled her to him before pressing a rough kiss to her lips. “I’ll be here when you need me.”

“I don’t need you, Xavier,” she hissed.

He brushed his fingers down her cheek, wiping away some of her tears. “You do. You’ll see. I’ll see you soon, little dove.”

With that, he turned and left the house. It looked like he was going to be driving home naked, but he had been in worse situations. Madelyn would contact him again. She couldn’t stay away from him any more than he could stay away from her. In the meantime, he was going to hunt down Colby so that they could finish what they started.

Chapter Ten

Madelyn

Two days had passed since Madelyn had discovered the truth about Xavier, and she was beginning to feel like she was losing her mind. She hadn’t slept, couldn’t eat, and hadn’t even been able to leave the house. Not because she was afraid but because she was worried that she might run into him, and she wasn’t ready to face him just yet. Thankfully, she had a lot of unused vacation time saved up and had been able to make arrangements with the captain to take a couple of weeks off. She needed to get her head on straight before she could even consider going back to work. Otherwise, she wouldn’t be able to get anything done.

Madelyn took another huge gulp of tequila straight from the bottle, the liquid no longer burning her throat. She had only started drinking to quiet her mind as it had been spinning out of control, and nothing else seemed to work. Now though, she was drunk and was still no closer to deciphering her conflicting emotions. So, she decided to go over what she did know.

Xavier was a shifter and could change into a wolf at will. She was angry that he had kept it from her but even more angry that she could understand why he did. If she messed up and that information fell into the wrong hands, he would end up being locked up and experimented on. Humans did stuff like that with things they didn’t understand. She didn’t see him being able to live a normal life at all. Instead, he would spend the rest of his days being poked, prodded, and dissected to see what made him tick, and she wouldn’t wish that on anyone. On the other hand, he was also the one who believed that they were meant to be together. If that was the case, he should have trusted her enough to tell her the truth instead of her having to find out the way she did.

Truth be told, she couldn’t really blame him for his lack of trust either though. She had been fighting this thing between them from day one. But what else did he expect her to do? Did he think he could just tell her they belonged together, without explaining how or why he believed that, and expect her to go along with it? Especially since, instead of approaching her and talking to her like a normal person, he chose to follow her, deciding to stalk her. Hell, he had mutilated the guy she had been seeing and put him in the hospital solely because they had been going out. It wasn’t exactly the best first impression.

Then, there was the whole assassin or hitman thing. Though, that little tidbit didn’t bother her as much as it probably should have. Everyone had a past, and that was his. The fact that his past was coming back and haunting the both of them was a bit irritating, but it wasn’t an issue either. She knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that Xavier could take Colby easily. Once again, the only reason this was an issue was because he had kept it from her.

The thing that upset her the most though, what she hated to admit even to herself, was the fact that she had actually started to develop feelings for him despite everything he had done. He seemed to be the only person in the world who truly understood her, who knew what she wanted or needed. When he looked at her, he saw her and every broken piece of herself that she had spent years trying to hide from the rest of the world, and he didn’t shy away from it. Instead, he embraced it, and that wasn’t something she was used to.

Madelyn hadn’t seen or heard from Xavier in two days, and she hated how much she missed him because of it. It was no one’s fault but her own. She was the one who told him to get out, but now she was regretting it because she had never felt more alone than she had over the last two days.

Apart from Melanie, Madelyn didn’t have anyone else she could talk to, and she couldn’t exactly talk to her best friend about what was going on. Between the sex, the fact that Xavier was her stalker and an ex-hitman, and the fact that he was a shifter, Melanie would probably think she had completely lost her mind and have her committed. Besides, what he was wasn’t her secret to tell. But all this meant that she was left struggling with it all on her own.

She glanced down at the bottle of tequila in her lap, already one-third of the way empty. Clearly, she was doing one hell of a job of trying to cope.

While Madelyn was thoroughly feeling sorry for herself, her cell phone rang on the nightstand. Her heart leaped within her chest, thinking it might be Xavier. However, one look at the caller ID told her that wasn’t the case, and that tiny shred of hope deflated like a balloon.

“Hey, Mel,” she answered, her words slurring slightly.

“Jesus, you sound like shit,” Melanie replied. “How sick are you?”

Madelyn shook her head even though Melanie couldn’t see her. “Nope. Not sick. Just drunk.”

Apparently, something about that was funny because she heard Melanie laugh. “Well, that’s good I guess. At least you aren’t sick anymore. Any particular reason you are drinking?”

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