Page 22 of Beyond Hate

“Why are you the only thing that’s different?”

His fingers twitched roughly against my skin, drawing a small sound of pain from my chest. It seemed to spark something in his gaze. Darker. Even more dangerous.

And I didn’t know what else to do.

“Because I’mnotthem. I’m not Nikki. You can feel that.”

Otto’s eyes narrowed.

“I can’t feel anything.”

Fuck.Fuck, I didn’t like the tone of his voice. I didn’t like the way he looked so angry. I didn’t like that his arms around me felt dangerous. It was almost like he was caught up in everything he’d just done, in the person he turned into when he was hurtingpeople. That Otto and the Otto who wrapped his arms around me at night weredifferent.

That Otto was the one who’d said he was going to hurt me in the alley when we’d first met.

I needed theotherOtto back.

“You’re a liar, Otto.”

And I was an idiot, because I did the only thing I could think to do. I leaned forward, pressing my lips to his. His fingers on me tightened at the contact. Painful. Angry and dangerous and deadly… and then they slowly relaxed when I opened for him.

I could almost feel the frantic energy in his body spilling out from his mouth to mine. I could feel it in the way his teeth sank into my bottom lip, and in the way his hands almost clawed against my skin in his desperation to hold me.

I could feel it in the way he suddenly pulled me close enough that it crushed the air from my lungs… made my body ache.

He kissed me like he was trying to find absolution for what he’d just done in the center of my chest, like he could lick it from my mouth and find purity in my moans. Then, just as quickly as he’d started, he shoved me away. Otto’s eyes were burning when they searched my face, and I was almost afraid to speak.

Almost, but…

“You could feel that, right?”

Could he feel my terror, my confusion?

My guilt.

If he could, he didn’t say anything. He just pushed back from the bed and straightened his clothing. His eyes drifted down to my lips, then back to the bleeding man in the corner of the room.

“They’ll be coming to clean him up soon.”

“Otto, wait—”

He was already moving, though, his brows drawn together, his expression a tangled web of fury andlustas he left the room.

I didn’t know if I’d made things better or worse… I just knew my lips were burning, and I could smell blood as I fell back against the bed in confusion.

Chapter 8

Otto

AxelFettermanwasgoingto ruin everything. I could tell from the moment I saw him, from the way his eyes focused on me when I was focusing on London. But how could Inotfocus on him?

Hurting Warren had donenothing.The empty hole in my chest was still just as empty, just as hungry. The only thing that seemed to fill it was the boy on the bed, the boy who’d kissed me. The boy whose lips werenothinglike Nikki’s. And I didn’t know what to do with that knowledge because I was starting to wonder if bringing Nikki back would make it impossible for me to feel what London made me feel.

And for some fucking reason, Axel Fetterman seemed to be able toseethat without me having to say a word. It made him dangerous—it mademevulnerable.

I didn’tlike it.

Nathaniel West was arrogant, and he thought he could control everything in the building. He thought he was powerful enough that everyone would bend to his whim.

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