Isabella Summer is a bright, bookish seventeen-year-old, counting down the days until she graduates and leaves for her dream college in another state. She dreams of becoming an author, living a quiet, peaceful life, and finding the kind of fairytale...
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Xavier's POV
The gate slammed shut with a finality that made my teeth grind. The lock clicked home, a sound that should have meant nothing, but to me it was like a knife twisting in my chest.
She was inside. My Bella. And I couldn't reach her.
The house loomed ahead, too pristine, too controlled — Lucas's playground. Every polished surface, every quiet corner screamed his presence. I could feel it seeping out, thick and suffocating, like smoke curling around her, around her warmth, around what was mine.
I slammed my fist against the iron bars. The metal held, unyielding. My knuckles split, blood running warm over my skin, but I didn't care. Pain meant nothing. The rage that burned through me meant everything.
Lucas. That smug bastard.
I could feel him inside, watching, claiming. One touch to her arm — one fucking touch — and he thought he owned her.
I shouted her name, the sound raw, rough, carried on the wind. "Isabella!"
The night swallowed it, and I imagined her eyes flicking toward the door, flicking toward him. My stomach twisted. That bastard. I could feel him like a weight pressing down, stealing my claim, feeding on her fear and... and whatever it was he called "attention."
Attention. Fuck him.
I backed from the gate, pacing, teeth clenched so hard my jaw ached. My mind raced, every thought a jagged edge. She was mine. She had always been mine. And Lucas... that predator, that smug little shadow — he wouldn't stand in my way for long.
I counted the ways I could get inside. Smash the gate? Set the house on fire? Break every lock and window? Every option burned in my mind, violent, cruel, precise. She couldn't stay there. She wouldn't. She would come back to me.
She had to.
I could feel her in my veins, heartbeat against heartbeat, breath against breath. I had memorized the way she looked at me when I held her. The way her lips trembled when fear touched her. Lucas could touch her now — brush her hair, trace her wrist — and it would drive me insane, every nerve screaming to pull her back.
I slammed the gate again. The metal rang, hollow, echoing through the driveway and into the night. "You hear me, Lucas?" I shouted, voice thick with venom. "She's mine!"
I imagined him smirking, watching her, thinking he had the power to keep her there. I imagined her shivering under his gaze. And I felt it, the searing, hot, blinding fury that clawed at me from the inside out.
I wasn't going to wait. Not a second longer.
I would get in. I would tear him from her, piece by piece if I had to. Every lock, every door, every wall — it wouldn't matter. She was mine. And when I had her back, he would see the price of laying a finger on her.
