Read Online Broken Wings (Cruel and Beautiful World, Book One 1) by L. Stoddard Hancock - Free Book Online Page B

sweater, and then back at that damn cupcake. After darting her eyes several times between the three objects, she finally stopped on Xander, giving him her first good look since the tram.
    He was the same. Dusty-blond hair, golden-brown eyes, creamy white skin that had never touched sunlight, defined cheekbones and a strong jawline. Slightly older, slightly darkened by the effects of war, but the same. If he was the same on the outside then how the hell could anything else about him be different? No. This was just too weird and she felt like she was going to burst. Her mind couldn't take it anymore.
    "No, no, no!" she shouted, throwing the sweater back at him. "Stop it! Stop doing that!"
    "Doing what?" asked Xander, furrowing his brow.
    "Being like this!" She motioned at him dramatically with her hands. "Like ... like you're nice or something! It's creeping me out!"
    "Me being nice is creeping you out?"
    "Yes! Because you're not nice, Ruby! You're mean and spiteful! And you're a Guardian! Your father is a big part of the reason why I've been held prisoner and tortured for five years! Five fucking years!"
    "Yes, I realize that," he said calmly.
    "If you wanted to help me then you should have done it then! You should have lifted a hand and stopped them!"
    "I was young. And my mom had just been killed in front of me. I didn't know -"
    "I don't care!" she screamed, crying freely. "Do you know what they did to me? What Soren did to me every day I was imprisoned in his home?"
    "Yes," answered Xander without even a flinch. "I'm aware of what happens to slaves, and Soren was hardly quiet about his delusional conquest over you."
    This only made Deryn cry harder. "He never had me! Despite what he thought, he never, ever had me!"
    "I know. That's why I said delusional."
    "I can't stay here," she said. "I haven't even been here twelve hours yet and I can already feel the walls closing in on me. I can't be trapped again. Not by you. Not by another Guardian."
    Until that moment, Xander had been holding it together, but hearing her say those words set something off inside of him. A fire he had not felt in years. "Is that what you think I'm doing?" he asked, his cold eyes narrowing. "Trapping you? Like they trapped you?"
    Deryn said nothing but continued to look firmly at him.
    "Believe me, Leon, I don't want you here anymore than you want to be here!"
    "Yet here we are," she said, using her hands to wipe her damp cheeks.
    "Yes, and that's the way it has to stay. You and me. Here. You understand?"
    Deryn studied him carefully as he finally let that coolness he had been trying to maintain go. "Why am I here, Ruby?"
    "Not to be my fucking slave! I'm actually quite certain that I'm the one who's been doing things for you !"
    Deryn opened her mouth to say something but he beat her to it.
    "I fucking bathed you! An Outsider! In my bathtub! Where's the gratitude? I mean, honestly. Next time just say thank you!"
    Deryn straightened herself up and mirrored him by crossing her arms in front of her chest. She looked him square in the eye, her mouth lowering in a deep scowl, and repeated the words he had said to her in the hallway five years earlier. "Never gonna happen, sweetheart."
    With a final mocking wink, Deryn pushed past him and marched with a slight limp towards the guestroom.
    "And there is nothing wrong with being an Outsider!" she shouted before slamming the door behind her.
    "Fuck you!" Xander tossed the sweater at her door with a frustrated growl, then kicked the slippers across the room.
    After feeling to make sure his keys were in his pocket, he shouted, "I'm going out!" at the closed door. He stormed out of the apartment, slamming the front door twice as hard as she had.
    Chapter Seven
     
     
    Several hours later, Deryn awoke to her stomach growling. She wasn't sure when she'd fallen asleep, but it couldn't have been long ago since her head still throbbed terribly.
    She rubbed her swollen eyes and sat up in bed. From the crack in the