Page 1 of A Sweet Destruction

Chapter 1

Esme

When I was promised a Soul Mate, my naive, young heart thought that meant I’d been blessed with someone who would love me, someone I could choose to be my family.

The Soul Mate I was given rejected me the moment he saw me. His first words upon confronting my stupidly hopeful face were, “No. Not her.”

And now that same man was crouching in front of me, eight years later, asking me what I’d done wrong and looking at me like he hadn’t sliced me open with his indifference for years.

I tried to pull Ford’s hand off my face, hating the warmth that was already building there. It had been over twenty-four hours since my last dose of suppressant, and the Bond was already weaseling its way back in. Sneaky fucker.

“You can’t blame me for something you started!” I shot back, my body shooting forward. I planted my butt right back in my seat, hating that I’d let my voice rise above its practiced steady volume.

Ford looked at me like I was sprouting flowers out of my head. It wouldn’t have surprised me all that much if it were true. My world already felt several degrees of its axis. “You have to explain this to me, Esme. What the hell was that?”

Well, that wasn’t one of my finest moments. It was the tiniest little breakdown, complete with unhinged screaming and tears.

Unfortunately, that reaction felt rather warranted, especially considering what happened when I didn’t take my medication.

After that little stunt, there was no use lying now. I’d grown weary of all the secrets as of late.

I’d all but confessed to Bellamy already, might as well add Ford to that list. He’d find out soon enough anyway. “I’ve been taking a suppressant for the Bond for the past five years. My dosage just blew up along with my only way back to Vir to get more.”

Ford finally let me go, falling back onto his heels. “You what? Esme, what the hell were you thinking?” He looked at me like he didn’t recognize me, despite spending nearly every day with me for the last eight years. I restrained a quip pointing out that very fact, and that if he didn’t know why I’d done this, he didn’t really know me at all.

The accusation in his voice was a step too fucking far. This time, my voice was perfectly level as I said, “I told you, don’t blame me for something you started.”

“Me?” Ford’s eyes looked like they were about to bug out of his head. Unfortunately, that was a rather good look on him. “Unless you were slipping that shit in my coffee, you were the one intentionally suppressing the Bond!”

The way his throat worked while he yelled had my eyes dropping to the floor. Part of me slipped away to curl into a ball in the back of my mind, while the well-trained, colder part spoke. “I said five years.”

“What?” Ford snapped, though he wasn’t quite yelling at me. He was confused, maybe rightly so.

I breathed in, steadying myself for a conversation I’d never planned on having. “I said I’ve been taking it for five years. We’ve been bonded for eight. You do that math.” Ford opened his mouth to protest, but I raised a hand to cut him off. “Unless you can look me in the eye and tell me that even once over those three years you felt the Bond, then you can yell at me all you want.”

Ford hesitated. If my heart could break, it would have cracked in half. I’d spent years loosening it, making sure the muscle could mold to any blow. Even then, it was a bitter laugh that left my lips as I said, “God, I think that’s even worse.”

Of course, he’d never heard the Bond. I’d been left to deal with that shrieking bitch all on my own.

Ford’s eyebrows creased in the center—as much as they could. His left brow was slower to move, unable to form the movement all the way. He was handsome before his scar, and he was handsome now, but I’d never stop feeling that pinch between my ribs when I saw his muscles struggle to work. “You said five years. When?”

“Two days after that,” I said, pointing at the long scar that ran from his eyebrow down to cut through the edge of his lip. I didn’t really remember the details of those days, from rescuing him to the…insanity that followed.

All I knew was that it was bad enough that the suppressant had been offered to me with a polite smile and thinly veiled encouragement. After being told what I’d done, I snatched up those pills so fast I couldn’t even tell what color they were.

Blue, as it turns out. I swallowed two every single morning with my coffee, save the days we had to Cross.

Ford was visibly in his head, surely coming up with another way to turn this on me. God forbid he feel one ounce of emotion. He’d probably disintegrate on the spot.

Feeling a long-suppressed urge to needle him, I pressed on. “You know I was the one who saved you?”

“Yes, I figured,” Ford said. There was a pause between his words, like he’d chosen figured carefully. It was a shitty choice.

It became clear to me then that I would be humiliated. In all the ways that I’d run away from for so many years, hiding behind the secrets and the half truths and the omissions.

The problem was, I’d never been able to outright lie to Ford.

Just another thing to add to the laundry list of embarrassments I’d suffered and would now be forced to relive.