Twisted Ties (The Arrow Hart Academy Book 2), page 1
TWISTED TIES
HANNAH HAZE
Copyright © 2023 by Hannah Haze
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Front cover designed by Covers by Christian
Edited by Buckley's Books
Created with Vellum
CONTENTS
Foreword
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Also by Hannah Haze
About the Author
Acknowledgments
FOREWORD
This book is a 'why choose' bully paranormal romance with one female main character and more than one potential love interest. These love interests are ruthless and at times brutally unkind. There are scenes that some readers may find uncomfortable including violence and gore. For more detailed content warnings, please visit my website.
If you spot any typos in this book, please drop me a line so I can make it right: hannahhazewrites@gmail.com (Or just drop me an email anyway. I love to chat!).
1
Stone
I stride out of that alley and into the dark back streets down by the docks, white sea mist swirling in the dim light of the overhead lamps.
I’m going to find him. I’m going to find him and I’m going to kill him.
That man – that bastard fucking man – was going to kill her. To end her life. To take her from us. And for all my talk, for all my pretense that I don’t give a damn about the girl who’s stumbled into our lives and shaken everything upside down with both her hands, I’m lying.
I do care. I care so much it makes my heart ache in my chest and I can’t stand there and look at her crumpled on the ground in pain.
I need to kill the man that did this to her. I need to make him pay for it. I won’t let him live. No way am I going to let him live to strike again. Because he will. Renzo Barone is as relentless as he is disturbed, and his boss doesn’t accept failure. They won’t stop until the job is done.
So I’m going to find him and I’m going to kill him. And I’m going to do it right now.
I may not be a tracker like Azlan. But I have my skill, my ability – reading minds. And – what only my friend knows – is that if I try hard enough, if I concentrate with every fiber of my being, I can read them over distance. And Renzo’s? Well, it’s like a fucking siren – a chaotic, noisy mess blaring out there in the darkness.
His thoughts are too rambling, too many voices jabbering all at once for me to make any sense of it. Although there’s one theme, one topic, repeating over and over again. The girl. Like he’s obsessed.
Yeah, well, he can get in line.
I follow that crackling noise through the empty streets, my eyes flicking from side to side, watchful for any unseen strike, my hands raised and ready.
There’s no one else out here. I suspect they heard that fight back there in the alleyway and have tucked themselves away and out of danger.
I know the kind of people who live here. Hell, I spent my childhood among them. They know to keep their heads down and to stay out of trouble. See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil. That’s the way to survive.
The noise of Renzo’s mind grows louder, and I pick up my pace, until I spot him in the distance, sitting astride his motorbike, tying a tourniquet around his arm, the eerie mist lingering around his feet, making him appear ghostly.
I launch a cascade of my most violent magic towards him and his head snaps my way. He can’t see me hiding in the shadows and he’s forced to duck low, twisting and turning to avoid my onslaught.
I curse myself. If I held my temper, if I’d remained calmer … but I’m too damn angry, rage curling through my body in hot, hot flames. Flames that don’t want to listen to caution or logic. Flames that want to burn him to ashes.
I send more magic crashing his way, but I’ve lost the element of surprise now and he meets mine with his own, the bolts slamming into each other and exploding so fiercely, I’m forced to raise my arms and shield my eyes.
“The Enforcer and the Professor,” he cackles with an amusement that sounds unhinged. “I haven’t seen you fight together in a long time. This has almost been fun.”
Fun?
Fun?!
The sicko nearly killed my girl. My mate.
I growl, stepping out of the shadows and firing rapid bolts straight at him.
He sweeps his arm through the air, creating an impenetrable shield, the bolts exploding against its surface but traveling no further.
“And out to save the girl? Curious …” He kicks up the stand of his bike, wheels it around to face me. “Want to tell me why?”
“I’m going to kill you,” I hiss, running at him. I don’t give a shit about magic. I want my hands around his throat. I want to punch my fist against his skull. I want to feel it splinter into a million pieces.
His magic streams past me as I run, but I block it all, and then I’m on him, grabbing the front of his shirt and dragging him off the bike.
A sick grin spreads across his face.
They say the assassin has a love of blood, a love of getting his hands dirty. That he likes to make his killings as messy as he can. No silent bolt of magic through the night, striking his victim in the back of the head. No, he’d rather break every bone in their body first.
Is that what he was going to do to her?
“You don’t speak of her,” I say, pounding my fist against his face and hearing both my fingers and his cheekbone crack. “You don’t think of her. You will regret ever coming for her. Because I’m going to kill you.”
“You’re not,” he says, smiling even though there’s blood in his mouth. “Because you’re not who you used to be, Phoenix Stone. With your smart suit and your comfy fucking job in the academy. Sitting all day, pouring over your books. I’ve seen you.”
“You have no idea what I’m capable of,” I hiss, swinging my arm back to hit him again. This time he ducks, landing a punch of his own on my ribs.
I grunt, the pain sharp below my aching heart.
“I’ve seen you watching her. Seen you looking at her. You know it’s funny. When you watch someone like I have, you notice all the other people doing the same. And there are so many of you, aren’t there?”
I don’t know what the hell he’s talking about. The man is insane. The noise from his head still loud in my ears, distracting me, attempting to drown me in its madness.
He tries to hit me again, but I grip him around the waist and throw him to the ground. He pulls me with him and we scrabble around, first me on top of him, then he on top of me, the road cold and wet beneath us, seeping through my clothes. I kick at him, zap him with my magic, hit at him, and then I have the upper hand again. My hands tighten around his neck and I squeeze and squeeze.
“I’m going to kill you,” I snarl, the rage so all-consuming, all I can see is the amusement dancing in his eye, everything else fading away.
“Nah, not today, Prof.,” he says. His manic eyes twinkle – one brown, one green. He winks at me and then he’s gone. Just like that. One minute pinned on the ground beneath me, my hands tight around his neck. The next gone, nothing but thin air, my hands hanging redundantly.
How the fuck did he do that?
I twist around, scramble to my feet, searching for him.
There’s nothing but mist and darkness and his bike.
I kick at the ground, swearing.
I failed.
I failed her yet again.
2
Rhi
The room is dark, the clinic still and quiet. I can hear the man in black’s breath whistle. I can feel his presence, feel it deep down in the very pit of my core, a core that spins and swoons uncontrollably.
I screw up my eyes. Is he awake like I am? Awake in the dark, trying to make sense of everything that’s happened. Or is he there, sitting in the chair beside my bed regretting everything that’s happened.
He says he had no choice. He
Does he regret it? Does he wish he’d let me die? Because if we are what they say we are – a fated pair – it’s not like he greeted me with open arms.
My heart aches in my chest, knowing the truth of it. He didn’t want me. He didn’t choose me. No, fate did the choosing. Fate gave him a mate like me. Stupid, ignorant, weak, pathetic.
A girl who has no idea how this complicated world works.
I open my eyes and stare up at the blinking light on the ceiling. On. Off. On. Off.
Why does it hurt so much?
The nurse had floated around me yesterday as if I was the luckiest girl on the planet, muttering about the blessings bestowed upon me, how fortunate I was to find my other half, how happy I must be.
“He saved you,” she swooned, “it’s so romantic.”
Lying on the hospital bed with a broken leg and the memory of the agony his absence had caused still fresh in every cell in my body, I don’t feel lucky or fortunate or happy.
It doesn’t feel that way to me at all.
Mostly I feel sadness, a sadness that morphs to anger as the long night drags on. An anger that starts off lukewarm and simmers hotter and hotter, till I’m boiling over with it.
Where was my choice? Where was all my say in this? What does this mean for me now? Chained to the side of a man who clearly doesn’t want me. Fated to be dragged around after him wherever he chooses to go.
No, no way. There has to be a way to undo this.
As the morning light filters through the clinic window, the blackness fades to a charcoal, then a murky gray and I see he is awake. Awake and watching me.
“You didn’t sleep,” he says.
“No,” I say.
It’s harder to stay angry at him when I can see his face. Because, damn, it is a beautiful face, and his eyes, his eyes possess a power all of their own, making every part of my body tingle with anticipation.
“How do you feel?”
I chew on my lip. How do I feel? Angry, yes, but also tired and confused.
He leans forward, and that hook in my stomach grows stronger, the tingles across my skin more rampant. He lifts his hand and, after a hesitation, touches my cheek.
I gasp, closing my eyes, because I don’t want him to touch me and yet I do. It’s all I can think about. His touch on my skin. His touch everywhere.
He slides his fingertips down my cheek, and the pulse in my throat leaps.
“They’re going to fix your leg this morning.”
They didn’t want to do it yesterday. Not after the draining of my magic, not with the newly formed fated bond so raw and … I blink my eyes open and stare up into his face. How had the doctor described it? Unstable.
“Will you be here?” I ask, because I can’t bear the agony I felt yesterday when he stepped out of the room.
“They’re going to give you something for the pain, Rhi,” he reassures me. “But … I’ll stay if that’s what you want.”
I glare at him. I don’t know what the hell I want.
“I want to be alone,” I snap. Do I? The sensations in my body say otherwise, but I’m so damn angry with him. “I want my pig. I want to see my friend. I want–”
A knock sounds on the door.
The man in black, Azlan, turns toward it, then back to me. “Come in,” he says.
It’s the nurse from yesterday. Her gaze swings between us with a sort of awe, like we are the most amazing thing in the world.
“Good morning,” she says, brightly, “I’ve come to get you ready for the procedure.” She walks towards the bed. “How are you feeling?” Before I can answer, she leans in to whisper, “Do you need to use the bathroom?” I nod. “Do you want him in or out for that?”
I blush so hard, I’m pretty certain the nurse must feel the heat from my cheeks. “Out.”
“Would you mind waiting right outside the door, Sir?” she asks.
His eyes dart to mine and anxiety flickers across his expression. Does it hurt him as much as it hurts me when we’re apart? Somehow I doubt it. Somehow I suspect that lucky gift is reserved entirely for me.
“I need to pee,” I say.
My fated mate stares right back at me. “I’m not leaving.”
“And you are not watching me pee.”
“I’m not leaving you in agony again.”
“The pain shouldn’t be as intense today,” the nurse reassures him.
“But it will still be there.”
“Not if you’re right by the door.”
“You’re not watching me pee,” I say again, more firmly.
The man in black ignores me and addresses the nurse. “If she shows any signs–”
“I’ll call you straight back in, of course.” She smiles at him fondly as he rises to his feet and leaves the room.
Instantly, the hook in my belly pulls and I grimace at the sensation.
“Okay?” the nurse asks, hand on my shoulder.
“Yes,” I say through gritted teeth. “You’re right, it’s not as bad as yesterday.”
“Well, let’s get you sorted quickly anyway, shall we?”
She turns to her trolley and lifts out what looks like a potty. I groan, wishing they’d sorted my leg after all, wondering if that doctor, the one who treated Azlan like an old friend – a close, old friend – is delaying it deliberately, just to make me suffer.
“It’s very sweet. He cares about you so much,” the nurse says as she helps me.
“Sweet?” I scoff.
“And he’s so handsome. And tall and strong.”
“Hmmm,” I say. He is all those things. But he’s also a liar. A big fat liar.
When I’m done and the nurse has helped me wash a little, she calls the man in black back into the room. He comes striding through, the pain in my gut alleviating immediately.
I sigh with relief and sink back into the cushions.
“The doctor will be back here shortly, to help prep you for the procedure,” she says, wheeling her trolley back towards the door.
“Can I have something to eat?” I ask.
“Not until afterwards,” she calls, the door closing behind her and leaving us alone again. I stare at the door and not at my mate. I don’t have anything to say to him.
They put me under for the procedure, even though I tell them I can handle the pain, and I don’t emerge again until several hours later.
The electric lights glow above my head and as I pull myself out of unconsciousness, I realize it must be evening.
“How long was I under?” I ask, sensing the man in black by my side, his presence making that hook in my belly hum.
“Six hours,”
“Jeez,” I groan, my head fuzzy and my mouth dry.
“It was a complicated break. Took Lucinda a lot of work to fix it.”
Lucinda? I frown.
“You were there?” I ask.
“Yes, I wanted to make sure they did a good job.”
“Yeah, you wouldn’t want a lame mate as well as a stupid one, would you?”
He’s silent, but something in the air tells me he doesn’t like what I just said.
I twist my head, even though it makes sickness swim through my stomach and find him frowning.
“You’re not stupid,” he says.
“If that were true, would we be in this situation right now?” He doesn’t answer me. “Besides, Stone seems to think I am.”
“Stone doesn’t think that.”
“He said it.” I remember clearly. Every painful word.
“He was worried about you.”
I snort. Stone worried about me? That crush was strictly one way, and now …
“Does he know?” I whisper. “Does he know about our … situation?”
What will he think? Will he laugh at us? Will he feel sympathy for his friend? Will he care at all?
The man in black keeps staring at me, only a muscle in his cheek twitching.
“No. I haven’t told anyone. Only the staff at the hospital are aware.”
I twist my head away from him. What will everyone think? What will they say? Especially the Council? Will they make me go to school anyway, even though it will rip the guts straight from my body to be away from this man? Will they expect him to stay with me?
