Pretty Little Fears (Blackwood University, #1)

by S.J. Ryder

My cheeks turn pink, I’m embarrassed and unsure of what we’re doing, and don’t want to overstay my welcome. I give him a small smile, and take his once again outstretched hand, and let him pull me into the bed beside him.

He wraps his arms around me and with the heat of his body and the consistent rhythm of his heart, I fall asleep easily. Our souls entwined within e...

The thought of Blair forever being tied to me and having my child is a whole other drug on its own. To have her as my wife and the mother of my children is all I could ever want with her. I put the original package in my pocket and plan to dispose of it once I’m home. As I’m closing the nightstand drawer, the image of Blair's face on a little Polaroid photo stops me.

I pick it up and examine it, she has a huge smile on her face that makes my heart skip. I'm keeping this. My little obsession. She’s so effortlessly beautiful. I pocket the photo while quietly closing the drawer.

My motivation and purpose. My exquisite li...

He’s here. He found me. Only now that Emmett is here, do I feel safe.

“You came,” I say in disbelief.

“Of course I did, you needed me.”

I look up and see the promise of safety and affection reflected back at me in those deep, green eyes. It's then that I realize one thing. I'm officially falling for him.

For Emmett Blackwood.

There was a shift last night between Blair and I. She felt it. She finally felt it, I know she did. The relief I saw in her hazel eyes in being close to me.

Me: I need to see you

Me: Blair, I’m fucked up, I don’t deserve you.

Me: I’m so sorry I forced my way into your life just to ruin you.

Me: That wasn’t my intention, my little obsession. I wanted to give you everything, but I don't know how to do that.

The only thing that can save me from my self-made hell, is my little obsession.

“What happened to I am yours and you are mine? You did not suck me in just to spit me back out. You think I’ve never been alone before Emmett? That I haven’t felt unworthy? Fucking try me. Know that if I don’t fully understand you, I’m always going to be here. I’m never going to leave you. You aren’t alone anymore.” I say, releasing a breath I didn’t realize I was holding.

Emmett’s face is stone cold for a moment. As if he was certain that I would take the opportunity to walk away from him and needed to prepare himself for yet another person to abandon him. For being his obsession, he must not know me that well. The faintest smile appears on his face and it’s followed by a small nod of his head.

Looking down at her angelic and blushed face, my heart swells and I realize that home isn’t a place.

Home is Blair. Home is us.

My little obsession has no idea how deep she runs ...

In initiations, they take us in groups of four. It was Grimm, Jaden, Eli, and myself. That's how we met him. After the ritual, we talked to him and found our fourth missing link. I think it's because Eli has his own darkness lurking inside that calls to mine. I'm not sure if the others took notice of it, but I sure did.

Obviously, she can't have him. But I wasn’t about to have that fight with her. I know where I stand in his life. Emmett has made it crystal clear, from day one, that I’m his.

And he’s mine.

My little obsession.

The peace I feel when I think of her is greater than the emptiness that previously filled my heart and the booming negative thoughts that constantly floated in my head. I let the thoughts of her consume every corner of my brain while I ride.

And she does. She consumes every fucking i...

I don't know when my obsession for her began to turn and morph into more of a genuine connection. Blair has cut open my chest and dug her little claws into my heart, ...

The need for her that thrums in my veins is what I would imagine injecting drugs is like. The all consuming feeling she brings me is unlike anything I've felt before. I want to keep her forever, my beautif...

She will always ...

She belonged to me the moment she stumbled into me with her sugary coffee and raised those pretty little eyes to mine, capturing me, swallowing m...

It will be my ring she wears on her finger, my baby in her stomach, my coc...

Going to a remote state in my mind, I stay there. I craft a place where they can't find me. A place that’s safe from the evil and pain I'm going to endure here. The pain I am currently enduring. It's the only way I'll survive, the only thing they can't take from me. I see my father and mother, the restaurant, and we’re all together again. My dad is here and I wonder whether or not I’m still alive. He looks so real, so alive. I want to reach out and touch him but don’t for the fear of disappointment being the sole feeling that follows.

My mind flickers to thoughts of Emmett. Obsessive, psychotic, but loving Emmett. I think about not knowing where we could have ended up. I wonder what our life would have been like. How he would have reacted when he learned of his child.

Our c...

It was something he mentioned more than once. My heart begins to ache with the thought that he wi...

She was pregnant. The blood dripping down her bruised skin is from our unborn child. A child they have taken away from me, from her, from us.

My piece of shit father is going to die, and I'm going to kill him. Every worthless sick fuck in this building is going to die by my hands if it’s the last thing I do. I’m long past rage, there is no word in any direction that can express the way the darkness leaks out of its cage and completely takes over my being.

They have what's mine. They’ve taken something from me and I intend to get it back. My little obsession. I will get her back even if it means my skin is coated in blood and my soul is clouded with death. I would do whatever it took to save her. MINE.

The sound of the gun firing fills the hall as blood explodes around the bullet hole, spraying all over the walls. His lifeless eyes are still on mine as he drops.

Good. Fucking. Riddance.

These people should have known better. Blair is mine. My little obsession. And something they must have forgotten to consider about obsessions is that they consume you. They flood your being until your senses are filled wi...

You lose control. The chemicals in your brain are altered. The obsession becomes the only purpose one has. It’s sad they didn’t take this into consideration, because without my little obsession? The only thing coursing through my veins is pure and absolute destruction. Fury. There isn't a single person I won't kill, a singl...

Blair is the only thing keeping my soul intact. The only thing that keeps the blood pumping through my body and has defrosted the organ within my chest cavity. For this, he’ll pay. He’ll pay with blood, tears, and his worthless soul.

By the time I’m done putting everyone in the ground, I’ll be the new fucking Grim Reaper. Collecting the souls from those who took what’s fucking mine.

Years of pain and torment kept stored away under lock and key, crawl their way to the surface. If a single hair on her head has been hurt, I'll personally pull him back from the depths of the hell I'm going to send him to and repeat the process. The devil himself will be frightened of the unta...

They haven't seen the power behind a man who lost the one thing keeping the darkness tucked away and his soul at peace. Hell will look like a vacation compared to what I’ll unleash on every. Fucking. Person. Who dared to take away what belongs to me.

By taking away my purpose in this life, I am left with nothing but the deepest need to inflict pain. Inflict violence. Inflict torture. Inflict death. I will, and I won't stop until my splintered soul is rejoined with hers. My mind is shouting at me, and it's desperate to be heard.

Kill. Kill...

I’ll wipe the planet of every human until it's left with only two.