Reborn to Claim the Bad Boy

When I died last time, my own parents got over it inside a week.

He didn't.

The one they all wrote off as a violent, good-for-nothing madman tore the whole world down to make them pay for what they'd done to me. And when it was finished, he didn't stay in a world that no longer had me in it.

This time, I clawed my way back.

And before anyone could stop me, I chose him. Out loud. In front of every last one of them.

"Vesper, are you out of your mind?" Dorian's jaw was clenched hard enough to crack. "The one you're supposed to marry is my brother."

He had me pinned to the wall, the cold of it biting into my spine, his grip hard enough to grind bone.

My family had just gone under. My parents were trading me into a marriage to climb back out, and they'd set their hearts on the polished older son.

I wanted the other one. The furious one. The one nobody ever picks.

I fisted my hand in his collar and hauled him down until his breath caught.

"Dorian. You think I'm the crazy one?"

"You're crazier than I'll ever be."

Chapter 1

"I don't want Everett," I said. "I want Dorian."

The whole table went still.

My mother's hand shot out and yanked my arm. "What is wrong with"

My father's brows pulled tight. Keep your voice down, he said, low. Don't make a scene.

Because to them, Everett Vaughn was the whole package. Top of his class, top of everything, flawless.

Dorian was the opposite. A temper like a lit fuse. Nothing to his name.

Across the table, he looked like he'd been slapped. His fork hit his plate with a clatter.

Only Everett kept his composure, his mouth stretching into something almost like a smile.

"That's good news, actually." Smooth as glass.

Beside him, Gerald Vaughn and his wife went a blotchy green, and said nothing at all.

We'd gone under, sure. But my father still held his seat on the commission, and the Vaughns had a deal stalled at exactly the wrong stage. Making an enemy of us tonight wasn't an option.

"Let's eat," I said, light. "Before it goes cold."

Dorian had a bad stomach. Had since he was small. I remembered that.

Nobody spoke. One by one they dropped their eyes to their plates.

Dorian glared at his food and shoveled it down like a man who hadn't eaten in a week.

The corner of my mouth pulled. I almost laughed.

Dorian.

Long time, no see.

The dinner went about as well as you'd expect. By the end it was just the two of us still at it, me taking my time, him inhaling his, head down, refusing to look up.

I watched him a moment, then stood and excused myself to the restroom.

I knew the way. I'd walked it a hundred times, a lifetime ago.

I'd just finished at the sink when the door banged open and a tall shape slid in behind me, fast.

"That. Back there." He set his back against the wall, his face a storm. "What did you mean by it."

I tilted my head and smiled.

"Exactly what it sounded like. I don't want Everett. I want you." A beat. "If someone in my family is marrying into yours, it's going to be me and you."

He stared like I'd sprouted a second head.

"You don't want Everett. You want me."

"Mm."

"Are you sick in the head?"

I opened my mouth and had nothing to put after that.

Because to Dorian, wherever his brother stood, he was the shadow on the wall. Someone skipping past the golden son to reach for him instead didn't fit anywhere in his head.

I didn't get to answer. His face had already gone dark, certain now I was playing him.

His fist slammed the wall beside my head.

"Vesper. I don't care what your angle is. Stay away from me." His eyes were black and flat. "Or I'll teach you how to spell regret. You hearing me?"

I looked at all that fury nailed shut behind his face.

And another life bled through.

Three days after I died, my body was still in the morgue. No one had come.

He came.

He dropped to his knees beside me, and the tears fell, one after another, onto what was left of me, until he gathered me up and held on.

Don't be scared, Vesper.

I'm taking you home. I won't let anyone hurt you ever again.

The bathroom blurred at the edges. Something in me started to shake and wouldn't quit.

Dorian's eyes flickered, thrown, and on pure instinct he moved to pull back.

"You"

I caught his collar and hauled him in before he could.

My mouth came a breath from the corner of his.

"Dorian. You get to love me, but I'm not allowed to love you back?"

Closer.

"Watch me."

Chapter 2

Dorian froze solid. Eyes blown wide, both hands up like I'd pulled a knife.

"I when the hell did I say I liked you?"

"So you don't."

I held his eyes. Let my mouth curl, slow.

I ran a finger down his collar. Over his chest. Down to the flat of his stomach.

I glanced down. Then back up at him.

"Then what's all this?"

The color climbed his neck to the tips of his ears in one hot rush, and he shoved me off.

"Are you insane?!"

His eyes were all panic. He put a good few feet between us, bristling, and pointed at me like it would keep me back.

Don't. Come near him.

So I stayed where I was, propped against the wall, easy as anything. What's the problem. I like you.

"Your parents told me to take my pick. I picked you."

"You are unbelievable."

His whole face had gone dark with glaring. Was there something wrong with my head, he wanted to know.

That got a real laugh out of me. There was, actually.

"I've got a condition. Terminal. The only thing that treats it is you."

He snapped his head away and swore, ears red enough to bleed.

"Dorian? Everything all right?"

Everett. From the living room, warm and sudden.

Dorian's face changed. He fixed me with one last warning look.

"I don't like you. Get back out there and quit saying you're choosing me."

Then he turned and went, not toward his brother's voice but up the stairs, quick.

I watched the back of him disappear. My fingers curled into my palm and stayed there.

That man. Last time, he loved me until there was nothing left of him to love with.

The dinner ended the way these things end. Back home, my parents took turns on me.

I'd lost my mind, clearly. Passed over a prize like Everett for the family embarrassment.

"You wouldn't know a good thing if it bit you!" My father was past furious.

My mother worked the softer angle. Take Everett out, just the two of us, in a day or two. Smooth it over. Warm him back up.

I looked at them. My own blood. It put a dull ache behind my ribs.

"And if I told you Everett was a monster in a very good suit?" I said. "Would you still be handing me across?"

My mother blinked. Don't be absurd.

"That boy's been the pride of this city since he was a child. Monster."

Then she was off again. Everyone has their flaws, she informed me. You learn to bear them.

"Be smart. Dorian's got the temper and nothing to his name. Half the city says he isn't even legitimate. What kind of life is that? Stay near Everett, and everything the Vaughns own comes to you in the end."

I watched her sell it so earnestly, and something surfaced, hazed and cold.

Last time, when Everett had put me in a bed I nearly didn't leave, they'd sat me down and told me to bear it too. In that exact voice.

They never knew what he did behind the door.

In the light, Everett Vaughn was immaculate. Refined. A cut above every man in the room. In the dark he was a careful, obsessive thing, whipped flawless under his father's boot until everything that soured came back out in private, on me.

He'd come home smelling of liquor and turn the whole night into his hands.

His parents wore skin over something that wasn't human. They didn't just allow it. They helped him keep me quiet.

I went to my father and mother once. What came back was the same cold patience. Bear it.

When he finally tired of me, he started bringing me along, walking me through the rooms where the real business got done, handing me around.

I stopped being able to tell living from the other thing. When I finally broke, part of my mind went with it.

So he staged an accident. Cashed a very large policy. And came out the other side wearing the face of a devoted, grieving husband.

After I was gone, it never once occurred to my parents to ask what had actually happened.

Only Dorian.

He came apart at the seams. And then, one piece at a time, one name at a time, he backed every person who'd hurt me into a corner they didn't walk out of.

And when the account was finally settled, he went down after me.

I closed my eyes and felt the cold move through me, inch by inch.

This life, I want exactly one thing.

Him.

Chapter 3

I made myself Dorian's shadow. Every time, I used the same excuse, that I was looking for Everett, and every time I ended up in front of him instead. It wore on him. He glared, told me to get lost, and finally just started hiding.

But I'd already lived a whole life. I knew him better than he knew himself, and it took me no time to find him at the racing club.

Black racing suit. Broad shoulders, narrow waist, endless legs. The whole build laid out like it was daring me to look.

This was so much worse than the gray sweatpants.

I narrowed my eyes and muttered something about indecency.

I started toward him. A cluster of them drifted over at the same time, guys and girls both.

One of the girls looked a breath away from putting her hands on him.

I closed the distance in three strides and hooked my arm around his neck.

"Sorry," I said. "My fianc doesn't like other women touching him."

Every face in the group changed at once.

Dorian went red on the spot and shoved me off. What was I talking about. Then he stumbled through an introduction, all elbows. I was a friend. Not a fiance. Nothing like that.

The others traded looks, laughed it off, let the subject slide.

But the girl who'd been circling him leaned right back in and asked Dorian to take her out for a lap.

Dorian hesitated. His eyes cut to me.

I smiled. Sure. Go ahead.

Then I dropped my hand onto the shoulder of the guy beside me.

"How about it, sweetheart. Want to take me for a spin? Never tried it. Looks like a thrill."

The guy lit up, grin splitting ear to ear. Absolutely he could.

I turned to leave with him.

Then a hand closed around my arm and hauled me back.

Dorian pulled me in against his side, face like thunder.

"I'll take her."

I let my mouth curve.

The next few days, wherever Dorian went, I got there first.

He slept in. I went up and pulled the covers off him.

He went out. I stuck to him like a second shadow.

I loved watching him get furious and still not be able to make himself snap at me.

By the end of it, the way he looked at me had changed.

Finally he warned me, low and mean. Keep following him and he wouldn't be nice about it.

I was curious what "not nice" looked like. So that night I turned up at the bar where he was drinking.

He wasn't surprised. Didn't throw me out either. Just let me sit, let me drink, let me play.

The drinks were the hard kind. The game was the tired old one. Truth or dare.

What I didn't expect was the girl brave enough to take the seat beside him. Half draped over him already, want written all over her.

Someone lost a round, and the room started egging her on to kiss him.

Her face went pink. She looked at Dorian. This isn't really okay, is it.

Dorian's expression gave nothing away. But he didn't shut it down. Not right away.

The room got louder.

She turned toward him again, and all at once I understood what he was doing.

He was using her to drive me off.

I drew a slow breath. I was starting to get angry.

I knew why Dorian kept pushing me away. He didn't trust himself to stay in control. He was scared he'd hurt me. More scared I'd regret it.

Because in his own eyes he was nothing. A waste.

He didn't like Everett either. But at least Everett was the golden one. The one who could hand me the kind of life other people envied.

And him?

Watching me end up with Everett. Did that really not gut him?

I closed my eyes. When I opened them, I was already on my feet.

The next second, in front of the entire room, I swung a leg over him and sat down in his lap.

I slid the girl a look.

"Sorry, sweetheart. He's mine."

Chapter 4

The room went dead silent.

Dorian's face drained. He stared up at me, nothing coming out of his mouth.

I lowered my head, slow, and watched his throat work.

"What what are you doing?"

"You."

Then I bit down on his mouth.

For half a second the body under me seemed to stop breathing.

But his chest was scalding, and that told me the truth. This one was alive.

When I finally pulled back, Dorian was still frozen there, eyes wide, like the sky had dropped on him.

I wanted to laugh. Then, out of nowhere, my throat pulled tight.

Dorian had kissed me before.

After I died, last life.

After he'd held it in for so long. So unbearably long.

Only by then I'd gone cold, and I never felt the heat of him at all.

He came back to himself red and bloodless at once, furious, telling me to get off him.

Then he shot up and bolted.

"Where are you going?"

"Bathroom!"

He slammed the door, but not before he fired one last look my way. "You. Do not follow me."

I hummed and sank back into the couch. My mouth would not come down from wherever it had gone.

How was he this adorable.

How had I not seen it sooner.

Once he was gone, the others couldn't help themselves. I sat still as a stone.

The girl, though, looked like she couldn't stand it. She chewed her lip and asked what I was to Dorian.

I glanced at her. You just saw it, didn't you.

"But he's never once mentioned you!"

"And?"

I looked at her. So you decided that meant he liked you?

"Sweetheart. When it comes to who wants who, don't lie to yourself."

Then I got up and crossed to the couch on the far side. Out of sight, out of mind.

What I didn't expect was for someone to actually come try his luck with me.

The guy's eyes crawled all over me. Let him buy me a drink, he said. Then he dropped a hand on my shoulder.

I'd barely started to frown when something split the air behind me.

Before I could turn, the man beside me hit the floor.

Dorian hauled him up by the collar, voice gone low. You out of your mind.

The man nearly blacked out. When it caught up with him, he started to thrash.

"The hell is wrong with you?! I buy her a drink, what's it to you? Let go of me!"

Dorian's face iced over. Another fist, no hesitation.

"Say it again. I dare you."

Something in his face was wrong. My stomach dropped and I stood.

The idiot on the floor wouldn't quit. Still poking, still screaming that Dorian was crazy.

Then Dorian's face changed all the way.

He caught the bottle off the table and brought it down on the man's head.

Then his fist. Again. Again.

Blood in the air. Screams going up. The room came apart.

The man was close to not getting his breath back. I set my teeth and threw myself at Dorian, both arms locked around him.

"Enough. Stop!"

He didn't hear me. His swinging elbow clipped the side of my face, hard.

I took the sting and kept calling to him, wrenching his head around with everything I had.

"Look at me, Dorian!"

His fist stalled in the air. Those black, hollow pupils snapped down to points.

A few seconds. Then his breathing came down, notch by notch.

I let out a breath and pressed him into my chest.

"It's over. It's over now."

I kept him there, talking low, until the fight finally drained out of him. He went still. Still in a way that was almost eerie.

The police came fast. I went with him, gave a statement. He stayed calm the whole time, said what needed saying, paid the fine at the end.

We didn't speak until we were outside the station.

Then he turned his head. "You're not scared of me?"

I shook my head.

I started to say something, but he got there first.

"Vesper. There's something wrong with me. In here. Do you understand that?"

He tapped his own temple, black eyes locked on mine, spacing every word.

"I can't control it. The violence."

"You pick me, and you're not scared that one day I put you in the ground?"

I opened my mouth. You won't.

He asked what made me so sure.

"Without you, I get to go on doing whatever I want. With you, I have to watch myself every second. Rein it in every second." A beat. "You'd be a weight around my neck. Get it?"

Something in my chest stalled. I held his eyes. Is that really what you think.

"And if I told you your brother was rotten under all that polish?"

The dark in his eyes churned. His brow came down, slow.

He didn't answer for a long moment. Like he was turning the words over, hunting for what I meant.

I watched him. Then, after a while, I nodded.

"Fine.

"You want me to choose your brother.

"As you wish."

Chapter 5

Three days after Dorian and I fell out, the Vaughns threw Everett an early birthday party.

Half the city's upper crust turned out. My parents brought me, naturally.

What I didn't see coming was the trap. They'd worked it out in advance with Gerald Vaughn and his wife.

I was standing there with a drink in my hand, guard all the way down, when Everett took the stage and announced he had good news.

Then he smiled, soft and warm, and looked at me.

"Ves. Come on up."

I froze where I stood, drink in hand, my brow tightening by degrees.

I didn't even get to react. My parents shoved me straight up onto the platform.

The applause came up warm from the floor, and behind it, the murmuring.

"The Merrick girl? So it's a match, then?"

"Say what you want, the two of them do make a picture."

"Didn't the Merricks hit some trouble a while back? So really she's marrying up here..."

The noise swelled, and all at once I was somewhere else. Another life.

My own wedding to Everett.

The night before, I'd caught him with someone else.

Furious, I'd made a scene, demanded we call the whole thing off.

He'd backhanded me across the face in the bridal suite.

That was the night his real face came off.

And that was also the night I ran out of road.

Stepping onto that white runner, I fought my tears down with everything I had.

Wanting, so badly, for one person to come save me.

No one did.

Dorian had already slipped out, somewhere behind me, unnoticed.

And I never once looked for him.

Standing on a platform like this again, I could barely breathe.

Everett had dared push me this far because he'd done the math. I had nowhere left to go.

If tonight blew up, the Merricks and I wouldn't just be a punchline. My parents would be finished. Ruined, with a line of people happy to kick them on the way down.

"Ves, don't just stand there. Tell everyone our engagement date."

Everett, smiling, pressed the mic into my hand.

I looked at the false face he wore, and my stomach turned.

I didn't answer him. I turned my head and looked dead at the doors of the hall.

Dorian. You get three seconds.

Three seconds, and if you're not here, I'll teach you exactly how to spell regret.

"Three. Two

"One."

A crash of sound tore in from the doors.

My head snapped up