Deviant Descendants (Descendants Academy #2) - Belle Malory Page 0,31

daisies.”

I chuckled, unable to picture him like that. “Yeah, right.”

“It’s true.” He leaned up, set the bottle aside, his face serious. “But that kid is long gone. My father made sure of it.”

I pressed my lips together, thinking of everything he’d been through. First, discovering his dad was a hollow. Then, kidnapped and held prisoner in the Underworld for three years where he was repeatedly tortured. After he escaped, his father cursed Ione to force their pledges. A curse she eventually broke, but it cost her the ability to have children. As far as dark mages went, their dad was pretty much the worst one in existence, and that included my own murder happy relatives.

Xander should be damaged beyond repair, but somehow, he rose above his upbringing. He stayed level-headed at all times, and he kept his past hidden from everyone. The guy kind of inspired me. He made my curse look like child’s play by comparison.

“It must’ve come as a shock,” I said carefully, aware I was treading over our usual boundaries. “About your dad, I mean.”

“An understatement.”

He stood and walked to the edge of the lake. I followed along, helping him search for stones. I should probably let the subject drop, but I didn’t know when I’d have another chance to talk to him about this stuff.

“You could tell me, if you want.” I leaned into his side, nudging his arm. “I’m pretty sure I can relate better than anyone else you know.” After all, I knew a thing or two about crappy parents.

Xander gazed at me, guarded at first, but the walls were coming down, little by little. Several long moments passed in silence.

Then he told me everything.

“He was charming, a classic Aphrodite descendant. The guy loved love. None of us ever thought he could be who he was; none of us believed him when he came clean. In fact, my mother assumed he’d been spelled or hexed. It wasn’t until we learned he’d been lying to us all along that we realized he was revealing his true self.”

“His true self?”

“My father comes from a long line of hollows.” He threw a stone across the surface of the lake, watching it skip several times. “He grew up in the Underworld, only leaving with the intention to marry into a powerful family. My mother was his perfect victim; her family was the wealthiest on Summer Island. So, he gave himself a new identity, deceived my mother and everyone else he knew for over a decade. I think he believed he was creating an alliance, but after my mother and her family found out who and what he was, they rejected him. We all did.”

I frowned, unable to imagine that kind of betrayal. I had never known my mom, and that made it easier to accept what she was. But Xander was raised by his Dad. To find out the man who raised him wasn’t really who he said he was must’ve been devastating. “I’m sorry, Xander.”

He shrugged, as if he’d gotten over it a long time ago. “Now you see why I want nothing to do with my father’s magic. When I chose Ares, it was also a message. I wanted him to know I was nothing like him.”

That made sense. In a way, I was sending my own message by not choosing a defining magic. I didn’t want to be put in a box or modeled after anyone. I just wanted to be me.

“But magic doesn’t make the mage good or bad,” I pointed out. “It’s all in how you use it.”

“I know, firsthand.” He kicked at the pebbles against the lake’s edge. “Ione’s magic is beautiful. Yours, too. But my father’s is vile.”

I nodded, feeling like I finally understood a part of him he kept hidden from the rest of the world.

“Anyway, aren’t we supposed to be keeping things light?” He grinned, looking devastatingly handsome in the moonlight.

I slid my hand into his, linking our fingers together, the same way he usually did. “Heavy isn’t so bad. This is nice, getting to know this side of you.”

He pulled me close, and I sucked in a breath. “It’s more than nice, damsel.”

Sparks of heat ignited as he pressed his lips against mine. Like always, there was a magnetic force attached to him. Dimly, I felt his body mold to me, our magic entwining like tree roots beneath the ground. There was something unique about the way our magic interacted. It transported us to another world, one far