Chapter 32 #2
Micah ran a hand through his hair, pushing it off his forehead as he went to sit in a leather armchair that looked like it’d been molded by his body over years. I couldn’t help but notice the way he moved through his own space, casually taking up room.
I bit my tongue, feeling a prickle of furious electricity in my chest. Micah’s lack of reaction to it only proved that he truly didn’t live as a Sigeian anymore—which he clearly thought was the superior way of living.
If he’d been sensing my emotions, he would’ve made me leave at this first sign of splintering. Or he would’ve stopped it.
I hated everything about him.
“What are you planning to do about it?” he questioned.
“What am I planning to do about it?” I stepped closer to him. He was sitting with his legs sprawled, thighs spread wide, a hand in his hair.
Micah’s eyes slashed to mine, angry. “Why did you come here, then?”
“To warn you.”
“To warn me,” he echoed. “Great.”
The darkness of the night pressed against the glass, accumulating in the corners of the room, spanning the space between us.
Aamon probably couldn’t kill me, but he could definitely kill Micah. More, he had reason to want to kill him.
And that reason was me. All the bullshit I’d meddled in years ago.
If I’d been less impulsive, less reckless, less fucking stupid, I wouldn’t have gotten Micah dragged into this.
But I didn’t like him acting like I owed him anything now.
I’d protected him in the past, back when Aamon was here and Micah was mine and everything between us hadn’t gone to total shit yet. I’d had to do it back then.
I didn’t have to do shit now.
Maybe it would even be nice if Aamon killed Micah.
“So you just looked up my address and came to my house in the middle of the night to let me know I’m going to die soon. At the hands of someone who only hates me because he hates you.”
Micah wasn’t looking at me now, his eyes blankly staring at nothing. His body was perfectly still. He was fucking pissed. Good.
“Should I have not told you?” I walked over to the matching leather couch and sat down, leaning back on the cushions, the leather cool against my heated body. I couldn’t help digging my nail into the leather, leaving a permanent mark on it.
“Didn’t say you could sit down,” he said through his teeth, noticing the way I was scratching his furniture. “I don’t want you in my fucking house, Mason.”
“I’ll leave, then.”
Some sadistic part of me was taking great pleasure in the way our exchange was shifting. He needed me and he hated it. I didn’t care if he lived or died, not now anyway, but if he begged me to help him… My dick was starting to get hard at the thought of it.
“You like this, don’t you?” Micah asked, clearly smelling the shift in my scent.
“I don’t like it,” I lied, adjusting my hips on the seat as my cock thickened.
“You used to be such a better liar.”
“Maybe I just don’t care about how well I’m lying right now.”
“Right.” His hand fell to the armrest of the chair, palm smacking the leather. “Because when do you give a fuck about anything other than yourself? When do you do anything other than chase your next high?”
“Fuck you.” I stood up. Micah stood up, too. We were almost exactly the same height. His chest was rising and falling quicker now, his pupils expanding. Yeah, I know you’re still affected by me, you piece of shit. “I was being nice by coming here.”
“No. You weren’t.”
“I wasn’t?” Livid darkness clawed at my mind, crackling on my skin. Dangerous. “I could’ve just let him kill you. Unaware, unobservant, living like a human. You’re a sitting duck, Micah. This warning was me being generous.”
“You’re gloating. You want me to beg you for something,” he growled, stalking towards me. I held my ground.
“It might be nice. Like old times.”
“Like old times,” he scoffed. “Because that turned out so well for you.”
“Not my fault you can’t handle real shit.”
“Is that how you feel?”
No. “Strongest Sigeian still can’t touch a Thrausian.”
“You think you’re so fucking tough, don’t you.”
If I’d been expecting what he did next, I would’ve done anything to stop it.
But, unfortunately, he knew that. I didn’t get a second to prepare.
His fist swung out fast, connecting with my jaw so hard I swore I heard the crack of my bone.
The instant the wave of ensuing rage surged in my mind, fractures splitting through my consciousness, blackness stealing my thoughts, electricity spearing my veins, I felt him.
In my fucking skull.
My eyes shot to his.
“I hate that you’re making me do this,” he gritted out, chest heaving, pinning me where I stood with his glare. “I fucking despise it, Mason. I chose my life, and I didn’t choose this. I left my aspect behind for the life I’ve built now. But you’re so goddamn predictable. Anything can set you off.”
I couldn’t breathe. His control was like a fist grabbing onto the threads of my mind, holding me together. I was raw, exposed, furious. He was gutting me.
“You—”
“Kill Aamon or I’ll push you over that edge so fucking fast you won’t be able to ever claw your way back up.”
Kill Aamon or I’ll make you kill yourself.
Micah wasn’t as bad as I’d remembered him. He was worse than I’d remembered him. So much worse.
And he’d just crossed a line neither of us had ever dared to touch before—using my own aspect against me.
His deception had only grown, thickened, over the years I hadn’t seen him.
He was the picture of control, of sharp morality, of cold knowledge.
He’d always been like that, but it was more honed now, his image more perfectly curated to deceive.
But underneath that cool, sleek exterior, was something evil.
A predator.
I shoved past him out of the house, breathing hard and heavy as I felt his control slip away from my mind.
The fractures from earlier were still there, and I shut my eyes, thinking of Dakota with every molecule in my body, feeling for that thread of her soul.
It wasn’t nearly as reliable as having Micah reach into my brain and hold me together himself, but I wanted her to be the one to do it.
Even if she hated me now.
Even if all I could think of was going back inside and reminding Micah how sick I was in the head. He might consider himself the bigger predator because of his immovable control, his cool exterior, but he was forgetting that I was—and always had been—stronger than him.
And my morals were nonexistent.
I didn’t have a life to lose.
He’d just shown me he was willing to cross lines that’d been sacred to us years ago. Unspoken boundaries of respect. As the midnight air drifted around my overheated body, something like excitement thrashed in my gut.
If he was willing to do what he’d just done…
To abuse his power, to use it against me…
Micah was someone I knew I’d be able to hit harder than anyone else. He could actually withstand it from me. That knowledge, that thrill, was heady. And he’d just granted me permission to fight him for real.