Chapter Twenty-One
Tor
“Figured I would find you up here pouting,” Ty said, finishing his noisy climb up the stairs to the roof of Fulmen Manerium.
“I’m not pouting,” I said, closing my fist and opening it again, a ball of lightning in my palm surging and ebbing with each movement. “I’m brooding. There is a distinct and qualitative difference.”
“Oh, this should be good. Please, do tell me what the difference is, Your Highness,” Ty drawled.
“Don’t call me that!” I snarled, unleashing the bolt of lightning into the darkening sky and infusing it with a rumble of thunder.
“Jeez, sorry,” Ty muttered, dropping something at his feet. “Somebody is grumpy.”
I sighed and buried my face in both hands, then got to my feet. “Mia started in on that bullshit, too. I don’t fucking need it.”
“Well, you’d better get used to it. You came here looking for a mate, which would result in you ending up on the throne. People will call you that. So get over yourself.”
“My mate,” I said. “I’m here looking for my mate, not just any mate.”
“Same deal, you’re just being pedantic about words.”
“Someone’s using big words today,” I grumbled, finally turning to see what it was he’d brought to the roof. “What’s that?”
I didn’t recognize the objects in the box, though I could only see a bit of them through the hastily folded flaps. They were orange and disc-shaped. The box must have contained at least fifty, probably more.
“Well, if you’re going to summon a storm and pout, I figure the least you should do is work on your aim,” Ty said, pulling out one of the Frisbee-like things. They clinked when he moved them, indicating they weren’t plastic. Not metal either, I could tell. Some sort of pottery?
“I’m not pouting,” I repeated, but I was intrigued.
“Yeah, yeah, whatever you say,” Ty said, then hauled back and let the disc fly high into the air over the back of the manor.
I watched it go until it disappeared out of sight. Then I turned to Ty. “Okay? I don’t get it.”
Ty, meanwhile, stared at me like I was stupid. Which I was starting to feel very much like I was.
“You hit it,” he said, removing another. “With lightning. Have you never seen your father do this? Or anyone?”
“No,” I said, shaking my head. “I never … So, you want me to blow it up?”
“For a smart person, you can be awfully dumb sometimes,” Ty said. “Yes. It’s skeet-shooting with a twist.”
“Skeet-shooting. Never heard of it. But okay?”
“Good. Take your anger out on these. That was my thought, at least. Plus, up here, we can keep an eye out for your sister.”
I snarled at the mention of Rica, lightning flickering in my eyes.
Ty nodded and launched another one spinning into the sky, moving with extreme speed as he put his full inhuman strength behind the throw. I watched it go and flung lightning at it. The bolt cracked out across the distance, impacting the disc and shattering it into a thousand pieces.
The rumble faded.
“She’s going to wonder what the hell these sounds are,” I pointed out as Ty launched another without waiting.
“Rica?”
“No, Mia. She doesn’t know what we are. Thank god Rica didn’t say anything stupid about that. Though if she’d known Mia was there, I’m sure she would have, just to make my life more difficult.”
Overhead, the clouds continued to thicken. My mood wasn’t improving. In fact, the more I talked, the worse it got. Rica was throwing a wrench into the middle of everything. Damn that woman.
“You’re going to have to do something about her,” Ty said, aiming much higher as his arm came whipping around and released the disc.
“Which one?” I asked, sighting the target against the dark sky and releasing some of my anger.
“Both.” Ty watched as the disc sailed unimpeded, my attack missing its target.
I narrowed my eyes, and fresh lightning shot forth from them in twin lines, intersecting at the fast-moving clay target and blowing it to smithereens with a clap of thunder to match.
“Differently, of course,” Ty said, lifting two discs.
I eyed them suspiciously.
“You use two bolts; I use two discs,” he said, then spun twice in quick succession to launch them.
“Fuck.” I scrambled to blast them both, needing three strikes in total to eliminate both discs.
Ty paused, nodding at my efforts.
“How do I deal with them?” I said. “I have to keep Mia safe, but also somehow make sure she doesn’t know too much, and also ensure she doesn’t discover any more. Meanwhile, almost simultaneously, I have to stop my sister from being a psychotic bitch.”
“She’ll try to kill you,” Ty said. “And the last time she tried that, a lot of people around you died.”
“I know,” I grunted.
“Okay. I just wanted to make sure. Because I’m around you right now,” he said.
I cursed. Ty was worried about himself, as well as me. “I’m going to have to deal with her sooner rather than later,” I muttered.
“You’re going to have to kill her,” Ty said bluntly. “You know that, right? She won’t stop.”
“We could just go back to Storm Keep,” I countered. “Grab my mate, take her back there, and not bother with Earth anymore.”
“That still leaves a psycho out there,” Ty pointed out. “She’s unhinged, Tor. Tell me you didn’t miss that?”
I hadn’t. The look in her eyes, that almost vacantness behind the emotion. All her years on Earth as the only storm dragon had taken their toll on Rica. How had she stayed even as sane as she was, without anyone to truly relax and be herself around? What had she been doing?
“Fuck.” I gestured, and Ty threw. I hit it. “Faster.”
He grabbed an entire pile of clay targets and started throwing as fast as he could without waiting. I poured lightning into each and every one of them, blasting them apart almost as fast as he could throw.
Eventually, the last rumble of thunder faded. My mood was still sour. Perhaps worse. The skies were growing black, and I lifted a hand, flinging the rest of my anger into the heavens. The skies lit up, and thunder boomed.
“How the fuck do I kill family?” I asked, heading to the edge of the roof and gripping the stone wall tight enough that the mortar between pieces groaned in protest. “I’ve thought about it.
I know I probably have to, but damn it, Ty, she’s my sister.
We grew up together, were babies. She’s my twin. I …”
I didn’t speak the next words. I wasn’t ready to vocalize that weakness. Ty was the only person I could even tacitly admit it to. With anyone else, I would keep it locked away, but I trusted him thoroughly and knew he wouldn’t betray me.
But the truth was, I didn’t know if I could kill Rica. Which led to a whole dragonload of other questions and problems, none of which I had answers or solutions to.
Ty just let fly with another disc. I took out my anger on it. And the next. And the next. Thunder rumbled almost constantly for nearly a minute.
“What about Mia?” I said, gesturing for him to pause. “What do I do with her?”
“Her car is back in the city, getting fixed. Take her home, have it delivered to her house. Never see her again. Easy as that. Why is that such a big problem?” Ty asked.
It shouldn’t have been. That was the thing. It should have been just as easy as he was saying. Only …
“You fucked her, didn’t you,” Ty said, reading my body language.
“No,” I growled, pointing at him. “I didn’t. Don’t talk about her that way.”
His eyebrows rose slightly. “You’re getting mighty defensive over her, Tor. This isn’t the first time you’ve gone off on me like this. You need to check yourself.”
I slammed a meaty fist into my palm. What the hell was wrong with me? He was my best friend, and twice now, a human had made me get angry at him.
Yes, she drove me crazy with those hips and thick thighs and large breasts.
The whole package was undeniably desirable.
I wanted her. I wanted to fuck her, to listen to her cries, as I broke her mind with more pleasure than she could handle.
Every other thought that was about her was some form of lust. Even through my anger, my cock swelled in response to those images.
Perhaps Ty was right. Maybe the best thing for me was to put some distance between us and let my other head calm down a bit.
Relieve myself of her presence and try not to think about her.
Anything like that. I had to think clearly.
If I was the prince, I couldn’t be splitting my mental focus between her and my mate.
Speaking of which …
“Any update from Storm Keep?”
Ty nodded. “Yeah, Tempest is heading out with a few others at some point today. They’ll be coming through any minute now probably. And they’ll have the mirror.”
“Good,” I growled while the sky rumbled ominously above us, a mirror of my black thoughts. “It’s about time I find my mate.”
Perhaps then, I could get my mind off Mia.