Chapter Seventeen #2
His features harden and I scoff. “That’s what I thought.
You don’t trust her because you can’t find the truth in her mind and you, dear brother, have wrapped yourself in your gift so tight you abandoned observation, inference, instinct.
Hell, you’ve abandoned everything, except the one shortcut that keeps you comfortable. ”
His nostrils flare and I shake my head. “You don’t know how to find truth anymore, Creed, only how to extract it.”
My brothers don’t even blink. “She is a leech. She’s not your mate, Legend.”
“What the fuck do you know about a mate, brother? Hmmm?” I challenge. “Got one of these we’re not aware of?”
“Legend.” Knight’s tone is so quiet and I look his way.
“What?”
“Breathe.”
I do. In. Out. It burns like I inhaled razors.
Fuck. I don’t know what to do with rage when I can’t calm myself. Heat prickles down my throat, enough to make me almost choke.
Creed watches. He always watches. “Your magic is failing because something is yoking it. That isn’t an accusation or something that needs…
extraction.” Yeah, knew I burnt his ass with that.
Good. “It’s a diagnosis. And that something is her.
She’s from Exile Island, Legend, and you’ve been weakening since she got here.
Meanwhile, how was her training yesterday?
Good? How is she doing under Professor Astras’s instruction? What is she gaining, Legend?”
“It’s not.” My nostrils flare. “Her. She’s gaining strength only because she’s fucking amazing.”
He remains unmoved. “She doesn’t mirror your calm.
She doesn’t steady. She accelerates. Every time she’s near, your pulse spikes and your power warps around it trying to ride the storm.
You both share nothing of similarities outside of affection, obsession…
and this strange conception you have that she’s your mate. ”
“Say it again,” I whisper.
“Legend,” Knight warns.
“Say it again,” I repeat, louder. “Look me in the face, without fucking blinking, and tell me she isn’t mine.”
Creed exhales, all long-suffering king. “She isn’t yours.”
I want to tear his head off, feed it to a feral Lycan and burn what’s left of him for all to see as a warning to any who dare speak against the gift the gods gave me. That fate gave me.
If he weren’t my brother, I just might, and now I’m too fucking tired to fight.
“Go fuck yourself,” I say. “And you—” I jab a finger at Knight. “I expected more from you. You know what it becomes, how it mutates you.”
He doesn’t even flinch. “You want my truth? Here.” He bares his teeth without humor.
“You smell like her even when she isn’t in the room.
Like copper and knives and bad weather. She’s in your blood.
But the magic’s wrong. Her weight on you is wrong.
It isn’t a match, Legend. If it was, why are you weakening? ”
Silence.
I can’t argue with that point, because that is the one consistent theme in terms of bonds.
Creed’s jaw sets. Clearly I’ve pissed off big brother as much as he has me. “You also don’t get to drag his real mating bond to compare to your fake one.”
“Look at that,” Sinner drawls. “We’re all a family of dysfunction.”
I laugh, once. Ugly. “You can all go fuck yourself. I thought we were here to talk about the murders. Why am I hearing each of you bitch about my mate?” I seethe, allowing my eyes to rest on all of them before settling back on Knight. “If you’re quite fucking done, I’ve got some place to be—
“The opening ball tonight.” Knight’s words hit me.
“We’re still doing that? Despite the fact that there’s a murderer on the loose?” Now they’ve all lost their fucking minds.
Sinner shrugs. “It’s an easy way to pluck him out. Put everyone in the same place, you know, old school techniques that the humans used to play to find the guilty one. If another murder happens during the ball, we can rule out all those who attended.”
“And the curfew?” I ask, anger still simmering beneath my skin.
Creed’s voice only heightens that. “It’s still on school grounds.”
I kick out my foot, spreading my legs wide. “Now I have to try to put her in a dress.”
“You’re not taking her to the ball,” Creed says. “There’s too much at stake. We have press. We have higher Argents who will be attending and just waiting for us to fuck up. Haide? She gives that to them easily.”
I grind my teeth, the snarl deep. “She’s coming, and she’s coming with me. And there ain’t shit any of you can do about that.”
Creed studies me a moment, and for a second, I see his hardness soften. I almost see the big brother beneath the hate he has for my mate. “What happened yesterday? When she saw you with Arabella?”
My lip twitches. “Get the fuck out of my head.”
Creed’s brows lift, as if waiting for me to answer.
“She won’t start shit. You can’t expect her to blend in and at the same time keep her exiled.” I shake my head, running my hand down the side of my face. “And besides that, why don’t any of you fuckers give a fuck about my happiness?”
“Happiness?” Creed actually chokes on a laugh. “You aren’t happy. You’re high.”
“Same difference.” I step back from the bone, finally pushing back to my feet. “Bring in mages if it’ll make you feel better. Drug the students. Do whatever the fuck you want, but she’s coming.”
“Legend—”
The door’s already opening for me again.
Sinner rises with me out of habit. I ignore Knight’s clear desire to continue the conversation and the way Creed’s fingers twitch like he’s fighting the urge to drag me back.
I give them nothing. Because if I sit in there for a second longer, I know I’ll say some shit I can’t take back.
The long halls swallow my movements as I move faster than I should with how my lungs burn. Faster than I should with my energy levels, a sure tell that I used too much portal and not enough food. Students scatter. Good. Wise.
My door looks like every other heavy wood door in this hall, except it isn’t. There’s a hairline of burning embers around the hinges that says Sinner put his toys on it. I can feel the bindings hum—slick, smirking magic that tastes like violence.
Knuckles hit my face and I stumble back, slamming the door closed. The back of my skull hits wood and the taste of copper instantly fills my mouth.
Haide flexes and shakes her hand out. Doesn’t apologize. Doesn’t look sorry.
“You locked me in,” she says, almost pouting.
I brace a palm against the door and push off as a mixture of laughter and a growl escapes me. “I told you to wait. The fact that you tried to leave proves why I needed to fucking lock you in.”
“So you had your brother tie the leash!”
“I prefer cages,” I say, and then my hand is around the back of her neck, forcing her back. I’ve moved without thinking and she’s moved to meet me.
This is the part of us that makes more sense than breathing. The part where skin is the argument and our mouths are the only weapons we need.
Her forearms land on my chest, not to push away, but to brace herself. Her spine hits the old stone behind her with a thud.
I growl as my hands land on either side of her head, caging her in. I like her like this. Defiant with nowhere to run.
Her chin tips up like a challenge. “Don’t,” she says.
“Say it,” I breathe. My forehead touches hers, and her pulse beats like a hard drum. Mine matches. “Say it. Mean it.”
Her breath rubs my mouth. “Fuck you.”
I shove my knee between her thighs and pin her. Her gasp burns steady now.
Be careful. Be cruel. Be what she wants.
“You lock your jaw, throw a punch and think that’s a no?” My voice drops. Carefully. This is the wire we live on. “You want me to stop—say it.” The corner of my mouth twitches. “See if I listen.”
Her hand slides into my hair and tightens. Pain prickles like an honesty that no one has ever given me before. A second of silence. “I—”
I crush my mouth to hers.
It’s not sweet. It’s a collision. Teeth-clash kind of collision. She punishes me back with the kind of violence she most likely fights with.
Hands. Where? Everywhere. Her shirt is soft—fucking wrong. I want her in knives and leather. I grab the hem and bunch it, not kind, not gentle. She slaps my wrist and drags it lower, greedy as I am. A silent fuck you and a fuck me in one cruel little tug.
I grin against her mouth because I can’t help it. She tastes like salt and something that could be an addiction if I let it.
“I should leave you locked in here,” I murmur into her, words against tongue. “See what kind of carnage you unleash when you don’t get what you want.”
“Do it,” she says, kissing me between the words. “And I’ll leave claw marks over every single thing you touch.”
My hand finds the line of her throat. Not squeezing. Not yet. Just feeling the slick beat under my thumb. Mine. The word lights up my nerves like a current. My brothers are fucking liars. Whatever bullshit they’re thinking, they’re wrong. This time, they’re wrong.
I drag my mouth to her jaw. To her ear. “Mine.”
“I am not your—” It comes ragged. Stops when I circle my tongue beneath her ear. She shakes, her fight giving out. “Legend.”
I hiss, circling my hips into her. “Say that again.”
“Legend.”
Fire races down my spine, burning the ache and fatigue. My magic that’s been sulking for so fucking long leans toward her like a pet.
I kiss her again and this time I take my time. Not slower. Just precise. She squeezes the back of my neck and my cock hardens as I slowly grind against her.
She bites my lip and then sucks the hurt back like she can’t decide if she wants to punish me or soothe me. Good. Same.
My hand slides under her shirt and I hiss through my teeth at the heat of her skin. She’s fever-sweat hot, like a forge. Like a blade fresh from the quench. She bows into my palm like she wants closer and then shoves me like she wants distance. The friction of both is perfect.
“You hit like you mean it,” I murmur against her throat, licking the pulse, my energy tingling from the high of having her in my arms like this. “Next time don’t telegraph the right.”