Chapter 19
Prisca
TITUS
Ifled Delilah’s chambers, hiding my shaking hands in my pockets.
What had I done? I nearly killed my best friend, the General of my army.
I thought he was with Delilah. I saw the door broken down and assumed the worst. I thought he was forcing himself on her.
I saw red. My sanity snapped, and I had never felt such fury before.
My power had never felt so unchecked and limitless.
My fire had never been so vicious, and the way she looked at me tore me apart, because it was how I had looked at my father, how I looked at myself, a monster.
The attack, the livestock, Folliade and his idiotic search, and Caddver had all gotten under my skin. Then I thought my best friend had gone behind my back to betray me and my future mate. It was too much. My sanity was pushed too far, my stress too high.
I paced quickly to the opposite side of the floor, toward my private quarters, seeking a retreat from the stress of the day and from what I had done. I opened my bedroom door and went straight to my private balcony for fresh air. The castle’s air still carried the weight of my outburst.
I breathed deeply and tried to calm my flaming temper, and whatever was going on with my heart. I rubbed my throbbing temples when I heard the balcony door click. The Guardians must have wanted to punish me, because my sister decided to pay me a visit. I groaned in exasperation. “What do you want?”
“Titus, we need to talk,” Prisca demanded with her usual sharp attitude, but to my surprise, she handed me a glass of whisky.
I examined the liquid carefully. “Have you come to poison me?” I asked wryly.
“Fuck off, Titus,” she snarled, then took a drink of the whisky from my reserves she had helped herself to.
I had to hand it to her; nobody had the balls to talk to me the way my older sister did. Had she actually been born with balls, she might have made a decent High Lord.
“I’m not in the mood for your bullshit, Prisca,” I said, with a sliver of respect.
“Shut the fuck up for once and listen to me, brother. You need to step down,” she said seriously. I stifled a laugh.
“Oh? And why should I do that?” I replied, fully intending to patronize her.
“This plan, this obsession with the God Dragon is madness! You don’t even know if it’s real, it could all be myth and legend for all we know. The answer to our problems isn’t killing everyone with Eloria’s power, its fixing our fucking kingdom!” she explained.
I rolled my neck to relieve the tension, and I had hoped she was done with her rant, but she continued. “You need to step down and make Rexius High Lord. You nearly killed Cercies. He’s like family!” she snapped.
For a fleeting moment, I thought she actually cared about my well-being, but I was foolish to think that red-haired, petulant snake was capable of such feelings. Of course, this was about power and control. It was always about power and control.
“Yeah, well, you are family, and I would have no issue killing you. Family means nothing to me,” I replied coldly.
She set her glass down and looked at me with more fire in her eyes than I had ever seen.
“Step down, or I will tell everyone the truth, Titus,” she said through gritted teeth. My spine straightened, and I felt my flames bite at my fingertips.
“The truth about what?” I asked with a scowl, my tone mocking, but my stomach dropped. I knew exactly what she was going to say.
“Step down and make Rexius High Lord, or I will tell everyone the truth about Aurelius’s blood magic test,” she said, her threat sharp.
How did she find out? My blood ran cold, yet my flames only grew hotter.
I saw their glow reflected on her smirking face.
Thank the Guardians we were alone on my balcony, where no one could hear my sister’s fat fucking mouth.
A dark thought crept in, of grabbing her by the neck and tossing her over the railing, but I had already almost killed one person today, two would be overkill.
Instead, I reined in my rage and answered her.
“Why are you so fucking ignorant? Your pathetic son can’t even control a dragon, let alone an entire kingdom.
War tensions are too high. If you leak this, our kingdom will destroy itself from the inside while our enemies destroy us from the outside.
Do you want our kingdom to fall? Do you want everyone to fucking die? ” I asked, losing my patience.
“Not everyone. Just you,” she replied coldly, an evil smirk on her lips.
Red-hot rage began to burn through my bones and crawl under my skin in the way that only Prisca could. I lost my
temper, smashed my whiskey glass on the ground, and shouted, “Why are you so obsessed with ruling?!”
She did not so much as flinch.
“Because it was supposed to be me!” she shouted back, meeting my fury with flames of her own, the most I had ever seen her conjure. Though I did not show it, it surprised me.
She continued, “I was going to rule behind the scenes with my mate. I was going to correct the imbalance of rights for females in this kingdom. But then you were born, and I knew, I knew that I would never see those changes. I would never right the wrongs that happened to me, that you would be just like our father, heartless and cruel. And ever since that mortal arrived, you have been acting insane. You need to step down, little brother. You are unwell.” She said, tears forming in her eyes, with something dangerously close to compassion softening her voice.
Her green gaze lifted to mine, and for a heartbeat it wasn’t Prisca standing there, but my mother.
The resemblance struck deeper than I expected, stirring something old and poorly healed in my chest. I shuddered at the unfamiliarity of her tone.
“I will not step down, Prisca, and I will kill you if that is what it takes to keep you quiet,” I said, coldness in my promise. My eyes burned with the same intensity as hers. With my jaw clenched, I commanded, “Now get the fuck out of my chambers.”
She walked to the door, then turned back to have the last word, “Make sure you bathe before the feast tonight. You smell like ash.”