Page 49 of The Kingdom of Ruin

His breath fans over my face and my body reacts completely differently than my mind as realization washes over me.

“You motherfucker,” I snap, slamming my hands against his chest.

“What the fuck?” He gapes at me as I stand, needing to put as much distance between us as possible.

“Fuck you. And fuck the bigger target you just put on my back,” I yell, and he’s standing in front of me a second later.

I can’t have him crowding me like this. It does nothing to aid my cause.

“Calm the fuck down,” he snarls, reaching for my face again, but I slap his hand away this time. Much to my body's disappointment.

“I may have shown Leticia mercy, but the same won’t apply to you. Mark my words,” I promise, taking another step back as Brody appears in the open doorway.

“What’s going on?”

I scoff at his audacity, brushing past him as I head for the exit. I need to get the hell away from these guys, but I need to make sure Brody is clear on where we stand first.

“And you can go fuck yourself too.”

TWENTY-THREE

CASSIAN

The devilish fae saunters from the room without a backward glance, her ass swaying effortlessly. What the fuck has become of my life? I thought choosing to leave my pack, my father’s pack, to join the academy would be the height of my downfall, but it seems I’ve still got much further to go.

“What was that?” Brody murmurs as I swipe a hand down my face in exasperation.

“A fucking whirlwind,” I grunt, exhaustion clinging to me despite my racing heart.

“You’re telling me.”

I’m telling him? This guy has so many questions to answer, and he’s acting just as bewildered as me. Rising from Raiden’s bed, I breeze past my least favorite mage. He takes the hint to follow after me as I find Kryll and Raiden seated on the sofa in Raiden’s lounge.

A fucking lounge. Addi had every right to be surprised by the size of this place. Even the wolves aren’t getting anything like this. It’s a joke. I don’t mind having access to it, though.

Flopping down onto the sofa with my arms braced on my knees, I level my gaze on Brody, who nervously paces beside me.

“What were you fucking thinking?” Kryll asks, beating me to it.

“What do you?—”

“Don’t give me that shit,” I interject, all but snarling at him as he tries to give me an innocent look.

He shrugs after a moment, trying to play it off, but I’m not falling for that shit. “I wanted to wow her with some good food. Hoped I’d get in her pants too, but…” His words trail off. There’s no need to continue when we all know that definitely didn’t happen, and everything else that did happen was far from anything he could have predicted.

“Why the diner?”

“Didn’t you hear the part about good food?” he retorts, like that’s the only explanation necessary, and I roll my eyes at his dumb thought process.

“How did you even think she was going to be safe?”

This is what my brain is stuck on. How in the ever-loving fuck did he think this was a good idea? He shouldn’t have taken anyone there, especially without me, and there was no way in hell I was showing my face yet. But a fae? A fucking fae? Wolves don’t need to see pointy ears to know if someone is fae or not; we can smell it. I tried to tell Raiden that the first time we saw the mysterious girl in the forest by the origin houses. He was too fixated on the ears to see my point, but at the diner, everyone knew the instant Brody stepped through the door with her.

“I didn’t. I was thinking food and pussy,” he admits, running his fingers through his hair as Raiden slinks back in his seat with a snicker.

“You’re fucking dumb, man,” he bites, an air of ‘I told you so’ drifting around him. I don’t need his ego added on top of all this.

“Aren’t you going to apologize?” Kryll asks, cocking a brow at Brody, who gapes at him in surprise.

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