Page 121 of Barbi and the Villain

His jaw is clenched tight as he stares down at me.

Screams and shouts resound from the other side of the mist as people try to get him to lower his shield or they will remove both of us from the competition.

“What are you doing?” I whisper.

“You will not look,” he rasps.

“W-what?”

“You. Will. Not. Look,” he repeats roughly, his nostrils flaring.

“Nykander…”

“This competition ends here,” he declares, not even bothering to ask me what I want or think.

Loud noises erupt and the shield becomes translucent enough that I spot others using their powers against us. There are some fire balls and even shards of glass, all thrown against his dark mist.

“Stop it,” I say. “Stop it, Nykander.”

His eyes flash for a moment before his dark mist recedes back in his body. The action is forceful, not at all the graceful way it used to undulate around his body.

He stares at me with a combination of awe and outrage, as if he doesn’t know whether to kiss me or strangle me.

I mentally scoff at my train of thought.

He’d never kiss me. Where the hell do these ideas even come from?

See, Barbi, this is what happens when you live too long in fictional worlds. You start waxing poetic about undeserving assholes.

“This is not permitted.” Elijah steps forward. “You two are disqualified.”

The other contestants agree, though some of the girls are put out that Nykander will not be in the competition anymore.

Nykander grunts absentmindedly and we are told to leave or go back to the crowd.

I turn to leave, but he stops me. He grabs me by the hand and pulls me in front of him, covering my entire line of sight with his body.

“Do not move,” he says in a low voice.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” I frown and try to bypass him.

“Do not push me, Barbi. Not now. I have not fed in weeks and you have flaunted your blood in front of me all night. I am close to my breaking point and if you do not want to see people die, do not push me to my breaking point.”

“Well, you should have thought about that before you behaved like a raging asshole. You have now lost all feeding privileges, so I would appreciate it if you could unhand me and let me go. I wish to see the end of this competition.”

“No.”

One word. Just one word. His body is tense, his entire aura murderous despite seemingly being in control of his shadows.

“What?”

“We are leaving,” he says and pulls me toward the end of the crowd.

With our ongoing dispute, I miss the rest of the trial. Elijah announces three men and women as the finalists moving to the last round, and I strain to catch sight of who they are.

Nykander, though, pulls me back, once more blocking my view.

“Let me go, you beast,” I mutter under my breath.

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