Page 115 of Gift from the Nexus

“Hell yeah, it did. Too bad all interviews and offers aren’t like that.”

“Well, Will isn’t always around calling the shots for you to make the process easier,” he says with a mocking grin on his smug face.

“Fuck off.” I chuckle, pulling my communicator out that’s been going off for a minute now.

Huh. Three missed calls from Codi.

I dial him back and put it on speaker for Tillman to hear. I grow anxious the more and more it rings with no answer. My mind filters through the possibilities in seconds.Did Trex turn on him? Was the Castle attacked? Has someone been hurt?

“Corentin, sorry for blowing you up. I couldn’t get in touch with Tillman either,” he says as soon as he answers.

“He’s with me. Is everything okay?”

He lets out an irritated sigh, which tells me nothing too serious has happened, but it’s still something that needs our attention. “It’s Willow’s fa—Franklin. He’s gone fucking mental. Screaming, throwing his shit around his room, refusing to eat. He’s demanding for her to come here. He won’t stop yelling for us to bring him his daughter. That she’s his prop…well, you know the shit these people say. I think he’s cracked.”

That fucker. Believing he can make demands of my princess. Call her his property. I’ll fucking end him.

“Corentin,” Tillman murmurs, cutting through the red haze that instantly covered my sight.

“We’ll discuss it with Willow, and I’ll let you know what we decide.” I hang up on him before he responds and begin pacing behind my desk.

The boiling rage I feel has me wanting desperately to just transport to Rebel Castle and kill him once and for all. Fuck,I hate that man with a passion, and if Willow hadn’t asked us to hold off, I would’ve shoved my light through his eyes until it singed the fabric of his soul by now.

“Look at you not even restraining your gift,” Caspian says, stepping out of the shadows.

“What?” I ask, whirling around to him.

“You didn’t lock your gift up. You were letting it flow with your anger rather than restraining it. Proud of you,” he says with a small, sly-ass smirk that I want to knock off his face.

“Asshole. What are you even doing here?” I ask. Ignoring the fact that I appreciate his words. Allowing my gift to just be free has been a challenging obstacle for me, but with Willow’s help, I’m proud to say I’ve gotten better with it.

“The Primary felt you go from happy to madder than a pissed off dragon. She was ready to come rush to your rescue, but I told her I’d come.”

I roll my eyes at him because he’s apparently in a teasing mood today. Not that it’s a bad thing, but I’m about to ruin it when I tell him what pissed me off. Also, I kick myself for not locking my bond up ’cause now I’m not going to be able to hide what pissed me off from her.

“Codi called. Franklin has gone crazy apparently, breaking his shit, refusing to eat. He wants to see Willow.”

Just like I thought, the grin melts from his face and his shadows leak out of him. If he were bonded with Willow, she’d no doubt be popping in here now, knowing something’s going on.

He stares at me in unchecked fury for a good minute before he takes a deep breath and collects himself. “She’s not going near him.”

“I’d love to agree with you, brother, but you know as well as I do, that’s not our decision.”

He sneers and clenches his fists at his sides, but he doesn’t argue. He knows I’m right.

Yeah, deep in my heart and mind, I’d love to sweep this under the rug, pretend I never got the call from Codi, and not tell Willow the first thing about it, but that shit would blow up in my face the moment she found out the truth. And the truth always comes out one way or another.

“Well, let’s go get this over with. We all know how she is. Once we tell her, her decision will be made, then there won’t be any letting it go for now. If she wants to go, we’ll be heading to Rebel Castle in a few minutes. I’ll have Ry meet us over there,” Tillman orders, pulling his communicator out.

I convince the two of them that we should walk over there rather than transport or shadow. It’ll give us all some time to calm down and it’s a pretty good distance, so we can put it off for a few more minutes.

Mentally, I already know what’s going to happen. She’s going to want to go. She’s going to look at this as an opportunity to gather information from him. Bad or good. Then we’ll have to heal the chunks he cuts out of her heart from what the fuck ever he tells her. Not that we mind doing that. We’ll help her heal from anything, no matter what because she’s our eternity, our beating hearts.

It’s the fact that man doesn’t deserve to even breathe the same air that she does, let alone open his vile fucking mouth in her presence.

By the time we walk into Gaster’s office, everyone’s already here, and she knows something’s going on by the sweet, concerned look she shoots me. Although I’m livid at this whole situation, I still pull her close to me, kiss her forehead, and smile in her hair.

“Something happened. You all are so tense. What’s going on?” she asks when I release her, and she moves over to Tillman.

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