What I wouldn’t give to shred him with my claws.
“It was a waste, just because you wanted to have some kind of a dick measuring contest. Since when are you that kind of elf?” My right eye twitches, a sign that I’m about to lose it. “Gods, Aiken, I didn’t think that kind of shit mattered to you. You need Cassian to know you have a foot long cock or something?”
I huff through my nostrils, but it doesn’t help. The fire building within me is too much. My magic surges, intensifying until I need an outlet.
I crack my knuckles, and feel the sparks fly from between them. Soon that’s not enough and Calix it’s still rumbling at my side, oblivious to the storm that he’s created.
I rip my hands out of my pockets and clasp them behind my back. There’s no stopping the magic that flows freely from my palms. It pours into the air, the corridor around us turning icy cold.
It’s only then that Calix realizes what he’s done. Frost glazes along the floor, walls and windows, and I clear my throat as I try to restrain it. My breath is evident in the air, coming out in thick clouds and exposing my intense heart rate.
“Brother,” Calix starts. “I did not mean-“
I’m glad I don’t get to hear the rest of what he has to say. I’m sure I could ice over the castle and shatter it with the anger that he pulls out of me.
I’m not so glad about the voice that interrupts us.
“…all alone?”
It’s soft and playful somewhere off in the distance, but it still makes my gut twist. I know it’s Cassian, but what I fear is why he would be speaking that way.
To whom.
Calix gives me one glance before taking off in that direction, unable to handle the fact that his enemy is walking around our house unescorted. I waver where I stand, considering just going out to the garden as I’ve been wanting to all morning, but then I hear it.
“…to finish.” There's a soft laughter after the two words, but I can hear how nervous she is through it. I would know Isla’s voice anywhere.
It only confirms what I was already fearing. Cassian has cornered her in one of the rooms she’s been cleaning. With both Calix and I upstairs, there was no one around to watch her.
We left her vulnerable.
My magic lashes out even more violently than before. The floor crackles beneath my feet as each step slams down hard. I’m bolting through the hallway, desperate to get to her.
She’s locked in a room with two predators, who I want nowhere near her. And when my palms slam into the door that blocks me from her, my vision turns red.
I want to paint the walls in it. I want to rip them apart and coat the room in their remains. I want to cover Isla in the blood of the man touching her so she will never forget that she belongs to me, that this is what I will do to someone who she lets near her.
Cassian has backed her into a corner. There’s an evil smile painted across the bottom half of his face. One hand is planted on the wall next to her head, the other’s teasing the bottom of her tunic.
My magic crackles through the room at the sight.
Calix is already storming across the room, though. He grabs Isla’s arm and rips her out from underneath the other elf.
I grit my teeth as she winces. How my brother can bypass the problem, neglecting to put his hands on Cassian, is beyond me.
I probably would have crossed the room and ripped him to shreds the way he deserved if those brown eyes didn’t catch mine first. Isla’s intense gaze pins me in place, and I forget about Calix and Cassian and my father and trade deals.
The anger that has been swirling in me all morning twists. The fire deepens, no longer unbearably hot and needing a release. It’s warm, filling my veins with a desperate need for her.
Her tongue peeks out and swipes along her bottom lip. My body pulses as I watch her. I’m desperate for her and I take one step forward not considering the consequences of ripping her out from underneath my brother.
But then Cassian’s snarky laughter cuts through the air, his true personality coming out now that we’re not in front of my father and his uncle. “What’s the matter, Calix?” he teases, the smile deepening. “I thought you liked to share.”
Calix’s upper lip curls into a snarl, and he shoves Isla back behind him. “You don’t know what it means for someone to possess something you want and you can’t take it.”
I feel those words in my core. Ironic that my brother is saying them when I think them about him all the time.
Cassian tips his head back and howls with laughter. His eyes cut me before going back to my brother. “That’s rich coming from you. If daddy can’t buy it or brother can’t charm it, then you really have nothing.” He brushes off a piece of lint from his jacket. “You act as if you are something in this world, when you’re nothing but a bug that needs to be squished beneath my heel.”