“I’ll save my breath. There’s no point in arguing with someone who refuses to see what’s in front of his face.”
“You think I’m a fool, then?” He set his hands on his hips in an arrogant posture.
I laughed. “Yeah. I do. How many cases have there been that are exactly like mine? Eh? Human mates who discover the truth? Our kind who must defend their loved ones from human predators?”
His lips pooched outward in a petulant child’s pout. “We have no records of them.”
“Only because folks like you refuse to keep them,” I snapped. “So you can persecute those like me.”
“We’re notpersecutingyou.”
“That’sexactlywhat you’re doing.” I stepped forward, now only mere steps from him. I leaned forward, towering over his short stature. “Others before me have done exactly what I’ve done.”
“And were banished to Iceland.”
“Try it, bonehead.” I growled low in my throat. “Try it, and unleash the raw power I possess. I’ll slay you, and every member of the council if you try to take my son from me.”
Ian dared not step back, for that would demonstrate I held the upper hand. Instead, he met my defiant gaze with his own, and he also leaned forward until our faces were inches apart. “You can’t slay us all.”
“Care to bet on that?”
I smiled.
Despite the enclosed room, I was an inch from shifting and burning his arrogant ass to ashes. Only the fact that my body would endanger the lives of office workers all around me when I my body burst the building’s walls and brought the roof down kept me from doing it.
He saw that smile and backed up a step until his body pressed against the shut door.
“Don’t threaten me,” I said softly. “You don’t want to piss me off. I’ll go on a rampage the likes of which none of our kind has ever seen before. You’re right to fear me.”
He tried to raise a feral smile. “You don’t scare me.”
My smile widened. “Oh, I believe you’re lying about that. I can smell your sweat, Ian. You’re sweating from fear. From terror. I should rip your throat out right now.”
“You wouldn’t dare.” His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed. Hard.
“Except I would. To protect my child. What would you do to protect your offspring, Ian?”
“A – anything.”
“As would I. Even kill.”
Our eyes locked, I recognized the deep-seated fear in his cold brown gaze. I knew he saw the raw determination to keep Declan with me, my primal instincts to protect my son, deep within mine. He all but melted into the door. His fingers trembled even as he clenched his fists.
“I’m warning you,” he said, his voice quivering faintly, “you’ll face the council. You harm me, you’ll be executed.”
I laughed. “Do you think any council member can faceme, Ian? Really? Drag me in chains to an execution site? I’ll bring down such a storm of fire upon them they’ll wish forever after they’d just let me be.”
“Back off,” he ordered, his voice shaking. “I mean it. I represent the council in this matter. If you defy me, it’ll go that much harder on you later.”
I lifted both of my hands in token surrender. “I’m backing off.” I paced two steps away from him. “Now get out of my office, you little pipsqueak.Now. Before you piss me off and make me regret hurting innocent people.”
His haste making him fumble with the door handle, Ian frantically yanked it open, and he lunged from my office. And my threats. I stepped to the opened door to watch him rush down the hall to the elevator, then hit the “down” button several times before the car arrived. He didn’t meet my gaze as he stepped inside and hit the main floor’s button.
The doors hissed closed.
I sucked in a deep breath. I unclenched my fists and discovered my fingers, no, my hands, shook as though I’d throttled Ian, my fingers buried in his throat to my nails. Shutting my door, I leaned against it with my eyes closed.
“Fuck.”
