I picked him up by a leg and tossed him clear across the terrarium and through one of the ancient stained-glass windows back into the interior of the citadel. Roaring a battle cry, I leapt through after him.
Ice flowed from nowhere over my right hand, hardening and shaping itself into a pointed blade.
I drove that needle-sharp tip into the chin of Anna’s attacker, pinning him to the wall as blood dribbled down his chest from the prick of my blade. What stared back at me was a reflection of my own fury, features torn apart by hatred and rage finally let loose. And a bruise on his templethat I hadn’t given him.
Only one thing stopped me from driving my icy-blade right up in to his brain.
The scent of blood. My blood. Kin.
“Cousin,” I snarled with bestial hostility, not recognizing my own voice in the image of death and darkness I had become. “Your blood is the only reason I haven’t smeared your entrails along this entire wall already.”
Andrik stared up at me in raw fury at the way he had been treated by my hand. He had never seen me unleashed. Never seen the monster that lived inside me. Now he saw me not as Casimir, his cousin, but as the ice tyrant himself.
“Blood or no blood, if you so much as look at Anna again, I will paint the outside of the citadel with every drop of blood in your body for all to see. This I promise.”
I inhaled deeply, my voice still thundering in the hallway. “Do I make myself clear?”
Despite it all, Andrik didn’t yield. His hatred of me was as strong as he was. And he knew that I despised the idea of killing my own blood. As such, he was going to use it against me as he had in the past.
The difference this time was he had threatened Anna. And that tipped me over into new territory that he wasn’t ready for.
I drove the icy tip a full inch into his jaw. Blood flowed down around it, and Andrik’s eyes openedwith panic.
“Nod if you understand me,” I hissed, staring directly into his eyes and letting him see that I was fully prepared to kill him if he didn’t.
He twitched. I knew what I was demanding. Glaring at me the entire time, he lifted his chin up and then brought it back down, the movement forcing him to further impale his own jaw. Fresh blood ran down the icy weapon in response.
“Leave. Now.” I pulled the blade free.
Holding one hand to his bleeding jaw, Andrik stormed off. I watched him go, waiting to be certain he was leaving. Then I shook the ice blade free, letting it fall to the ground instead of reabsorbing it, and turned back to the shattered window.
Anna awaited.
I walked back to where she was still clutching the stick, crouched low. The stick was wobbling in her hands.
“It’s okay,” I said as she whirled on me. “It’s me.”
Anna stood up slowly, and a wave of something else ran over me. Not the fear of before but heat. Warmth. I saw her eyes heading downward and her cheeks pinking as she stared.
Oh, right. The towel.
The flimsy thing hadn’t made it out of myquarters. The entire fight, my arrival, I had done it all nude, and now I was fully alert, blood pumping from the battle lust. And my cock was hard as steel once more, pointing right at her while my chest heaved.
Her nipples poked through the thin top she was wearing, and my dick strained at her harder.
Shit, shit, shit.
Her sweet honey smell was filling the air. It was nearly unbearable to my dragon as it thrashed against the cage of my mind, demanding to be set free. My fangs were sliding down of their own accord, the urge to mate with her incredible.
Except she didn’t want it.
A clatter of noise announced the arrival of others, Dirk at their head.
“I want guards posted at my chambers, and in here. Twenty-four-seven,” I snarled, thick with alpha command. “Get this window replaced. Quadruple her personal guard, and do not touch her. At all.”
Dirk skidded to a halt in shock at my use of such a tone at him. But he knew something must have happened and was smart enough not to argue.
“Right away.” He turned and started snapping out his own alpha commands to the other guards.
