“No.”
He stilled. “Okay, Caz, then what the fuck happened down there?”
“Nothing,” I said with a growl, picking up a pair of thick dumbbells and beginning to curl them while I stared at the blank wall in front of me.
Florian snorted. Then he waited.
And waited.
“Let’s spar,” he suggested when I kept curling the dumbbells in silence. “You’ll work out more energy that way. And you fucking need it.You’re spewing alpha power everywhere, and it’s starting to tickle.”
He said it derisively, purposefully trying to make me feel insulted and challenged, as if my power was little more than a nuisance to him. He was trying to get under my skin.
In my current state, raw and exposed, shockingly vulnerable in a way I was unprepared for, it worked. I dropped the massive dumbbells and charged at him without warning, snarling with scales rippling everywhere under my skin.
My dragon was taking over again.
Did he think he could challenge us here, get the better of us? Did he think we would cave and let him have her? Nobody could have her! Nobody but me. She wasmine.
Florian was ready and waiting for us. We collided heavily, his blond hair whipping around his head as he tried to take me to the ground, where his superior wrestling skills would provide a good match to my strength.
Which is why I didn’t let it happen. I countered his move by wrenching my body over faster than expected and then pulled him with me. Florian left his feet in a blur, and I let go, tossing him ten feet into the air to slam down onto the mat.
“It’s like that, is it?” he said, bouncing to his feet and closing the gap between us in a blur, going for my knees.
My dragon snarled its fury as I dropped dualelbows into his back, leveling him face-first into the floor. He hit hard but didn’t pause as he rolled onto his back. Pulling his knees to his chest, he kicked out.
I was already reaching for his throat, and the agility of the move caught me by surprise. Now it was my turn to hurtle through the air—straight up and then straight down into the waiting punch that clobbered me. I bounced off the ground, rolling awkwardly.
“Orb be damned, what the fuck has gotten into you?” Florian snarled, wiping blood from his mouth as I scrambled to my feet with a dragon-throated growl, my eyes burning bright as my dragon pushed forward.
“I think you broke one of my teeth. If you’re this worked up, let me call one of the attendants for once in your life! You need to take some pressure off, Caz, before you kill someone. This is …”
But I didn’t hear what else he had to say. I had heard nothing after his suggestion to call one of the attendants, one of the women who would gladly do whatever I asked. A chance to lie with the ice tyrant was not something any of them would pass up. They would gladly help “relieve my pressure.”
My dragon, restrained since my last shout as I shut down its argument, surged back to the fore, renewed in its fervor. No woman would touchme. No woman but her.
Our mate.
Red colored my vision as I charged at Florian, losing all semblance of control at the suggestion that any woman but her would be good enough for me. That any woman but her was to touch me like thatever.Only her. Whatever it took, she would be the only one. And I hated anyone who even considered otherwise. Who thought they could split us up. Take her for themselves. She was …
“Mine!” I howled, deep in the bloodlust of a freshly awakened mate bond.
“What the fuck are you talking about?” he yelped, dodging aside as I swiped at his face, claws emerging from my hand. The tip of one just nicked his chin, drawing a thin line of blood.
A blast of ice slammed into me, knocking the wind from my lungs as it pressed me against the wall, pinning me there.
“I don’t know what the fuck is wrong with you today, but when you cool off and are ready to apologize for being an asshole, come find me. Not before,” Florian snarled from the other side of the ice wall he’d built, breaking the “rules” of sparring to do so.
He’d done it to stop me. To stop me from going over the top, from losing my cool. From hurting him for wanting nothing more than to help. I was an idiot. That was my best friend, one of myonlyfriends, and I had lost it on him. He didn’t even know she existed, how could he try to take her?
I’d fucked up with both of them now. At least this one I could fix right now. Besides, I had to tell someone.
Florian was already headed for the exit, not looking back.
“Ri. Wait,” I called, the hurt behind his words still stinging, helping keep me grounded enough to contain my monster. “I’m sorry.”
Florian paused. Then he slowly turned back, eyeing me with wary distaste. I didn’t enjoy it.
