jesper
. . .
“Why wereyou talking to my girl?” Darian asked, possessiveness bleeding into his tone in a way I really didn’t like.
My magic flared hot in my gut at his words.
“Yourgirl?” I repeated, barely able to believe what he was insinuating.
“Yeah,” Darian said casually. “Rune.Mygirl. For a year now.”
“A year?”I stepped back, shock rippling through me like lightning.
She’d been with him that long?
April shifted closer, running a hand through her short, curly brown hair, her lip tucked between her fangs. “Tobias said you broke up,” she murmured. “Tobias isn’t a liar, so does that mean you’re trying to get her back?”
Darian shrugged, ice forming on his fingers as he raked a hand over his jaw. “We won’t be broken up for long. This is just a little fight. Lovers’ tiff, if you will.”
“Wait.” I stopped him, holding up a hand. “A year? You’ve been bringing random women back to Ma and Auntie’sconstantly. What do you mean you’ve been with Rune for a year?”
Darian lifted a finger to his lips, smirking. “Shh. Don’t say that too loud.”
April’s brow shot up, perfectly arched, her expression mirroring exactly how I felt—disbelief and disgust. The vampire had a solid understanding of good and bad, even if she lacked boundaries, something she really needed to work on.
“Clearly, if you were doing all that, you weren’t that serious about Rune. So just leave her alone. She’s a good girl. You’re…honestly, Darian, you’re a jackass,” I told him.
Darian let out a sarcastic laugh. “Yeah, yeah. I know. You’re the golden boy.” He threw a hand in the air and stalked off in the opposite direction. “Stay out of my way, Jesper!”
“That was weird,” April said softly, frowning. “I didn’t know you were cousins.”
“Yeah. Our moms are sisters,” I muttered, dragging a hand down my face.
My head wouldn’t stop spinning.
Why did it bother me so much? Knowing Rune and Darian had dated for an entire year was really messing with me. Darian wasn’t a good man. I didn’t understand how he even stayed a student here. Darian didn’t care about feelings or consequences. The way he treated women? I wouldnever.
Not after what our moms had gone through. Not after what I knew dragons—whatI—was capable of.
But this feeling etched into my chest? It was a new kind of burn. I knew it could only be jealousy.
I had never dated or been with anyone. It wasn’t that I didn’t want an intimate or loving interaction, but it was because I never wanted to put myself in the situation where I could hurt someone. After what happened with Mom and my biologicaldonor, I’d decided long ago that being a dragon meant I needed to be careful around women.
Drakes and dragons had a long-standing stained history. A legacy of control and violence. It may have run through my blood, but I would not be part of it.
Darian didn’t care about it, but I did.
“Um,so, here are my notes.” April passed me the notes from our last mission briefing.
I took them, flipping through the papers absently. The field mission checklist was solid. She accounted for every point.
“Looks good,” I said, double-checking the ending summary. “You should be fine to turn it in to Professor Bloodwyne.”
“Woo!” she grinned, but I barely registered it. “Thanks, Jesper.”
“Keep up the good work.” I handed her the papers and stalked off toward the wayfaer crystal that led off campus.
I couldn’t stop thinking about Rune’s face when Darian outed us as cousins. Her expression twisted when she found out. Her pure disgust landed like a punch straight to my gut.
