It’s impossible to reason with a creature of light.
“Who are you?” he demands to know.
“Oh, sonowyou want to know who I am.” I narrow my eyes at him, although again, he won’t see it. “Before you were all:I’m going to kill you, you pathetic wolf.Now you’re wondering how the fuck I cut through your scales. Am I right?”
He makes a snarling sound that doesn’t sit well with his beautiful face, followed by a sharper demand for an answer. “Who are you?”
I shoot back. “Who areyou?”
Oh, that’s right, he already told me.
It takes a little of the wind out of me, but it seems he’s more than happy to give me his full title.
“I’m Kaito Ryuji, son of Rin and Yuma, alpha of the Kaito Dragon Family.”
I snarl back at him. “Well, I’m Veda Nostra, Daughter of Assholes. Also, you interrupted my breakfast and I’m beyond hungry now, so you could simply call meAngry.”
“Why are you here, Veda Nostra, Daughter of Assholes?”
“I came for a little peace and quiet. Which you’ve disrupted, so again, call meAngry.”
“Dark creatures don’t seek peace,” he snaps, his brown eyes flashing with apparent fury. “They seek destruction and death. They hunger for blood and pain. You cannot defy your nature.”
Oh, if I could only slap him right now.
He sounds too much like my father, justifying his violence as if it were for the greater good.
“Don’t give me that predetermination bullshit!” I snarl, baring my teeth at him. “I’ll defy whatever the hell I want.”
Come to think of it, since he’s keeping me close to him, I could simply defyhimby leaning in and tearing out his throat. Not something I’ve done before, despite my efforts to bite my father’s neck, but I’m willing to give it another try.
I smoosh my chest against Ryuji’s torso, attempting to get as close to him as I can, darting in and aiming my teeth for the side of his neck?—
Only to be met by a hot patch of gold.
It hits my face so fast that I’m left replaying within my mind the heartbeat of time before it reached me: a flash of light in his eyes, a chunk of gold ripping off the band around his chest, the stretching of that chunk into a shape like a muzzle before it smacked me across the mouth.
“Tell me why you’re really here,” he grinds out.
As if I can tell him anything now that he’s covered my mouth.
I roll my eyes at him and manage to make the sound of afuck you, but that’s all.
His hands lower to my legs.
The gold bands suddenly separate at the front of his chest, whipping backward, and then they’re wrenching my hands back up into the air. My claws are now pointing skyward.
The force of the gold’s changing position is so great that my head is wrenched back too. No chance of biting him now.
“Maybe I’ll simply let you fall to your death,” he says.
With another flash of energy within his eyes, the patch of gold over my mouth peels away. But now the gold around my wrists is pulling me farther backward. So much farther that my legs are beginning to slip away from his waist.
What is he doing?
I cling with all my might, attempting to lock my ankles together as I take a quick glance at the water far below us.
I try to keep my tone nonchalant but fail badly. “That water doesn’t look so bad to me.”
