“We need to talk.”
“I remember saying the same thing to you yesterday,” I muse. “Didn’t do me much fucking good.”
“I don’t have time to hold your fucking hand, demon. We need to talk.” He pushes into the room, and I slide back with his approach, pushed by an unseen wind.Fucking fallen.They have more power than anyone should wield.
“Where’s Briar?” I don’t like that she’s unattended, so this better be important.
“In her room.”
“She shouldn’t be there alone. You know what this place is like.” I shouldn’t have to tell him this again.
“Of course I know what it’s like, I’ve been here longer than you’ve been alive!” he bellows, and the walls shake, but I’m not easily intimidated.
“Then you should know leaving her alone isn’t smart.”
“I instructed her to lock the door and not allow anyone in.”
I snort at his precaution. “That’s not enough to keep anyone out.”
“Then shut the fuck up so I can tell you what I need to, and you can go to her.” My bed slides across the room and slams into the wall. The frame cracks, leaving the mattress to drop to the floor on one side.
I lift an eyebrow, questioning why he’s so pissed, but I don’t think Ziv even notices. Why the hell I have to share a mate—a mate I can’t even fucking touch—with this asshole is beyond me. It’s like putting salt in a festering wound.
“Good thing I wasn’t planning on using that,” I mutter.
“I’m leaving,” he states. That brightens my mood. “Don’t celebrate too much. It’s not forever.” He narrows his eyes on me like he knows exactly what I was thinking. I never cared to wonder before, but now I’m curious what kind of power he truly possesses.
“Then why leave at all? I thought you were going to train her.” Maybe I was too hasty in resenting that he is her mate. I can’t give her the hands-on knowledge he can in combat.
“I’m going to find her father.” His teeth are clenched so hard, it’s almost difficult to understand him.
“For what?” I’ve been planning on killing the bastard myself. He better not even think about bringing him here, or Ziv will have a body to deal with.
“So I can kill him slowly, one fucking cell at a time, over and over again, until he’s nothing but rotting flesh.”
Impressive imagery,is my first thought, followed quickly by the knowledge that I want to be the one to kill him, but then the bigger question dominates my thoughts. “Why? What has he done?” The ever present shadows in my room shift with my darkening mood.
“He’s breathing,” Ziv sneers, not giving me any details.
“Tell me, fallen, or I will follow you when you leave to find him.”
The massive male takes a single step forward, unworried about my ability to end him with a single touch, and threatens, “And leave her alone? I would kill you myself for endangering her. You should be elated that I’m trusting her to your care.”
He has me there. I wouldn’t leave her alone, not here, where everyone is hungry for power, and she must have some to be enrolled in Ivy. “I want to know. I deserve to know just as much as you do.”
Ziv averts his eyes from me. “Hedeserves to die. You already know as much.”
“I do, but you clearly know more. Tell me,” I insist, though I have little means to compel him.
His jaw tics once, twice, and a third time before he finally says, “He sullied her.”
“Sullied her?” I exclaim, rebuking his choice of words. “There’s nothing he could have done to her that tainted her. What the fuck do you mean?” My mind is already sorting out possibilities, and I don’t like what it’s coming up with.
Ziv jerks his chin once in confirmation, as if reading my thoughts again, but says, “She isn’t tainted or sullied, I just…don’t have the words.” He looks away from me again, clearly bothered by what he said and how he said it.
“Don’t ever say that again. If he… If he hurt her, then that’s what you say, she’s not…”
He nods several times, and that’s when I notice how rough he looks. His eyes are nearly as wild as his silver hair, which is sticking up.
