Masks
TITUS
After the feast, I tossed in my bed, unable to sleep—but what else was new? I could never fucking sleep. I kept replaying the events of the night in my mind, and I just wanted to shut my brain off. I could incinerate entire forests and melt solid stone, but I couldn’t quiet my own damn thoughts.
I sat up, tossed my blankets aside, and let out a frustrated groan. Everything was so fucked. So utterly and completely fucked.
My General—once a rabid dog—had turned into a lovesick puppy, and my Master of Dragons was completely obsessed with my mate and being disobedient. I could no longer ignore it. He wanted her, and our Fae nature was bringing out the possessiveness in him. That stunt with the rose had been such a disgusting display of affection, and she ate it up like she’d been starving for attention. I hated the way her face lit up.
What I hated more was how hard it was for me to be mean to her.
But I needed her to hate me. It was the only way I could control the situation—and ultimately, control her. I only had to wear this villain mask for a little while longer, and then she would be gone.
When she interrupted my conversation with the captains, yes, I had been annoyed. But I took it as an opportunity to tell her what I needed her to believe. Did I go too far?You are nothing to me.I told her that—along with a bunch of other mean shit I couldn’t even recall right now.
I was still in a daze. Prisca’s death loomed over me like a thick fog. Even in death, my sister still plagued me. Because of her actions, she had left me with no choice. I didn’t grieve for her. The only thing I would miss were her lime-green eyes—they were my mother’s, a rarity among fire kind. I wished I could have inherited more of my mother’s traits, but instead I was the spitting image of my damn father.
There hadn’t been a single day in our childhood when Prisca loved me. Not even liked me. She had hated me from the moment I was born—detested my very existence. It was her hatred that prevented her from ever getting to know me.
I despised being judged. I hated when opinions were made about me based on how I looked and what my aura and power suggested. If everyone was just going to assume that I was a monster, then there was no point trying to convince them otherwise. I would be the monster. It was just another mask to add to the collection.
But there was one thing that didn’t add up—and it was the thought that had kept me up all night.
If I was such a monster… then why had Delilah warned me? She saved me.Why save a monster?
After Draxxinar devoured my sister, the world went black—like an out-of-body experience. I couldn’t see or hear anything. It was like dreaming while submerged in a pool of darkness. Then, out of nowhere, I heard Delilah’s voice shout my name. The panic in her cadence reached down into the dark and ripped me out of that conscious dream with a clenched fist.
I immediately sensed a threat, but I was disoriented. I couldn’t tell from where—or from which direction. Instinctively, I shoved my power into the ground and blocked it from all sides. That’s when I realized she was too close. She had taken the brunt of the shockwave, and her mortal body sustained real damage.
I mind-linked Gleeda and told her to go to Delilah first. Then I took Delilah’s pain away before she could even feel the bulk of it. It was the least I could do.
I’d been so cruel to her, and she had still warned me.But why?
What was wrong with this stupid human woman? Why couldn’t she just fucking hate me? Things would be so much easier if she would just fucking hate me. My mind would be clearer. My senses would be sharper. I had been so focused on her that I foolishly hadn’t even looked at who—or what—had tried to attack me.
I just left.
I was ashamed that I had hurt her. Ashamed that I cared about her so much that I lost my mind and commanded my dragon to eat my sister. In front of everyone, I had revealed a weakness.
And that weakness was a five-foot-three blonde mortal with angelic blue eyes.
I focused on the fire burning in the fireplace in my room. It was an unusually chilly night, and I wondered if she had her fire lit. I told myself I wasn’t going to fire-gaze into her room anymore, but I worried she’d be too cold and purposely refuse to light her fires just because of me.
So, like a pathetically weak male, I gazed into her room.
To my surprise, her firewaslit. But she had a sheet strung up across the mantel, held taut to the floor by books, blocking my view.The sight made me laugh—an emotion so unusual for me that it startled even me.
She thought she was so smart. But she forgot the one in the washroom, and the door was cracked just enough for me to see her tossing and turning in her bed.
Something in me ached. She was restless, just like me. I couldn’t blame her. I was sure she was traumatized after tonight. How could she not be? This wasn’t her world, and she wasn’t used to the brutality that came with magic.
I felt this overwhelming urge to go to her room and… do what? I wasn’t exactly sure. Comfort her? Fuck her? Apologize? Thank her? Make her hate me more? All of it sounded pleasing right now.
Especially the fucking part.
Out of all the warm-toned gowns in her wardrobe, she always selected slinky black ones—as if to taunt me. Like she was unwilling to conform to my colors. As if she were challenging me, egging me on to claim her, to make her my queen.
Then—and only then—would she wear my colors with pride. Then I remembered the strappy leather bodysuit she wore to train in. That shit broke me.
