“I know if I gut you, you won’t be able to do it.”
His brows snap together and he looks down at the blade pressed right against his cock. The blade that he didn’t even hearme pull free from its sheath.
“Careful, Creed. Wouldn’t want to lose what I’m betting is your strongest… appendage.”
The man-boy sighs and gives me the space I want, but he shuffles back only a few feet.
“Do you even know what your powers are, Haide? Do you even know if youhaveany? Because I know the island blocks all magic that could threaten its purpose. You were born there, so something tells me your powers haven’t even fully formed.” He pauses and when I say nothing, his smirk sharpens. “That’s what I thought.”
“Fuck you. I could kill you with my hands before you even had time to throw your little spells, or whatever, at me.”
“I’ll just take your word for it,” he deadpans, clearly completely unthreatened. “And you need to take mine as a royal decree. You’re going to that school.”
“Your royal decrees mean absolute fuck-all to me. I’m not from here. I don’t want tobehere, so just send me back and all will be better.”
“That’s not going to happen. I need my brother here, and he seems to think you’re more than the pain in the ass I see.”
“I am not his mate.”
“I’m inclined to agree.”
Wait, what?
My shoulders drop. “Really?”
“Really.” He doesn’t blink. “I don’t sense his beast stirring the way Knight’s did when London came along, but it could be because you come from the island. Maybe it’s blocked you from more than just your powers. Then again, maybe he’s mistaken obsession for something more. I honestly don’t care so long as he is safe, which means I need him near. That means keepingyounear and making sure you can, at the very least, learn how to act like a gifted and not cause him even more problems.”
“Yeah, not really selling me on this whole school situation.”
“We are gifted, Haide. You might come from a place where we send the worst of our kind, but they are stunted there. Here, they are not.Weare not. We can creep into your mind and control you. We can make you see what we want, do what we wish, and you will be none the wiser. You will be a puppet to our pleasure if that is what we see fit. Even the help could take you out without so much as an ounce of energy.”
“They could try.”
He glares. “The point is, whether you believe it or not, you are prey. At Rathe U, we turn prey into predator.”
My mind starts to catch up to his suggestion.
It’s ridiculous, honestly.
Me? Go to…school.
I’ve never been to school.
That’s the point though, isn’t it? Everything I learned I either taught myself or learned from the exiled on the island. Gifted who were stripped of the very thing that made them what they were—dangerously feral and unforsaken, butpowerless.And liars, most of them.
A spark of—something—lights in my chest, but I snuff it out. The feeling not exactly a welcome one.
“I can see it in your eyes, Haide. You want to know what else you’re capable of. What lies you’ve been told all your life. Learn what no one has cared to teach you. The truths and lies of the gifted world. Rathe U can give you all of that and more.”
My eyes narrow, and while I can’t read his damn mind, I can read his expression, as stoic as it is. “What’s in it for you?”
“I told you, I need my brother here.”
“No.” I shake my head. “That’s not it. You just want to keep me on a leash.”
“If you’re really Legend’s mate, which I highly,highlydoubt, then you already have one. And it’s bound tight around thatpretty neck of yours.”
“He’s not my mate.”
