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Dorothy sits forward, hanging on my words.

“I think she was a coward who could not shoulder the weight of her own ambitions, who was trying to run away from the consequences of her own actions.”

Her eyes widen as if the thought never occurred to her.

“And now she’s burdened you with cleaning up her mess because she wasn’t powerful enough to fix it.”

Her eyes glitter with a swell of tears, and if she starts crying, I’m walking out the fucking door.

“You want to change your destiny? Then fucking do it. Stop sitting here ruminating on what the point of it all is. Stop trying to control the uncontrollable and just fucking take a step in a direction, any direction, and do something about it.”

“Do something about it,” she repeats.

“Yes. Do something wild. Something unexpected. Stop letting everyone else tell you where to go and what to do.”

She stubs out the cigarette in a nearby ceramic dish and climbs to her feet, crosses the room.

She looms over top of me.

“Do you think he’s watching us at all times?”

I think I know where she’s going with this.

“He’s not omniscient.”

“When he came to me in the West’s castle, I got the distinct impression he was jealous of you.”

I snort and scrub at my eyes with my good hand, trying to drive away some of the pounding in my head. “He is extremely powerful, but there will always be things he wants that are very hard for him to have.” I glance up at her, and add, “And even harder for him to keep.”

“Are we talking about the same thing?” she asks.

“I don’t know, are we?”

She climbs on my lap, straddling me.

Without thinking, I rest my good hand on her thigh.

“Something unexpected?” She runs her hand through my hair.

“Not exactly what I meant.”

She lifts a brow, cants her head. “Are you complaining?”

The heat of her is close and my cock takes notice.

“No,” she decides, feeling the hardness taking shape. “No, you are not.”

“Is this for you, for me, or for him?”

Not missing a beat, she says, “Does it matter?”

She hasn’t come right out and said it, but when the Wizard’s name takes air, her expression changes. First to shame, then desire and excitement, before it settles into rage.

It’s not like my brother to fuck people he means to fuck over. It’s not his style. Too messy, too weak. He doesn’t need to use his body for power when his intellect and his magic will do. But somehow, he found himself giving in just as I am now.

This is also not my style. If I have a need, I serve it, then I extract myself just as quickly. I rarely mix business with pleasure.

This is one of the things my brother and I have in common: too messy, too weak.