AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Tyrell’s eyes were as dark as ever, but he tipped his head in answer to Mia’s question, his attention not leaving Grayson.
They were two predators, circling each other. Waiting for the other to make a fatal mistake. Searching for an opening. Salivating for blood. Fates, they’d been here before. So many times. But never quite like this—not with quite so much to lose.
Not with Mia standing between them.
“We should go,” Tyrell said. “Father won’t want to be kept waiting.”
Grayson bent, ignoring the ripple of fire across his jaw as he brushed a kiss against Mia’s surprised lips.
From the corner of his eye he saw Tyrell twist away.
The predatory beast in Grayson growled in satisfaction.
When he drew back, Mia’s lips were pursed, her expression troubled. “You don’t need to torture him,” she murmured.
Those admonishing words shredded something inside him. He hated that Mia had seen his pettiness. More than that, he hated himself for deliberately using Mia to hurt Tyrell.
He also hated that her words—spoken with a pang of hurt—meant shedidcare about Tyrell.
His gut clenched. “I love you.” Fates, the words shouldn’t sound so desperate.
Mia gazed up at him, and he didn’t think he imagined the edge of censure there. “I love you, too,” she said softly.
Thoroughly chastised, he swore to himself he would never use Mia like that again. It didn’t matter if it hurt Tyrell—not when it hurt Mia, too.
He stepped into the hall, ignoring the stares of the Fletchers. They made his skin itch. He strode after Tyrell, who must have been measuring his steps carefully, because Grayson caught up with him at the top of the stairs.
As Grayson made to pass him, Tyrell said, “Don’t. We need to talk.”
“We really don’t.”
Tyrell matched Grayson’s pace, keeping them even as their boots clipped down the stone steps. “This concerns Mia’s safety.”
His spine stiffened. “Is that a threat?”
Tyrell gritted out a curse. “I’m not the one endangering her.”
Grayson spun to face his brother. Tyrell tensed, but didn’t strike, so Grayson also checked himself. His fists opened and closed at his sides, and they stood glaring at each other on the otherwise abandoned staircase. “I’m not a threat to Mia,” Grayson finally growled.
“Aren’t you?” Tyrell’s words were as sharp as the knives they both carried. “You’re clearly not sane. You’ve held a blade to Father’s throat twice now, and you’re bristling with so much rage, I’m not convinced you won’t attack Father when you see him.”
Mia was the only thing holding him back on that score. If he didn’t need to get her safely away from his family and back to Desfan, he would have killed Henri already.
“You’ve fallen out of his favor,” Tyrell continued. “We all know it. He blames you for Liam’s death, whether it was your fault or not. If you so much as twitch in a way he doesn’t like, he will punish Mia.”
“You’re not telling me anything I don’t already know,” Grayson said, his voice pitched low. “I’ve lived with that sword hanging over me for years.”
The skin around Tyrell’s eyes tightened—probably at the reminder that Mia had been in Grayson’s life far longer than she’d been in his. “She doesn’t know who you really are, but I do. And I’m telling you, if you put her life at risk, Iwillkill you. That way, Father won’t have any reason to punish her.”
Grayson edged out a bladed smile. “You would like that, wouldn’t you?”
“She’d be better off without you.”
“You think she’d be better off withyou?”
Tyrell glared. “At least I wouldn’t let her suffer. I’m not stupid enough to rebel against Father.”
“You’re his slave.”
