Their Wife: Book 2

Two

Jaxon Novak

My fingers tightened painfully around the glass. The carved groves of the crystal dug into my skin. Lifting it to my lips, I parted them just enough to let the golden liquid light a welcomed trail down my throat. The burn helped tamper the shake in my hand.

"What the fuck is wrong with you?" Ezra shouted, sending a decorative crystal ball shattering against the wall.

I lowered the cup with more strength than I intended. It clanked heavily onto the bar top I was leaned against. My dragon was getting harder and harder to leash. The events that took place a few hours prior coupled with the lingering scent of blood that was imprinted onto my mind had him throwing himself against the mental cage that confined him. I had already caught myself having to stop my nails from extending into claws a few times tonight.

My control was slipping.

I curled my fingers and clenched my teeth.

I wouldn't let that happen. I wasn't a clueless child in need of the guiding hand of a parent anymore. I was a grown man, a dragon. I didn't need anyone. I didn't need that whelp of a girl to have control over my beast.

I clenched my hands tighter, trying to remind my dragon of that fact. He seemed to have become more fixated with the little slave than I had thought he would. It was beginning to look like a problem.

I sighed.

Sadly it wasn't a problem I could fix by distancing my beast from his subject of interest until his fascination died down. Not after what the girl did for Ezra.

Cassius wouldn't take a life debt for one of us lightly.

None of us would.

It's how we ended up with Ezra's soft ass to begin with. If he hadn't used his knowledge of plants to nurse me back to health when I was shot out of the sky once as an inexperienced fledgling, he wouldn't have had my considerations. Neither would the slave.

My slave.

I shook my head at the insistent thought. I couldn't let my dragon's infatuation affect me. She was my nothing. Just a princess experiencing what it was like for the other half. She hadn't experienced even a fraction of what many young men did on a daily. Even I wasn't that big of a monster to inflict that kind of damage on another.

I had a full view of the family room we occupied to deal with the unexpected shit storm Zev had sent us hurtling into. The culprit himself stood stone-faced across the room, leaning against the wall by the bay windows that looked out onto the lake in the distance. Storm clouds blocked the moon from shining down its light on the waters. At least the ominous weather had scared the guest off early in the form of a bad omen. Even the ones that planned to leave in the morning had fled with false sympathies and lies of wanting to give us space to process the events the night brought.

"Ezra, you need to calm down-" Cassius started, trying to rein everyone in like usual. If I had name someone who loved control more than me, it would have to be the dark-haired demon. Though he was vague and elusive of his past, avoiding the subject altogether at times when questioned, I could recognize the desperate need for control that came with the knowledge of what came when you lost it.

When you had control, the actions of others didn't matter.

"Calm down?" Ezra asked, exasperated as he focused his burning glare on Cassius. "Are you fucking kidding me? After everything that just happened, after what you did, you're going to tell me to calm down? Well, fuck you, Cassius. Fuck all of you," he said, looking around the room.