Page 79 of Change

I breathed in deeply, forcing myself to smile, before I stuck my finger in my right ear and twisted it in an effort to heighten my hearing. I just wanted to be certain before any blood was spilt.

Miles was glancing nervously between the onmyoji and I. But he wasn’t important right now.

Damen was the one who held my attention.

“Excuse me, I don’t think I heard you correctly. Itsoundedlike you’re implying that Bianca is helping you investigate Eric Richards. But of course, that wouldn’t be the case, because none of you would be that stupid.”

They would. They’d totally be that stupid.

“She is.” Damen gave me a look that dared me to protest. “In fact, Bryce, Gregory and I took her to the crime scene yesterday afternoon.”

“I see…” The calm serenity that I’d been holding began to drift further away, and I could feel myself slipping. At this rate, I wouldn’t be able to hold myself back. “Well, then. I take it that everything went well?”

It obviously didn’t, otherwise they wouldn’t be so afraid of my reaction.

Miles and Titus both stood and solemnly looked at each other.

But Damen didn’t appear to notice. “Actually, no.” He began to stroke his chin as he studied the flames. He looked like a philosopher—so serious—and seemingly puzzled as to how this could have happened. “There were a few incidents.” His words echoed in my ears, and I couldn’t stop myself from imagining Bianca as he spoke. “It was fine in the beginning, but she ended up reverting, in a way. She had an attack, had trouble talking, and got sick. She disappeared, and Titus and I were finally able to find her hiding in her old bedroom. She didn’t recognize any of us at first.”

Was that so?

“So you lost her there?” On top of simplytakingher there, they’dleft her aloneat a place where she’d been tortured and assaulted? I was amazed that the last fragments of my calm hadn’t shattered, but it was inevitable. “How did that happen?”

“She couldn’t control her abilities for a while,” Damen said, considering. “She blinked, then cloaked herself in a corner of the room. Titus ended up finding her.”

Right. I had to get out of here before I killed them.

“Julian, no!” Miles pulled at my sleeve, and my muscles went taut. I resisted the urge to punch him. After all, he’d not been named in this story. “You can’t go to her when you’re angry like this, she—”

“Don't even try to tell me that you care if she sees me angry.” My throat hurt from the effort it was taking to hold back, and the patterns of the accent I worked so hard to conceal began to bleed through my voice. It just made me angrier, becausehewas the one who had issues with his temper. I didn’t want to share anything with the disgusting man who I called father. “You’re all hypocrites.”

“Hypocrites?” Miles let me go. “How—”

“I’m not aboutt-ta start on you two.” I gestured in Damen and Titus’s general direction. “Because you were both there for this idiocy. But you.” I narrowed my eyes at Miles. “How could you support this?”

Miles was frowning at me in disapproval, as if I was the crazy one. “Because I trust her to be able to handle it.”

“ ’ave you lost yourfucking minds?” My thoughts were red with fury and I swung at the door frame, slamming my fist into the beam of dark wood. Something gave in my hand, but there was no pain. I could feel nothing other than the rage coursing through me and the avalanche of dark thoughts threatening to overtake my psyche.

I wanted to hurt something, someone. To tear them apart. No one besides me was looking at this the right way. Bianca needed to be treated gently.

She was still barely recovering after almost being eaten alive, then from her hospitalization where she’d been tortured by the nurses, the trauma she’d suffered when realizing that Alyssa had sacrificed herself for her, the bond she shared with Kiania, and then being lost in the wilderness with Miles.

Throwing anything new at her was nothelping. She still had the line of a scar around her neck, for fucks sake. Why couldn’t anyone just let herrest?

“Julian.” Miles attempted to grab my arm, his cajoling voice prodding through my defenses. “I know you’re upset, but it was her decision to—”

“Because that’s what she does!” I swung out, barely missing his face as I fell two steps backwards into the hallway. “It’salwaysthe same, I keep remindin’ ya idiots! She’s always going to sacrifice how she feels, and what’s good and healthy for her, unless one of us is there to stop it. Don’t you remember how many times she’sdiedbecause of this?”

“We can’t have a discussion when you’re like this.” Miles was frowning, concerned, at me, and Titus finally stepped behind him—a silent backup. “Why don’t you come back in here, try to calm down, and then we can talk—”

“I’m done talking.” I stalked away, heading to the stairwell. I sucked in a breath, fighting to keep my voice even. “Do not bother us.”

“Us?” Miles nervously followed after me as the dragon began to close the distance between us.

Like he honestly thought he’d stop me.

Miles wrung his hands. “What do you mean—”