Page 119 of To Scale the Emerald Mountain

“We were walking and came up on the empty house and Elly was drawn to it, like totally fucking fixated—“

My ears drown out the rest of Cescily’s hasty explanation.

Engaged. To someone else.

Alec nearly married a woman who was not me. He would have had children with a woman who was not me. She would have slept in my home, in my bed, wrapped in arms that belong tome. A primal urge in me longs to find this Rahleigh. To rip her head straight from her shoulders with my bare hands; for her blood to slide down my arms while I steal her life.

“This is exactly why I told you to stay away!” Alec is screaming.

“Oh, please. I think I just did you a favor!” Cescily defends.

“You know how Elly reacted the first time! You should not have told her and insisted she come speak to me!” Alec bellows.

Cescily raises her hands again, lost for words.

“Could you not have at least warned me?”

I scan the courtyard while they continue to bicker back and forth.

“And denied myself the opportunity to see this? Ha, I think not!”

“Fuck you, Cescily!” Alec pushes his arms forward, splashing at her angrily and drenching the hem of her dress. “You are always dipping your grimy little fucking fingers in everyone else’s lives—“

I throw another brick, but Alec is more prepared, his senses no longer muted, being above water. He dodges my attack quickly and the brick splashes in the pool behind him. Alec quickly turns to face me, making waves in the pool.

“Stop throwing bricks at me!”

“Oh, I’m sorry. You seemed like you needed a reminder that I’m still fucking here!” I scream right back.

Alec puts one palm at the edge of the pool and pulls himself out in an impressive feat of strength, exuding nothing but infuriating masculine grace.

Water drips from every pane of his body as he pads heavily to me.

“As if I could ever forget,” he hisses in my face.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” My chest is heaving.

“When? When would I have told you? You have been rejecting me for weeks—only being receptive to me when it suits you. You flee any time I try to say something real. And now you throw a brick at my head out of jealousy for a woman that I left years ago?For you?”

“I am not jealous,” I snarl, and he laughs in my face.

Alec gives me a cold smile and cocks his head to the side, a cobra preparing to strike. “You are a brat, Elly,” he says heatedly.

More boiling blood rushes to my face as I rear back to slap him, but he grabs my wrist and tosses it aside, like it’s nothing more than a pesky fly.

“Who do you think you are?” I scream at him indignantly.

“I think I am the one who personally cultivated that personality trait! Because you deserve everything you want. Every whim, every desire. They shall be yours, and I will be the one to give them to you!” Alec’s deep, booming voice echoes against the walls of the courtyard, amplifying his words.

He’s breathing heavily through his nose and looking down on me furiously, riding a very fine line while barely holding in his composure. Blood and water drip down the expanse of his chest, running through the deep gouges of his scars. I swallow hard and force myself to meet his eye again.

“What do you want?” Alec asks me with a bite.

Burning fire still incinerates me, begging me to keep fighting with him.

“I want you to tell me something.”

“Anything,” Alec says desperately, softening. He gently cups my cheeks in his large hands, holding me as if I’m made of glass.