I did to you?” He gives a harsh laugh. “Not a good idea, Eloise.”
“You hardly did anything. You didn’t and won’t hurt me,” I say with the same certainty as last time.
“Then you didn’t listen to what I told you. I’ll speak to you in the morning. Tomorrow, I’ll be calmer.”
I make to walk by him again and he stretches his massive arm across the door at my head height. His attempt to block me fails as I duck beneath his arm and stand in the middle of the room.
“You’ll have to drag me out,” I retort.
“I’m not touching you again.”
“Good.”
But when he closes the door and flicks on the light, I’m uneasy.
His room is a similar size to Zeke’s but sparser and with little personal touches. His walls are bare, and the bed made with the brown academy blankets rather than the colourful duvets and sheets most kids have sent in from the mainland. The only real difference is the thin blue fabric pinned in a square across the bulb in the ceiling and shrouding the room with more darkness than a bare bulb would.
Ethan scowls. “I’m listening. Tell me what Marcus wants you to do.”
My heart beats faster as I say the words, making the whole situation more real. “Kill Dorian—with yours and Zeke’s help.”
“What the fuck?”
Keeping my distance from Ethan, I relay as much as I can remember from my conversation with Marcus, because after he showed me the Nighthold images, the shock prevented me taking much more in.
Ethan listens intently and when I finish, he scratches his cheek. “I knew I was correct.”
“What do I do?” I ask.
“I don’t have the answer, Eloise. Only you do.”
“I can’t kill. I don’t want to.”
Ethan takes a deep breath. “But Marcus knows that I can. I’ve killed before.” Cold fear trickles into my blood at his matter of fact tone and suddenly Ethan blocking my exit scares me. “That’s why I’m here. That’s why I stay away from people.”
I grasp for words, but none will come.
“But I would never ask you to do that,” I say hoarsely. “That’s not why I came to see you.”
“I might not have a choice.”
I step back. “You’d kill Dorian?”
He shrugs. “Possibly. There’ve been a few attempts on his life, but nobody succeeded so far.”
“No, are you prepared to?”
“I’m not, but if I’m triggered, I don’t know, and I trigger very, very easily if someone threatens me or someone I care about.” He pauses. “I shifted and killed another shifter who attacked my sister. That’s why I’m here.”
“Oh,” I say barely audibly, unsure how to respond.
With a shake of his head, Ethan steps away from the door and fills the space between us. “Do you understand now why you can’t be here right now? You push deep into the side of me I struggle to control, and the emotions dragged up today have pushed me closer to the edge. Everything in here is linked.” He places fingers on his temples and then his chest. “Fear, anger, love. Violence and sex.”
“I know. All shifters share that primal mix,” I say.
“But I’m not a typical shifter.”
“A dragon hybrid. I guessed the dragon side,” I say. “But I don’t know your other… part.”
He gives a wry smile. “No. I’m not a dragon shifter, Eloise.”
“But you hinted you were.”
The atmosphere in the room thickens the longer he stares without responding. “I shifted too early, Eloise.” He says eventually and rubs a hand across his mouth as he watches my confusion. “I’m a mid.”
“What?” I choke out.
I may’ve imagined Ethan’s naked body a few times, but never once considered he looked any different to other shifters apart from his size.
“Not so much physically, but mentally. I have dragon traits that are close to the surface all the time. They eat at my humanity, Eloise. That’s why I’ll never leave Ravenhold apart from a move to Nighthold. Nobody can control me—I can’t control me.”
“Which is why you keep yourself closed down,” I say flatly.
“Yes.” His voice is barely a whisper. “But I can’t close down from you.”
“Marcus wants you to lose control,” I say, eyes widening. “He knows you will.”
“Yeah, he knows. He offered me a place with the Confederacy. I told him no.” He laughs. “Marcus wasn’t impressed. I have six months, so I either get the hell out now or try my luck at Nighthold.”
“But we can’t get off the island.”
“Exactly. Although it seems Marcus has found a way for me to work for them in an indirect