Fire

Warmth

“Jess, wait!”

I groaned, quickening my steps. There was nothing more to say, I didn’t want to talk to him. But apparently that wasn’t an option with Juku, since he was following me down the hallway.

“Hey, wait! Come on, don’t be like that.”

Face flushed, I turned on him. “What? What do you want?”

He skittered to a halt beside me, reaching out to grip my shoulder. “Hey look…”

“Stop that…” I pulled away, scowling at him. “Geeze, Juku. You’re constantly overstepping, you know that?”

For a second I saw a flash of irritation, and then it was gone. He was smiling again, looking embarrassed. Now I wasn’t sure if the emotion was genuine or not.

“Look,” he started…but I held up my hands and he trailed off.

“What? Just spit it out. I’m not interested in a training session if that’s what you…”

“It’s not that.” His voice was short. “I just don’t want to see you hurt.”

“What, afraid I’ll wander out into the forest again?” I snorted. “That won’t happen again, I can’t be fooled twice with the same trick.”

“I’m not talking about the rebels. I’m not talking about physically hurt.” Juku’s brows creased.

This gave me pause. I blinked at him. “What? What are  you talking about?”

He looked like he was going to reach for my arm again, and then stopped when I gave him an incredulous look.

“Look,” he said. “I know you and the prince are…are like an item or something.”

“That’s really none of your business.” I shouldn’t have felt defensive over it, but for some reason the way Juku said it, well…it made anger flare up inside me. “I’m not inclined to discuss my love life with you.”

“Your love life is going to end badly.” Juku folded his arms over his broad chest, his face serious. “You have to be realistic.”

Oh yeah, now I was irritated. Narrowing my eyes at him I gritted out, “What are you talking about?”

“Asher is a prince. He’s going to be a king someday. You think he’s gonna marry you?”

“Who’s talking about marriage?” I yelped. “I just turned seventeen a couple months ago! Are you crazy?”

He threw up his hands, grimacing. “Geeze, settle down. What I meant was…the relationship is not really going anywhere. It can’t. So…what’s the point?”

I glared at him. Folding my arms over my chest and mimicking his stance. “Well for starters, as I clearly stated, I’m not walking down the aisle anytime soon. Second of all, I’m pretty sure his mother…”

“That was a special case.” Juku shrugged. “But there’s no way his parents will let him be with a human.”

“Half,” I put in, and was irritated to see him roll his eyes.

“You think that matters, Jess? The blood line is going to get completely diluted if they let him marry a half human. The power will just fizzle out, and Asher is already…” he saw my expression and finished on a more polite note, “he’s already devoid of power, possibly because he has too much human in him, from his mother. The jotun cannot allow their royalty to become powerless.”

I fell silent, inner thoughts in turmoil. “But…I’m half human, and I’m…I have power.”

He quirked a brow at me. “You got lucky. Probably because your mother is very strong. If you and Asher ever had kids they might not be as lucky. You know how it kills Asher not to have any power. Would you want to bring kids into this world that suffer the same problem?”