Demon's Mark (The Solomon Legacy: Book One)

Chapter Fifteen

Rhys' face was tight with anger as he practically ripped the door from its hinges and strode inside toward me.

"Should I muster a little courage and slap some sense into this angry-looking lad?" Callan had dropped my hand but not before Rhys noticed and shot a murderous glare at me.

"No, it's fine," I said. "He's the un-welcome committee at St. George."

At my mentioning the Academy's name, Rhys' mouth pulled into a tight line.

"You know this guy? Tell me you're related to him somehow and that's why you're standing here running your mouth right now," Rhys was looking at me. As unfriendly as he normally was, his absolute lack of social graces right now was sort of intimidating.

"He's in my class," I said lamely and Callan looked back and forth between us. "I didn't tell him anything. You're the idiot making a scene right now."

Rhys went from coiled viper to hissing rattler and backed down incrementally, his eyes suddenly on Callan. It took a few seconds, but suddenly there was a slow dawning of recognition in his eyes.

"You actually look familiar," he said, absolutely forgetting I was standing there.

"Do I?" Callan said a little too lightly. He was playing at something suddenly and I watched his face. His casual smile was tight, too, and the muscles in his cheek were drawn taught.

What the hell?

"Yeah, you do," Rhys' voice was quieter now, but ten times scarier than when he was yelling at me. Suddenly his chest was squared with Callan's and I was boxed out of the conversation completely.

Watching from a little bit of distance now, I sized both of them up as we moved toward an unavoidable, impending shit show. Callan was an inch or two taller than Rhys, who up to today was probably the biggest guy I'd ever come in contact with. Rhys' eyes were just about level with Callan's nose, but while Callan was taller, he was also rangier with a smaller build in the shoulders and in overall muscle. To put it into a little small-town perspective, Callan was a wide receiver. Rhys was a linebacker.

Both were looking a little feral right now and neither bothered to keep me in the loop as to what exactly was happening here.

"Azrael, right?" Rhys spat the name at Callan's feet. "Still the pretty little call boy with the annoying accent?"

I wasn't sure what a call boy was and made a mental note to look it up on my phone as soon as I was out of the combat zone.

"That's rich coming from Michael's prize lap dog," Callan laughed without looking like he had an ounce of humor in him at all. "Daddy been throwing you a bone here and there to keep you in line? New car? Nice shoes? A pretty collar for the servant boy?"

Oh, damn.

I took a reflexive step backward when I felt the air practically crackling with pre-fight electricity. And then it hit me—the little exchange that I'd just witnessed—Callan had dropped Michael's name. And Azrael, other than being the name of the evil cat on the Smurfs, it was a name I wasn't familiar with.

"Who are you?" I asked Callan, suddenly a little wary about everything I'd said.

"Great question to ask now," Rhys snarled, grabbing my hand and yanking me forward. Under his breath he continued. "You want to keep your mother and her husband safe? You need to stop acting like a complete dumbass all the time. You have no idea what you've just done."

As we strode out the building, I looked back toward Callan. He was actually smiling and winked at me while making the international sign for "call me" with his hand.