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Sure enough, he takes another couple steps toward me, closing the space between us. Instinctively, everyone else steps back. They all know the feeling of a fight about to happen. That anticipation in the air, the electricity between two people itching to do each other harm.
“Don’t call me that,” Dean says.
It’s funny how even the simplest words can cut if they’re said sharply enough.
Dean hasn’t raised his voice, but he makes it perfectly clear that he isn’t fucking around. His fists tighten at his sides, and his shoulders swell as his body shifts into a more aggressive stance. He’s got the look of a fighter, as if he’s most natural in that position. If I were anybody else, I’d probably take a step back, cringing like a little bitch.
But I’m not somebody else.
I’m me. And I don’t back away from anybody.
“Don’t call you what?” I say. “Cuz?”
Dean takes another step forward until we’re within arm’s reach of each other. I’m taller than him by two inches, but he’s got a decent amount of muscle packed on his frame. I’m watching him carefully, though I don’t let it show. I stand there as relaxed and casual as ever.
“We’re not family,” Dean hisses. “Your whore of a motherbetrayedher family. She’s not a Yenin anymore. She’s just a piece of treacherous trash.”
I want to hit him so bad my fists are throbbing. I can’t let that go unanswered.
“The Yenins broke a blood oath,” I spit back at him. “I don’t know how the fuck you’re even here. You should be excommunicated. Whose cock did your father have to suck to get you back in?”
We rush each other at the same moment. I throw the first punch, right at his stupid fucking face. But to my surprise, he slips the hit so my fist barely glances off his jaw. I’ve never missed like that before.
At the same time, he hits me with a left hook that fucking rocks me. Dean may not be quite as big as me, but he’s fast as hell and strong. My head is ringing, and my hangover headache comes roaring back.
I swing at him again, and this time he can’t quite duck it—at 6’5 I’ve got a fuck of a longer reach than he’s used to. I pop him in the cheek, raising an instant red welt under his eye.
In retaliation he slugs me in the gut, hard enough to regurgitate whatever was in my stomach if I’d eaten any breakfast. Jesus he’s got a sledgehammer for an arm.
The howls of Bram and the other students draw the attention of the sailors. Two of the deckhands tear us apart before we can finish the fight. They’re big, burly men, and they fling us down on the deck, shouting for us to knock it off.
The bigger of the two, a man with a glass eye and two sensuously entwined mermaids on his forearm, points a sausage-like finger at me and growls, “Raise your fists again, and I’ll chuck you in the fuckin’ ocean. No fighting on board.”
He stands there, arms crossed over his broad chest, watching us both until Dean picks himself up off the deck and resumes his sullen position at the railing and I head back toward the bow.
I climb up in the net once more, making Ares stir and mumble in the midst of his nap. Anna glances up from her book.
“What the hell happened to you?”
She’s staring at my face.
I swipe my hand under my nose, blood smearing across my knuckles.
“Little family reunion,” I say.
“Dean?” Anna asks, eyes wide.
“Who else?”
“Why’d you have to go and fight him?”
“He started it. I was willing to be friendly.”
Anna frowns. “For how long, two seconds?”
“He called my mom a traitor!”
“Of course he did! You know what he’s probably been told. Did you even try to talk to him?”
