Chapter 79: _ What Were You Doing With Her?

I swallowed the spike of urge to snap Raice’s neck. I shoved a hand into my pocket and offered him the signature Wulfram smirk—the one that usually had noblewomen swooning.

"Well, well," I drawled, leaning against his iron doorframe as if I owned the stone beneath his boots. "Look at that. The ice statue speaks. And here I thought your vocal cords were purely decorative."

Raice didn’t smirk. His eyes, sharp as shattered glass, fixed on mine like a bored immortal forced to interact with dirt.

"I don’t have the time today to listen to dogs. Either get lost or go bark elsewhere." He said in such an almost inaudible voice that grated on every one of my nerves.

Argh... the hypocrisy of that bastard! Always acting so composed while the blood in the veins of the rest of us boils.

He began to swing the door shut right in my face.

’Punch him,’ Riven growled, roaring inside my skull until my vision flickered green. ’Punch the white-haired elf in his beautiful, arrogant face! Rip his throat out for putting his hands on our female!’

Not now, Riven! I hissed internally, my fingers twitching inside my pocket.

It was infuriating. I was a prince of the Wolf Realm. I didn’t get flustered by insults from a social recluse who lived in a cliffside cave. But the urge to drive my fist straight into Raice’s nose wasn’t even about his words. It was the mental image of his fingers sliding over Elira’s waist two nights ago, pressing her against the stone while she gasped into his mouth.

My blood felt like it was boiling in my veins.

Before the door could latch, I thrust my boot into the gap, catching the iron-studded oak with a CLANG.

"Ouch, Raice. You wound me. My very first time visiting your cozy little estate, and you won’t even offer me a cup of tea? Where are your royal manners?" I purred, putting enough weight against the door to keep it open.

Raice stopped pushing. "What do you want, wolf?"

Before I could answer, his head snapped upward toward the empty rafters above his entry hall. His throat worked as if he were swallowing glass.

"Shut up," Raice spat at the ceiling. There was nobody there. Just bare basalt and drifting mountain mist. "I said be quiet."

A cold shudder ran straight down my spine.

’He’s insane,’ Riven whimpered in my head, suddenly pulling back from his bloodthirsty rage. ’Ivar, the Fae is talking to air. He’s completely unhinged. Let’s kill him and take our female home.’

I am not taking her home, and I am not fighting a madman on a cliff, I snapped back.

I hated this. I genuinely, deeply hated this. I was a creature of comfort, strategy, and subtle manipulation. Yet here I was, standing on a wind-swept ledge, negotiating with a lunatic who argued with invisible spirits, all because a markless trench rat had consumed every waking thought in my head.

"I’ll tell you what I want," I said, smoothing down my lapels and forcing my voice to sound like their usual arrogant self. "The moment you invite me inside like a proper host."

Raice stared at me for three long seconds. I could practically see the calculations running behind his violet eyes, weighing the energy required to incinerate me against the energy required to endure my presence.

With an irritated exhale that sounded almost like a growl, he stepped back and threw the door wide. "Five minutes. Then I throw you off the cliff."

"Charming as always," I chirped, stepping over the threshold.

The moment I crossed into his private quarters, my eyebrows twitched upward.

I didn’t know which was messier: Raice’s fractured mind or the disaster of his living room.

The main chamber was a sprawling, stone-carved cavern, but it looked like a hurricane had thrown a library through an armory.

Leather tomes were stacked in leaning towers on the floor. Shattered glass vials, dried herbs, and half-melted candles littered the tables.

"Fascinating decor," I mocked, stepping over a pile of burnt parchment. "I see High Rector Maddox’s gold buys everything except a housekeeper."

Raice didn’t answer. He turned to face me, folding his arms over his chest.

In the dim light streaming through the arched windows, the daylight caught his skin. Fae royalty were irritatingly ethereal. His skin possessed a luminescent sheen; his bone structure was almost flawless, and his white hair fell around his face in soft waves.

He looked like a glowing infant. A baby-faced doll attempting to shoot death glares and a body count.

I couldn’t resist. I grinned, leaning my weight onto my back foot.

"You know, if you wiped that murderous glare off your face, you could easily pass for an angel on a holiday card. Do the first-year girls squeeze your cheeks when you walk past them? Particularly, a certain silver-brown-haired Dragon?"

Raice’s eyes narrowed into slit-like points. "Wolves are filthy, flea-ridden dogs. They do not belong near gracious creatures of the Fae. State your business, Ivar, or I will turn your tongue into a toad and feed it to the crows."

"By the time this conversation is over, sweet prince," I purred, my grin souring, "we’ll see who’s turning into a toad."

The playful banter evaporated. I took a step forward, letting all the simmering rage, jealousy, and frustration that had been eating my lungs out since the Gala pour straight into my posture.

"I came across a rather disturbing little scene two nights ago," I began. "And as a third-year prince of this Academy, I find I simply cannot let it go. We have a solemn, sacred duty to protect first-year initiates, do we not? Regardless of which pathetic, low-born faction they crawl out of."

Raice didn’t move a muscle. He stood like a stone pillar, watching me.

"So imagine my absolute shock," I pressed on, taking another step until I was barely five feet from him, "when I caught the legendary, disciplined Prince of the Fae Realm slinking through the shadows like a desperate beast, cornering a markless trench rat against the stones."

I gestured grandly with my hands. "The noble Raice Ignis-Dominus! Stooping so low as to intimidate, touch, and make out with a dragonless commoner who probably wears borrowed dresses and cleans boots for a living! Putting his hands all over her like some starved, rutting animal!"

’He touched our female! Tell him! Tell him she belongs to the Wolf! Tell him I will rip his limbs off if he breathes on her scent again!’ Riven roared in my head.

I barely managed to keep Riven’s green aura from flaring across my shoulders. I was furious at Raice, but I was even more furious at myself.

I was losing my mind over a girl I had known for three days. A girl who had publicly accused me of being an outlaw, who had no magic, who carried zero political value—and yet, the thought of Raice touching her skin made me want to burn the realm to ashes.

I waited for Raice to snap. I waited for him to draw his magic, to snarl, to offer some defensive lie.

Instead, Raice went eerily silent.

The irritation that had rattled him when he opened the door was no longer there. But his eyes... They held a tiny flicker of amusement.

He was mocking me.

Without saying a single word, Raice tilted his head and his lips twitched into a ghost of a contemptuous smile, as if he were watching a foolish puppy bark at a thundercloud.

That was it. That was the limit of my composure.

Tipped over the edge, I snapped forward, grabbing his collar and yanking him half a step toward me.

"What the hell is so funny?! Answer me, you crazy bastard! What are you doing with Elira?!"