~ CASIMIR ~
I stood there, in Rake's chamber, seething. Maya was at my shoulder, murmuring in my head that if I so much as twitched a finger towards my power, she'd cut me off for good.
'I don't believe you can do that.'
'Do you want to risk the possibility?'
I growled and the elders all watched me, disapproval heavy on their faces.
They'd already expressed their shock and unhappiness that I was even willing to put them in the position of having to make a judgment on this. But I did not back down.
And the longer we stood there, the further Jesse got from us.
My sense of her was fading. I would never lose it entirely, I knew. But it became fuzzy… uncertain. We'd never been this physically far apart before, and it was making me pant.
The roiling anger in my chest was giving way to fear.