"You froze the entire room! A goddamn room full of fire dragons...who you nearly killed Isola!" My uncle shouts, while I look down at the floor. It was an accident, but I doubt telling him that will make a difference at the moment. He has been shouting at me for the last twenty minutes, and nothing I’ve tried to say has made even a little difference. If anything, me trying to speak a word just annoys him more.

"All because I called you stunning," Dagan says in a cocky tone, speaking for the first time. Both my uncle and I turn to glare at him. That was not all that he said, and the ass knows it. He holds his hands up, "Well you are."

"Congratulations Dagan, you and your friends have a new job. You are not leaving this school for the rest of the year," my uncle says clapping. “You can forget that assignment in Florida.”

"What new job?" Korbin asks, moving away from the door he was silently leaning against.

"Watching my niece, the goddamn princess who is meant to be able to control her powers,” he stops to glare at me again before continuing his rant, “and making sure she doesn't freeze everyone...again.”

“No,” Korbin says firmly, making my uncle laugh coldly. I look over to see Elias and Thorne just staring at me, both of them on either side of the room and neither are listening to my uncle.

“Also, if I catch one of you calling her stunning, flirting, or breaking any of the rules, I will personally kick you out, and none of you will stay in Dragca. I don't give a damn who your parents are," he tells the four most dangerous dragons in this school. You don’t tell the royal guards’ sons what to do unless you’re the king. The royal guards only protect my family because they are cursed to do so. Until we are all dead that is. It doesn't mean they would be punished for killing my uncle as he isn’t a royal, so I'm surprised he just told them what to do.

"Hell no," Dagan chuckles, which dies away when he looks at my uncle.

"Now get out..." my uncle commands, a dark sounding threat lacing his words and to my surprise, the guys walk out without a word. I go to follow them but my uncle stops me.

“Isola, you will stay. Shut the door behind them,” he says. I shut the door, but not before I see Dagan pulling Elias away from Thorne. They are both glaring at each other with anger in their eyes, and look close to fighting. What the hell is that about?

“You will need constant supervision now, and I am trusting you to get your powers under control. We need you to be strong, not out of control,” he says, and gets up, walking to the window. “Every Sunday morning you will fly to the mountains with Dagan and Korbin, and train with them, because they are the best fighters we have. Every Saturday you will spend all day with me, and I will teach you valuable lessons. Thorne can teach you the history of Dragca after classes on Friday, your least busy day of the week. I trust him, and he is smartest of them all in history anyway,” he tells me.

“And Elias?” I ask.

“Is too out of control to be trusted to train or teach you anything. He will protect you, as he is a dragon guard, but I don’t trust him alone with you. I wish for you to stay away from Elias, unless you need him to save you from danger,” he says, growling slightly.

“Fine,” I say, wondering what exactly Elias has done to make my uncle trust him so little. Also, I’m hating the small part of me that wants to spend time with Elias, just because my uncle told me not to. Like he is forbidden fruit or something.

“I hope I don’t have to remind you that relationships between the royal family and the dragon guard is a death sentence for you both. The curse–” he starts off and I cut him off.

“–I know all about the curse, I read it this morning,” I tell him.

“Good, then you understand why it is so very important that you stay away from them, and keep your relationship strictly business. Think of them as bodyguards, nothing more,” he tells me. I don’t say anything as the words run around my mind, this is why my family has never mixed with fire dragons, because of the risk of this curse.

“I still love Jace,” I admit.

“The dead do not need your love,” he states, almost gently but still strict with every word like I'm coming to expect from him.

“But he has it, and my vow of revenge,” I say, and he bows his head to me.

“Revenge is a much better feeling than love. As you already know, love is a weakness to us. Revenge is a strength, it gives you determination, a reason to fight,” he comments.

“Love is not a weakness,” I argue and he laughs, looking back at the window.

“It is the weakness of every dragon and human alike. Every species known to us that can love is weak because of it. Love makes you weak, and you are proof of that. You are weak because of Jacian’s death,” he says.

“That’s not true, I am not weak,” I insist, my dragon backing me in my mind.

“You are, and you being weak makes the whole of Dragca weak,” he scolds me as I cross my arms and glare at him.

“Focus on revenge Isola, not other feelings,” he tells me firmly before I can reply to him. I walk to the door, looking back at my uncle as I rest a hand on the door handle.

“Who did you lose?” I ask, hearing the pain of his loss behind his angry words. No one is that angry without losing someone close.

“Everyone I've ever loved is dead, every person I consider family. Now leave,” he demands. His voice is so detached that I don’t how to reply to him. Instead, I choose to just open the door and walk out. Thorne is leaning against the wall, his hands in his pockets, and his brown eyes look up at me.

“Interesting first day, Issy,” he says, walking over, and stopping right in front of me.

“Only attempted to kill my whole class, got myself extra training, and I bet I made a whole lot of enemies here,” I shrug, making him laugh. I feel my lips turn up in a smile before I end up laughing with him.

“Classes have been cancelled for the day and–“ he stops when he sees my hands and he picks them up.

“How did you do this?” he asks, looking at my blood covered knuckles and I flinch when he rubs a finger over one of the cuts. I had actually forgotten about them.

“I had to break through the wall of ice I made, well, that my dragon made when she got mad,” I respond automatically. I see the realization float across Thorne's face at what my words mean. My ice can hurt me, and my dragon healing doesn’t work to fix the cuts. It’s a well-kept secret of ice dragons, not many people know it and for good reason.

“I don’t know much about ice dragons or anything, but come back to my room so I can clean that up. I can stitch a few places up to stop the bleeding,” he asks gently as he lets go of my hands.

“Alright,” I say, knowing I can’t go to my uncle for help, and I don’t want anyone else knowing how vulnerable I am to my own powers. Thorne walks close to my side, our arms brushing as we walk up the stairs, and past my bedroom. We walk past the others until we get to another staircase. This staircase leads all the way up to the top of the tower, and you can see all the way up, and the hundreds of rooms.

“All the guards staying at Dragca Academy live in these rooms,” he tells me as we start to climb. We pass two doors on the walk up, before he stops, and gets a key out of his cloak. He opens his door and waves me in. Thorne’s room is just like mine, but he has a tiny window and a small bed with blue sheets. There is a pile of books on his bedside cabinet, with one still open. I walk over and see it open to a page on the history of ice dragons.

“Sit, I have a first aid box in the bathroom,” Thorne instructs as he shuts the door and undoes his cloak, hanging it over the bathroom door. I keep my eyes on the way the tight leather is stretched across his muscular frame, showing off his toned stomach and chest. When I look up, he is watching me as he sifts through a cabinet above the sink, but he quickly glances away. I shake my head, reminding myself that he is just helping me, and it doesn't matter how damn hot he is.

“What happened in the lunch room?” he asks, as he comes and kneels in front of me. I watch as he opens the box, pulling out everything he needs and laying it out on the floor. He gets some alcohol and pours it on a cloth, before he grabs my right hand. He starts cleaning it as I bite down on my lip from the stinging pain.

“If I answer that, can I ask you something?” I ask. He looks at me, and nods once before focusing on my hands again. He wraps the knuckles, clearly deciding they don’t need any stitches before taking my left hand, which is the far worse of the two.

“Dagan and Korbin, they said something about Jace…I lost control,” I say, not being able to look at Thorne as I speak.

“Understandable, it hasn’t been long since you lost him,” Thorne says gently. When he tilts his head to the side, I see a smudge of what looks like brown paint on his neck.

“Do you paint?” I ask, pointing at it and he quickly rubs it away.

“No,” he says, his voice colder than before.

“Why do you hate Elias?” I ask, watching how he completely tenses up and squeezes my hand a little tighter.

“He killed someone close to me,” he says, his tone gruff as he reaches into the box and gets some butterfly stitches out, sorting my left hand before wrapping it up.

“I’m sorry, who was it?” I ask.

“I don’t owe you another answer, Isola,” he snaps, the iciness of his tone makes me pull my hands away from him. I stand up, walking around him, pausing as I open the door.

“No, you owe me nothing, but I am sorry. I know what it’s like to have the people you love murdered when there is nothing you can do to stop it,” I tell him. I quickly walk out the room before I do something stupid, like let him see me cry.