Page 150 of Sincerely, Butterfly

“It won’t happen.” I blow the smoke out from the corner of my mouth and away from her. “Sylas won’t let it.”

“Pretty sure Sylas isn’t his sister's keeper.” Nola crosses her arms. “Callie is a big girl and can make her own decisions.”

A slow smile creeps over my face. As much as this new side of Nola pisses me off, it also intrigues me.

I open the car door, forcing her to take a step back. Slamming the door shut, I step into her personal space, getting right in her face.

Placing the cigarette between my lips, I take another drag before slowly letting it out. “Why don’t you go tell Sylas that yourself,” I chuckle. “I’d love to see his face when you do.”

She licks her lips, growing a little flustered. And there we go. Proof that no matter how much she changes, she’s still way too fucking pure for us.

It’s a shame she’s off limits because I’d love nothing more than to be the one to corrupt her right down to her very soul.

“You’re all too protective over her.”

“We have our reasons.” I counter with the cock of my brow.

“Why?” she huffs. “Do you like her or something?”

Oh. Fuck me. Little Rabbit is jealous.

“Why?” I question, raising a brow. “What’s it matter to you?”

Her face falls. “I was just joking. Are you serious?”

I shrug. “Maybe I am, maybe I’m not. Wouldn’t you like to know.”

I step past her and head towards the front door. I grin as I hear her footsteps grow in pace and volume as I walk away, indicating that she’s following after me. I know she wants to ask more, to demandwhat I mean, and to explain myself. But she won’t, and I wouldn’t tell her even if she did.

Callie is like my little sister, I would never touch her in a sexual way.

She is in the same category as Jasper and Sylas are, family. That's it. I have no desire to do the things I want to do to Nola to Callie.

It’s complicated. We would kill to protect Nola, but the biggest people she needs protection from is us.

We care too much about her, and that might end up being our downfall. It doesn’t need to make sense. It’s just how it is.

“This is fucking weird,” I mumble, staring at the two girls decorating a Christmas tree.

“Wasn’t Christmas last week?” Jasper asks.

“Yup,” Sylas sighs. “But Callie insisted that we do something together. So her brilliant idea was to combine Christmas and New Year’s. Because Jasper was with his parents and Nola was with hers, she wouldn’t let me do something with her on actual Christmas.”

“Huh,” I hum. “So, is this our lives now?” I turn to face him.

We’re all standing in the doorway of the study, watching as they toss tinsel onto the tree.

“Celebrating Christmas?” Sylas asks, brows pulled together.

“Celebrating anything.” I turn my attention back to the girls. Jasper might have a good family relationship with his mom and dad, but Sylas’ parents are dead, and I literally couldn’t care less what happens to mine.

As kids, we would go over to Jasper’s place for every holiday party or any of their work parties just so we could see Nola. But since we joined the Brotherhood, celebrating holidays just wasn’t a big deal anymore.

“If Callie has anything to do with it, then yes,” Sylas says.

“That means Nola is going to be there, too.” I sigh.

“Yup.”