Thio stays silent, not reaching for me.
Oh, gods.
Does… does he not believe me either?
The idea is more sickening than I anticipated. That he’ll scowl and echo one of the things my father has said.Don’t make up stories, Sebastian. Do you need attention that badly? No one would pervert magic like that, certainly not at a place as esteemed as Camp Merethyl.
I dig my fingers into Thio’s thighs. “Say something. Say—say anything, please.”
“Who?”
My shoulders go rigid. “What?”
“Who was at the camp?”
His voice is—I can’t figure it out. Angry? No.
He’sirate.
Redness rises up his neck, hits his face; his eyes are murderous, his jaw tight.
“Which of my piece-of-shit family members were part of that program?” he asks through his teeth. “Which of them did that to you?”
My mouth opens. Nothing comes out.
He believes me. He’s not dismissing it. He’s not putting it on me.
Thio grabs my hands. “No, never mind. You’ve told me enough. I can find out on my own. You don’t need to do anything else, okay? You—”
“Thio—”
“They’ll pay for this, Sebastian,” he swears to me. His eyes arewide and manic in their fury. “Everything they’ve done. Everything theydo. They won’t get away with this. I’ll make thempay for this.”
Tonight has ripped open wounds and I feel every single one all at once. Gashes here, cuts there, a laceration in my chest; my heart beats and hits it.
“No,” I say. “Going up against your family for this is a move you can’t undo either, like getting a job with their competitor. You have too much to lose.”
“I’ve losteverythingto them already.” He’s practically yelling. I flinch. “I won’t lose—”
“This isn’t what I need from you.”
That pulls him back. Settles him, one slow blink at a time, until he frees a palm to cup my jaw.
“Shit, I’m sorry.” He kisses my cheekbone. Lingers with his nose pressed alongside mine. “I’m sorry, baby. What do you need?”
He believes me.
That’s all I need.
I lock my lips with his, licking into his mouth, and it isn’t healing, it doesn’t erase what I told him, what truths I shared. It just makes them bearable.
That’s what I’ve done since those summers. I can’t erase the trauma; I find what makes it endurable. I learn to live around it.
And kissing Thio? Being with him?
Is the most riotous kind of living.
“Take me to bed,” I plead.
