“Mm-hmm.” Tiss’s lashes flutter. Out of annoyance or something else, I can’t be sure.
“Then one day—for the purposes of this example—let’s say she magically reappeared in your life. Walked right through your front door out of the blue. It would be fantastic, right? A miracle, even. For an afternoon. But better than nothing so long as she didn’t do anything stupid.”
“El. I get it.”
“No. I don’t think you fucking do, Tiss.” I turn to her, letting my eyes travel over her soiled dress. The blood matted in her hair. The wary, haunted edge to her features I swear wasn’t there yesterday. “Now picture having to stand aside and watch that person walk into a den of starving wolves with your heart in her hand and not so much as a toothpick for a weapon. What wouldyouhave done in that situation?”
“I didn’t need a weapon. I had you, didn’t I?”
I pin a look on her. “I lost mymindthat day.”
“Oh, I was there. I saw.”
“Before you told me to keep you safe, I already knew what you were going to do. I would’ve done anything. Saidanything. Tossed you out of the temple complex myself if I thought it’d make a damn bit of difference. But I saw you weren’t going to back down. And then it was too late. So. Yes. Of course I said I wouldn’t forgive you. After the fact, I was overprotective. Paranoid. Frightened out of my damned mind half the time.”
“Don’t forget your tendency to infantilize me. To withhold information and handle me.”
“I did the only thing I knew how to do to protect us both. Which meant hiding the truth.” I lean forward. Put my head in my hands. “Goddess save me, I couldn’t have borneit if something happened to you. I wouldn’t have survivedlosing you a second time. I barely survived youleavingme—then getting sent here? It was a nightmare I couldn’t wake up from. To me, losing you was like losing a part of my soul. And just so you know, hurting you now is almost unbearable.”
She nods. “You know, it’s funny. Those flashbacks are what broke my heart to pieces by revealing how deep your secrets ran this whole time. Gods, the extent of it felt likebetrayal. Those flashbacks got me even more fixated on talking to Lydia than I already was.” She wraps her good arm around herself. Groans in discomfort and swallows. “But they also shed such a bright light on everything else. Your coldness, your mood swings, your caginess. Even the lies. I’m still hurt and angry, don’t get me wrong.”
“I know,” I murmur. “I’m so sorry. Please don’t think I’m not.”
“Right, El. But if I’dknownyou still had your memories— If you’d simplyexplainedwhat happened between us, what I did to you before… The way I pursued you? Hell, the way Iseducedyou…” She trails off, eyes pointed at descending dusk beyond the window. “I wouldn’t take no for an answer that night. What I did to you was no different from how Sadrie seduced me. No different from what happened in the greenhouse that day. I”—her voice cracks, rupturing something deep inside me—“I took advantage of your attraction to me. Pushed you when you weren’t ready.” She slouches, giving a little shudder. “Even though you wanted me, that did not equate to consent.”
My heart cracks for all three of us—me and her and Sadrie. It shouldn’t have to be this way.
“As angry and sad anddisappointedas I am in the level of deception you pulled off every step of the way—gods, El. Now that everything’s had a chance to sink in, I’m more ashamedofmyselfthan anything else,” she says, a sob breaking out of her. “I know why you did what you did. I swear I will never, ever force myself on you again. In any way.” Her chin trembles. “Not like I did in the greenhouse, not like in the atelier, and not when I drove that stupid letter opener through your shoulder.”
Abrupt wrenching in my gut pulls me closer to her as if we’re tethered by steel wire rope.
“It was your chaos, Tiss. I believe it was trying to force you to feed before you self-destructed. The prioress… Goddess. I recently found out she does theseexperiments. Sick things to demuns that I had no idea were going on.
“She’s discovered properties about chaos I’ve never heard of. Observed how it affects your kind in ways I know nothing about. But I realize now that you weren’tyouin the greenhouse. Not in your bedroom either, when you stabbed me. And it isnotyour fault society punishes us for being ourselves. Forces us into hiding. Forces your kind into circumstances where you sometimes have no choice but to lash out. In fact, that’s precisely what the whole system is designed to do.”
She snorts wetly. Cries harder, letting out a little whine as her shoulders jerk. I put my arm around her. Carefully pull her into me.
“And that night in the atelier— I’m not being trite when I say you couldn’t help yourself, Tiss. You were a starving virgin Succubus for fuck’s sake.”
She clings to my shirt, wet cheek lodged in the crook of my neck. “It’s no excuse.”
“It sort of is.” I give a soft chuckle. “You, by your very design, are a creature of desire and destruction. And your particular form of destruction can be kind, or it can be cruel. Fuck. I can’timaginehow you lasted till nearly nineteen.”
“That doesn’t make itright,” she whispers.
“No. It doesn’t. Which is one of several reasons why clear consent and communication were always so important to us before. Why we’re going to need to figure out how to build that up between us again.” My hand cups her face, my thumb skimming her tear-streaked cheek. “But I understand why that night in the atelier happened. And just so you know, I wouldn’t trade it or change it for anything.”
“You wouldn’t?”
“Fuck, no! I first knew I loved you that night, although you had already sown your seeddeeplong beforehand. That was one of the best nights of my life. And Tiss, in case there’s any doubt whatsoever, I love you still. With everything in me.”
“I love you too,” she whispers. Then, so fiercely, she reminds me of the accursed day she came here: “I willalwayslove you, El Asher. My heart will always call out to you. Always want you. Then. Now. Forever.”
“I would break realms for you, Tiss.”
“I would break my own heart again if it meant protecting you, sweetheart.”
“For fuck’s sake!” I say. “No. Nobody’s breaking anybody’s heart. We’re done with that. Finished.”
