“Who the hell do you think you are?” he asked darkly. “A pathetic nobody who broke at the first sign of distress. How dare you think you have the right to take from me.”
Bay shook his head wildly. “I don’t. I would never.”
“You were going to jump.” Sila started for him. “You want to die so badly you’ll die at my hands.” Gripping the front of Bay’s shirt, he yanked him off the floor.
Bay immediately went lax in his hold, eyes slipping closed, hands light on Sila’s wrist.
“What are you doing?” Sila paused and tilted his head, taking in the blank expression that had settled over Bay’s face.
“Go ahead,” the professor said softly, and the fear that’d been there earlier was gone. “If you want to kill me, do it.”
“What?”
“You asked who I am,” Bay continued still in that empty voice. “Yours. I’m yours, Sila, to do with as you please. If you want to kill me? Okay.”
“Okay?” He’d thought he’d been angry before. “Okay?!”
Sila slammed Bay against the wall, but when Bay’s face remained set in that stony mask, he hesitated. Through the haze of anger, he saw things for what they were, realized that this was just another way the professor was going to try and play him.
“You don’t get to do that,” he said cynically. “You don’t get to hide from your emotions.” Because it was so obvious that’s what was happening here. Somehow, Bay had shut down all over again, cutting off the part of him that felt. That was the exact opposite of what Sila wanted. He shook him by the front of the shirt until Bay’s eyes popped open and he was looking at him once more. “You don’t get to hide from me.”
He undid the clasp of the earring he always wore, noting the way that drew Bay’s attention. Good. It wasn’t fair if only one of them was suffering here.
“Mine?” Sila asked. “I can do anything with you?”
A spark of delicious uncertainty flashed behind Bay’s eyes.
Sila grabbed him by the jaw and forced his head back against the wall, keeping him steady as he brought the earing to Bay’s left ear. “That means I can mark you, can’t I? Claim you in a way everyone can see.”
“Wait,” Bay sucked in a breath. “I don’t have—”
He tightened his grip, forcing Bay to instantly stop talking, then he brought his face in closer and grinned. “I know.”
Bay howled when Sila snapped the earring into place, the post stabbing through his unpierced lobe. He kept hold of it, making sure it was locked in and not going anywhere, watching as the area around it turned bright red and crimson smeared the tips of his fingers.
“There’s not enough blood,” Sila complained, and he wasn’t sure which of them he meant the words for, but it didn’t matter, because Bay’s whimper in response was like music to his ears. He actually preened, a low groan rumbling up his chest.
If Bay had successfully jumped earlier, Sila would never get to hear that pained sound again.
He tore him off the wall and dragged him back into the bedroom, discarding him onto the bed. Sila kept his gaze on Bay, who scrambled to the opposite side in a futile attempt to put distance between them. His clothing came off in a rush, the silent promise of what was to come evident with every scrap he dropped carelessly to the ground.
“Wait!” Bay held up a palm the second Sila was completely naked.
Sila paused.
“What about a choice?” Bay asked frantically, and it was evident in the way he was shaking he was well and truly scared now. For real this time.
But he wasn’t crying.
Sila didn’t like that.
“You always give me a choice,” he added weakly.
“That’s rich coming from someone who almost took their own life less than an hour ago,” Sila drawled. “Where was my choice in that, Kitten? Hmm? If I hadn’t gotten there in time, they’d be fishing you out of the river and I—” He stopped himself.
He’d be a wreck. A bigger one than he was right now.
And he hated that. Hated knowing it was the truth.
