“You loved every second of it, too.”
“I didn’t,” he disagreed. “I should have, but it’s mostly just a blur.”
“Because you were angry.”
“You said you’d tell me what I’m feeling,” he reminded.
“Will you untie me from the bedpost first?” Bay risked asking. “It’s uncomfortable, and not in the pleasurable way.” When Sila hesitated he added, “You’re lying on top of me, Varun. You don’t need the rope.”
He removed his hand from where it was still placed at Bay’s throat and there was a click before the pressure around his neck eased. The collar was still on, but at least he was no longer attached to the bed.
“Tell me,” Sila urged, and it sounded like he was open to it, like he’d decided he’d listen to whatever explanation Bay wanted to give and would roll with it.
Wasn’t that a form of trust? Was he getting through to him?
“You like me.” Bay had tried to broach the topic earlier, but they’d both been too caught up in the haze of sex and Sila—the non-feverish Sila—clearly hadn’t been ready to hear it or fully admit it to himself. “You like me as more than a playmate or a pet. That’s why you’re concerned over my wellbeing.”
“I’ve literally marked you all over,” Sila pointed out.
“You applied sun cream after I passed out.” Bay could tell. The aches weren’t nearly as bad as they would have been otherwise. It was the same thing he’d done after their first time in the woods. “You break me and then you stitch me back together again. And I keep coming back for more.”
“I like you,” he rolled the words on his tongue as though they were foreign to him. “That’s…” All at once, he swayed, barely catching himself. “Something’s wrong.”
“You’re sick,” Bay explained pressing at his shoulders to try and get him to move. “We need to get you—”
“No,” his voice wavered and his eyes slipped closed, “No leaving.”
Bay opened his mouth to argue, but then Sila dropped over him, crushing his chest with his heavy weight. The fear he felt was a thousand times more potent than when he’d been practically dangling from the ceiling.
“You only just brought me back,” he grunted as he got to work shoving the younger man off of him. “You aren’t allowed to leave me behind.”
Death or the Devil.
Bay had been serious about that too.
He’d made his choice, and no one, not even the Devil himself, got to break that bargain with him.
Chapter 28:
It’d taken Bay longer than it should have in his beat-up state to finally roll Sila off of him and onto the other side of the bed. Then he’d moved without rationality, instantly getting up to search for one of their multi-slates. His was nowhere in sight, but he located Sila’s on the long table across from the bed.
He was halfway to calling for an ambulance when it hit him, he had no clue where they even where. Rin’s number was the last called contact and without further hesitation, Bay selected it and hit call, rushing back to check on Sila.
The younger man was covered in a fine sheen of sweet and he was shaking. He’d never heard of anyone getting an infection this quickly. Typically, it took two to three days. Had they been here that long? Bay didn’t think so.
“Asshole,” Rin’s grumpy voice came through. “Do you have any idea what time it is? Are you still in a mood? You better have just killed someone or—”
“It’s Bay Delmar,” he interrupted, turning Sila’s hand and removed the crude bandage. A gasp escaped him before he could stop it. “Do you have a way of locating us?” Too late he recalled Sila mentioning that not even his brother knew their current address. “Please tell me you do.”
“What’s going on?” Rin sounded more alert than he had a moment ago, then he turned to someone and said, “Run a trace on my brother’s multi-slate. Just do it. Professor Delmar?” he came back on. “Tell me what’s happening. I just saw him this afternoon. Why do you have his multi-slate and why do you need me to find you? Did he—”
“It’s not me that’s the problem,” he stopped him, knowing that Rin was thinking he was going to have clean up after Sila after all. “He’s sick and unresponsive. He cut himself earlier but I don’t understand how it could get this infected this quickly.”
Greenish-blue veins snaked beneath Sila’s skin, branching out from the cut. They’d traveled partially down his wrist already, and all the way to the ends of his fingers. Bay was no medical student, but he’d never seen anything like this before…
“I’m afraid,” the admission crept out of him. He didn’t even have the energy to be embarrassed by it or the fact that Sila’s brother was listening.
“Got him?” Rin asked whoever he was with and then the sound of him racing down a set of stairs echoed through the line. “We’re on our way, Professor. Stay with him.”
