Nate only had the upper hand in one way: he’d already left once. Alden’s need, laid bare and tormented, hadn’t been enough to keep Nate around, and he’d finally left him. Nate hadn’t even known if Alden would survive or if his heart would give like the fiends on the street who fell asleep on doorsteps and never woke up.
He’d leave again before he allowed Alden to sink into the suffocating grip of his own desire.
“You haven’t even asked what I’m offering.” Alden kissed the top of Nate’s head and sputtered, gagging like he’d tasted something awful. Which was probably true. Nate hadn’t bathed in days.
The ache behind Nate’s eyes rattled around in his skull with each word. It sapped his anger. All he wanted to do was curl up on the floor and close his eyes before the pain blossomed. He didn’t care how much he sounded like a demanding child. “Just help me, Alden.”
“How do you explain all these visits to your darling Reed?” Alden asked.
Nate bristled, but couldn’t work up the energy to stomp across the room away from Alden’s knowing gaze. Couldn’t do anything except tremble. The thought of Reed waiting for him made shame and desire collide in his blood, a hot-and-cold feeling that didn’t do anything for his headache.
Reed didn’t know what Nate was hiding. Couldn’t know.
“It doesn’t matter what I tell him.”
When they’d first met, Alden had seemed like the wisest, most sophisticated person in the Withers. He flirted with Nate relentlessly, but it was just Alden’s nature. He’d flirt with a lamppost if he thought he could get something from it.
Now they both knew Nate had something to give.
“I think I have a right to know what stories you’re telling about me.” Alden clasped an arm around Nate’s chest and held him still while Fran came close again, sniffing the air and cackling softly.
“He’s sick, my boy.” Her voice rustled like dry paper. “Sick, sick.”
“Please, Alden. It’s not lasting as long.”
“He’s dying!” Fran crowed.
“Enough, Grandmother!” Alden snapped, releasing Nate to shoo Fran through the curtain to her bedroom. He stood in the folds of the blood-red fabric as if wearing a cloak, turning his black eyes on Nate.
“You’re not dying,” he said. It sounded like a question.
“If you won’t let me have Remedy, I’ll go to someone else.” Nate’s voice thinned. “I have to.”
“Do you really think others will go to the great lengths I’ve gone through to keep you safe?” Alden enunciated each word tightly. “Do I need to remind you just how many people would happily snatch you off the street?”
“You don’t care about keeping me safe. You just want to keep me.” Nate pressed his fingers to the ridge of bone at his cheeks. Even his teeth hurt.
“One and the same, sweet thing.”
“Alden.”
“Anyone who has Remedy will hand you over to the Breakers the moment you ask for it. They’ll never let you go. You’ll go to the highest bidder before you can beg the Old Gods to end it all.”
“Stop.”
“You’ll spend the rest of your life strung up in a basement far less hospitable than mine.” Alden’s steely expression faltered. “They’ll take everything, Natey.”
The echoes of what had passed between them left no doubt in Nate’s mind. If Alden had nearly killed him, a stranger would do far worse.
Nate grabbed Alden’s cold hand. “Then don’t make me wait. I’ll let you feed next week,” he said, knowing he wouldn’t. Never again. Not when he couldn’t go a solid week before stumbling around half dead. Not when it put Alden at risk of relapsing. “You know my word is good. I can’t be sick like this. I’ve got to move this tech and bring food home for—”
“For the gang,” Alden spat, shaking off Nate’s hand. His gaze went cold. “Reed’s merry band of orphans and whores.”
Nate bit back a reply. There was no use talking to Alden once he shut off like a snapped wire. It was all business now.
Alden led him into the small side room with a locked curio cabinet. “Don’t make bargains you can’t keep,” he said quietly. “It’s not a good look.”
Nate shied away from Alden’s ornate, rusted mirror and smoothed back the stringy dark hair that had fallen from his ponytail. He hated seeing his reflection—the deep circles under his gray eyes and streaks of soot mottling his golden-brown skin like bruises.
