“Is that what you want?” I asked, ignoring the splintering pain in my chest.
“No, I’m asking hypothetically.” She continued to refuse to meet my eye. “If I didn’t want this, would you force me?” Her grip on the cup tightened until her knuckles paled. “Would you force me to do anything with you?” she whispered.
The meaning of her question sunk in, and I attempted to keep as calm as I could.
“Quentin,” I started, unable to unclench my jaw. “Has something happened? Did someone try to do something to you?”
I would have known. If something had happened while she was out of my sight, I would have felt it through our bond. But what if I hadn’t? The murderous intent slammed violently through my veins and made my vision blurry.
“No, Gray,” she answered, looking up at me with a flicker of panic in her irises.
My grip on her may have remained soft, but the room had become pitch black. Her hand came up to rest over my heart.
“I swear, nothing has happened to me.”
“In lower Elysia?” I asked.
Archer had made comments about the heads that had turned. Of course she would garner attention, and Gods were not shy. She walked through the streets of that cesspit, sat at a table in The Vermillion Lady. Andreas mentioned nothing, but he would know I’d tear the building down if something had happened.
“No.”
“Before I met you?”
Ethan was no man. He hadn’t loved her the way she deserved, and the bile rose as I thought of Quentin accepting whatever he might deem as affection in order to keep her idea of the future alive.
“I promise you, nothing has happened to me, Gray. No one has hurt me.”
It took a few minutes before the room was devoid of my aura. There were plenty of people I was prepared to destroy because of how they treated Quen, but if I ever found out someone had tried to force themselves on her, they would understand the true meaning of destruction.
“Why are you asking me this? Have I ever—"
There was a trickle of doubt that our bedroom games, the rough play we indulged in, might not have been reciprocated. I raked through memories of our time together, trying to pull any thread of discomfort she might have felt.
“Sometimes you think you know people and then you realise you didn’t know them at all,” she said.
“Where is this coming from?” I asked, cupping her face. “Quentin, I would never do that to you. To anyone.”
“I just needed to know.” She broke away from my hold, placing the full mug on the counter. “I don’t need you in the lab today, so I’ll see you when I get home.”
She was already making her way to the door, ready to start her day now that she had answers to her questions, but she’d left me with many of my own.
As the front door closed, I allowed my aura to carry me up to her room. Sleep wasn’t necessary for me and rather than encroach on her space, I spent my time wandering the house while she retired to her bedroom. If she needed me, she knew where to find me.
A small smile tugged at my lips to be standing in her version of chaos again. Our room in Elysia was a large space that was kept tidy. Her room on Earth was much smaller and Quentin crammed as much as possible into it. Papers and photographs. Fairy lights and blankets.
I peered at a fresh set of sticky notes that were stuck above her bed. A pros and cons list. It would have been too much to ask her to trust her heart with this decision. It was an organ she had little faith in.
The pros list remained empty, but the cons column had various notes stuck to it.
I’m going to die.
He isn’t honest.
Bad temper.
Destructive.
The words expanded out until an oblivion of lime green notes took over one side of the wall. My fingers brushed along the empty side and I ground my teeth together. Not a single pro.
