A glimmer of uncertainty passed over her, and a tendril of my aura reached past her to shut the door.
“No more running, Quentin. You have something to say. Say it,” I demanded.
She blinked, wrapping her arms tighter around her middle. Defensive. She was protecting herself.
“Don’t make me do this,” she whispered.
I raised my hands and sniffed indignantly. “I’m not forcing you to do anything.”
“You can figure out what I want to say. I’ll allow you to read me.”
“No, I have no interest in rifling through your thoughts. If there is something you wish to tell me, you can stand there and say it.”
Perhaps it was unfair to put her on the spot, but Quentin ran from her feelings, good and bad. It never truly bothered me, but we were precariously close to the edge and whatever had been brewing inside of her needed to come out, for both our sakes.
She stood rooted to the spot, hair half coiled up and half hanging loose around her shoulders. She’d wiped her face clean of makeup before storming in here, but a few streaks of mascara darkened the skin around her eyes. As usual, Quentin presented herself as a fucking mess and there had never been and would never be a more ethereal sight in the universe.
“I hate that I need you,” she mumbled, staring at her toes. “I learned how to manage alone. I’ve never really needed anyone, but I need you.”
“You need me,” I repeated flatly.
“I don’t enjoy doing this,” she bit in return.
Her temper flared to life and sparked excitement in me. Since Hunter’s trial in the council chamber, Quen had lost her fire. This was the first sign that my golden girl still possessed her fight.
“Why?” I pressed.
“Because people leave. What is the point in telling you all this? No one sticks around. They die or they move or they decide I’m not good enough.”
Her parents. Her brother. Her ex-fiancé.
Breathing deeply, I wrapped my aura around her and pulled her body between my legs. “Golden girl,” I crooned softly, settling her onto my thigh. “You remind me of a volcano. Everyone thinks you’re dormant because you get on with your life, but there’s so much beneath the surface. And then suddenly you explode.”
She clung to the slight change in topic. “I want to be Vesuvius.”
“Of course,” I said before pulling us back onto the matter in hand. “You’ve been uncomfortably quiet, and I want to know what is going on.”
She placed her hands in her lap and looked down at them. Huffing, I moved my fingers under her chin and tipped her head back up so she was looking at me.
“Less of that,” I instructed firmly, irritated by the move. “You’re a demigoddess. You rarely looked down when you were fully mortal. Why now?”
“Because I have no fucking clue how to control anything anymore.”
The lack of control must have driven her mad. This wasn’t how she walked through life. A little bit of chaos was what she thrived in, but she was fully immersed in my world now.
“You said that I had priorities, Grayson, like the lab and family, but the truth is, you are my priority. You have been for a long time even if I never admitted it.”
One of her hands snaked around my neck, fingers playing with the short hair at the nape. The motion was enough to make me relax.
“Being a God is a complicated and complex job,” she said quietly. “You’ve made decisions you thought were right. Had your hand forced by people who should have loved you and guided you. Would you do it again?”
“Quentin—”
“Would you?”
“I never did it out of joy,” I reminded her. “If you expect me to tell you I would never do it again, I can’t give you that guarantee. I will take a life if circumstances require it. If it’s a choice between someone else and you, then I will always choose you.”
She nodded slowly, falling silent again. I reached up, carefully untangling bobby pins from her hair and letting the strands fall loose around her shoulders.
