It was entirely possible that he was going to get kicked out. Well, maybe not—Sin had said they’d both be coming back.
Cecil peered at the vampire, who was silently looking out the front window as he drove. But why was he?
He could feel Sin’s anger, and he wanted him to be angry. Cecil wanted him to yell and rage. To punish him. He needed Sin to look at him with cold eyes as he threw even colder words his way.
Cecil needed him to do that. Because he was quickly finding out that he always wanted the man to look at him, but for a very different reason. And that reason terrified him.
So Cecil wanted Sin to show him that he was right. That Sin was not the man he appeared to be. That all of this was a lie. And once that happened, he would leave.
He would leave the house and get away from all of them. Because the longer he stayed, the more he would want to give in and actually trust them. Cecil would trust them and hope for more. And if he did that, he knew it would end. Because it always did.
Every time he had trusted someone in the past, they crushed whatever hopes he had. His mother had promised they would leave—that they would leave and life would get better. But she had left him behind!
Friends had said they would help him, that they would ‘save’ him. But they never did. Trust was bullshit. The only way to get ahead in life was to protect yourself and not get attached to anything or anyone.
So, he needed Sin to do what everyone else had, because Cecil was starting to believe that it wasn’t a lie. He needed Sin to do it, over everyone else, because Cecil already felt things for the man that he shouldn’t. He felt things that would lead to nothing, even if all of it was true. Because the kindness Sin had shown him didn’t change the fact that Cecil was not good enough for the man.
“Where are we going?” Cecil was proud that his voice hadn’t wavered.
Sin finally looked at him. “I have a meeting with the kings.”
“What, finally decided to turn me in?” He laughed.
Cecil felt little humor in the situation, but he lied with his body, with his expression. He lied with all he had.
The tone of Cecil’s voice had been light, very fitting for someone telling a joke. As was the shine in his eyes that usually meant unreleased laughter. And Cecil’s scent gave nothing away to refute that humor.
But it was not real. The light, the shine, his scent… none of it was real. There was a barely detectable brittleness underneath that light tone, and the shine in his eyes was shadowed by a hint of fragility.
Yet again, Sin couldn’t help but be impressed. No, not impressed, unbelievably sad that Cecil could lie so well. His anger, already cooling, had fled with that sad laugh. In truth, it had been more exasperation than anger.
Sin wasn’t even sure he could get mad at the young man that so often had his heart aching. The feelings he wanted to deny, that he had thought of as a simple infatuation, were not fading. With each passing moment he spent with Cecil, they grew. He cared for the man deeply, yet the fear of hurting him kept Sin’s feelings at bay.
But it was becoming harder to ignore them. Cecil was finally starting to open up. He was still snarky, but it was more teasing instead of the harsh slap across the face that it once had been. He would laugh—really laugh—with them.
Sin now knew that, despite how he seemed at first, Cecil liked to talk. He would spend hours with him in the kitchen. While he never helped—Cecil tended to burn things—rarely was he ever silent.
How hard it must have been to have no one. No one, except a creature that had no will of its own—the arcanid, Drop. A creature of Cecil’s own blood, that he could pretend was real and actually listened. Every time he thought about it, Sin had the strongest urge to gather Cecil up in his arms and promise him he’d never be alone again. He wouldn’t, but he wanted to.
Cecil’s past was still his own, since the man would never voluntarily speak of it, though many knew bits and pieces.
Sin, however, knew everything—he knew more than even Cecil. His investigation into Ernest Baxter had turned far darker than he had thought it would. Cecil had come so close to finding out the secrets his father kept. Ever on his mind—what caused his very insides to clench in fear—was what could have been. What had almost happened…
The future of the Kingdom of Vadin lay in his arms. That future was sucking on its thumb, looking as cute as a fucking button.
Please, please, all the gods and goddesses up wherever you are, don’t let me drop the infant, Cecil prayed. He did not want to die today, and he was pretty sure dropping the kings’ kid would end with him losing his head.
Figuring it was better not to risk it, Cecil carefully stepped into the playpen and laid Prince Silas down. He sat on the blanket that cushioned the floor in front of the little tyke and watched. Cecil could count the number of times he’d been around babies on one hand. Actually, one finger, because this was the first time.
Prince Silas gurgled at him and reached for Cecil with both hands, his chubby little fingers opening and closing. He didn’t know what the baby wanted, so he did nothing. Silas’ face scrunched up and his bottom lip popped out.
Even with his little experience, Cecil knewwhat that meant. The baby was about to cry—oh, shit. “Fuck,” Cecil swore softly, and then instantly regretted his life.
Cecil had saidfuckin front of a baby, and not just any baby, but the kings’ baby. He was doomed.
Peering quickly to the right, the kings, Sin, and two other men were still sitting in high-backed chairs, lost in whatever discussion they were having. Which meant they hadn’t heard him, right? Probably had…
Definitely had. Sin was looking at him out of the corner of his eye. It wasn’t an ‘aww, so cute, look at the boy playing with the baby’ look, it was more of a ‘going to kill Cecil later’ kind of look.
