My eyes widened in horror. "Oh my god, Callum. That's awful."
"It's just the price of my power."
"That doesn't make it less miserable."
"No, it doesn't."
We were both quiet for a minute.
"Pain isn't like that for me," I said. "I know you don't think I could handle it, but?—"
"No." His voice left no room for arguing.
"Will you at least tell me exactly what happened?"
"I'm not going into details about my previous sex life with my fated mate."
"I think I can handle a story about something that happened before the city was even established. I'm obviously not a virgin either."
The air chilled. "Unless you'd like me to go on a killing spree, I wouldn't recommend repeating that."
I rolled my eyes.
He stayed silent for one minute.
Two.
Three.
He sipped his water slowly. We were touching, so the movement couldn't have hurt.
I waited.
"Sex was always difficult," he finally said, staring down into his glass."It had to be fast, and it... hurt."
Was, because it had been so long ago for him.He said he hadn't been with anyone since whatever happened.
He was known for torturing people, but he clearly had some kind of personal rules about it. Given his own endless pain, I kind of understood.
Everything had hurt for him, but moving fast seemed to be the biggest trigger. Hence his experience with dancing.
"It was never what I wanted it to be," he said.
"What did you want it to be?"
There was another pause before he admitted, "Fun."
My chest ached for him.
I couldn't imagine many things in his life had ever been fun. Not if he was in so much pain, so much of the time.
That didn't erase the fact that he was the one who had to decide that he wanted there to be anusbefore there could be one, but I still hated that for him.
"The woman I was with?—"
"You can say her name." I interrupted him, but I did it gently.
"The woman I was with," he repeated, uninterested in referring to her as anything but that. "Meant nothing to me. She was attracted to me, and I had nothing better to do."
