“No,” Hector exhaled. “All you’ve ever wanted was to pay penance for what you were made to do as a child. There’s a difference.”
“Is that what you really think?”
Hector’s lip quivered. “We both know it. Don’t pretend otherwise, Arwyn.”
I knew he wasn’t wrong. But hearing the truth out loud hurt all the same. However, my love for him, that wasn’t born from my guilt. It was real… it had to be real.
“Please.” A soft hand trailed down the side of my face. “Lift the spell.”
I did as he asked. Cupping the lake’s water, I focused my will and intent into it. Then I splashed it across the mark on his chest and watched it wash away. Gone, just like that, the marks fading until his flesh was back to normal.
Hector released a sigh just as the final etching disappeared. He closed his eyes, inhaled deeply, and said, “Thank you for listening.”
“I will find another way to keep you safe,” I admitted. “Know that. Rune-mark or no, I will not allow any harm to befall you. Not here, not outside the trials.”
“And I don’t doubt it.” Hector waded closer, returning his legs back around my waist. “But next time, keep me included in those decisions. I think the remedy for us is open communication, as naff as that sounds. Talk to me, and I promise to do the same to you.”
There was so much I could’ve said, but I chose the easy option. Diverting the conversation. Because, deep down, I knew that I would lie tenfold if it meant getting Hector to the end of Bahmet’s final trials.
“I think we should go back to the base,” I said, although I wanted nothing more than to simply exist here, in the heart of a peaceful lake, with Hector as company. “There are some other, rather shocking, bits of information that I’ve learned, and I think we should all be together to discuss it.”
“That’s ominous. Such as?”
“The reason for all of this,” I said. “Bahmet, Eleanor Letcombe, deals and demons… my father.”
Hector’s eyes widened a fraction. “Yeah, that really does sound ominous.”
“Trust me, it’s fucked up.”
“Oh goody, my favourite type of secrets.”
I grasped my hands on Hector’s arse, and hoisted him into my arms. He held on tight as I walked us out of the lake, knowing I’d rather dive back in and devour him… but there was a time and a place. We had business to see through, before indulging in pleasure. No matter if that fact killed me.
Only once we were on dry land did I let him down. “Get changed,” I said, patting his arse.
Hector saluted. “Yes, sir.”
My cock jolted, Hector noticed and smiled to himself.
It took everything in me to dress myself, and not give in to what I really wanted. To my luck, the universe offered me some reprieve from my sexual desire when the tall reeds shivered around us, and a small black-scaled serpent poked its nose into the clearing.
“We’ve been summoned,” Hector said after a moment of silence. No doubt he was communing with the familiar through their mind-link. “Just in the nick of time by the sounds of it.”
“Romy?” I asked.
“No.” Hector shot me a look, and I sensed there were a lot of unspoken theories brewing behind his bright eyes. “Your aunt.”
“Verena. She’s found us?”
“It would seem so.”
My heart raced so rapidly it made my chest ache. “But why?”
Hector’s eyes narrowed in a flash. “You tell me.”
33
HECTOR
