But for the first time in my life, I’m wondering what would happen if I tried to actively pursue kindness. Compassion.
Maybe even trust.
“Hell on Earth,”Bad Wolf growls.
“No. It’ll be heaven,”Good Wolf says.
I press my fingers to my cheek, where Haven’s kiss still burns.
They’re both right.
…promise me, Bash…promise me your life will be full of love and joy…
I have spent my entire adult life being the one who runs away.
Tonight, for the first time, I’m staying.
Watching them leave.
And wondering if I’ll know how to follow…or if they even want me to.
Chapter 26
Haven
TWO WEEKS LATER
Here I am, attending Bastian’s Lessons in Cruelty course like I didn’t spend Halloween night in a threesome-adjacent situation with him and my boyfriend in a literal crypt. Said boyfriend of mine is sitting beside me, listening attentively…as if he didn’t have Bastian’s cock in his mouth fourteen days ago.
My professor, meanwhile, is happily droning on about masochism, acting like he doesn’t still have scratches on his face from where I clawed him. He was absent a couple of days after Halloween, and came back with a story about a rock climbing accident—and everyone believed him, of course.
We’re allso goodat pretending everything’s normal.
No one seems to find it weird that Kai’s sitting on this side of the class instead of behind the T.A.’s desk. Says a lot about this school and the amount of fuckery that goes on here on a daily basis for them to not bat an eye.
Kai’s warm thigh presses against mine. He’s been finding every excuse to touch me lately. Not in the desperate, possessive way he used to, but as if he’s checking I’m still here.
I don’t know what’s going on inside his head. He won’t talk about Halloween, and I’m too chickenshit to push. The morning after, he’d been quiet, as if he was deep in thought.
Or utterly fucking traumatized.
I kept waiting for him to explode, to rage, to do something that made sense. Instead, he made love to me that night with a tenderness I’d never experienced from him before. Soft kisses, gentle murmurs, his eyes locked on mine the entire time, like he was memorizing my face.
I came so hard I cried.
Then he held me tight against him, his heartbeat steady under my cheek, fingers tracing patterns on my back until I fell asleep.
We haven’t talked about it.
It felt like a wall crumbled that night, and what it exposed still feels painful and raw.
“When we think of cruelty, we typically imagine it directed outward toward another being.” Professor Rooke’s smooth voice cuts through my spiral, all calm and sophisticated.
“A perpetrator…and a victim.”
He moves to the blackboard, tossing his piece of chalk up before catching it easily in his palm.
“An aggressor…and a target.” Bastian continues, scrawling on the blackboard.
