He was grateful for that too.
A multi-slate dinged and Baikal checked his, the device strapped to his wrist, making his near nakedness look a little funny. “They’ve taken off.”
“She was on it, they’re sure?”
“Positive. Kazimir even ordered the flight crew to send a photo just before launch. Do you want to see it?”
Rabbit considered and then shook his head in the negative.
“The trip to Ignite will take roughly two days. I’ll have someone on the ground there confirm she’s arrived as well,” Baikal reassured him.
“Send it.” Rabbit rubbed his hands together, that spot on the floor blurring slightly.
“Come again?”
“The video,” he explained. “Send it. Star-Void News is the largest media station on the planet and it’s got your name on it. Give it to them to be safe. We know they won’t hesitate to air the story even though the beloved December Trace is being smeared in it.”
“Rabbit.” Baikal watched him for a moment, but when he didn’t get a reply, sighed. “Are you sure?”
“She murdered him, Void,” he met his gaze head-on finally, “right in front of me. There was no remorse. No regret. Then she forced me into that greenhouse—” the one he was going to have torn down, “—and locked me in there with him. Oli didn’t deserve that. I didn’t deserve that. She has to pay.”
“Let’s think this through, little bunny.” Baikal stepped over and then crouched in front of him, resting his hands on his thighs. “I get you’re upset, and I’m not saying she doesn’t have it coming. I’d shoot her myself if I had the chance and I didn’t think that would bother you. But let’s be smart here.”
“How?” He didn’t want to listen, wanted to implode her life right here and now so that some of the anger inside of him might abate and let him breathe but…Void knew this stuff better than he did, and he’d be an idiot not to listen.
“Two days, that’s how long her trip is,” Baikal reminded. “I’ll hand over the video and give the full story to someone I trust at the station, but,” the corner of his mouth turned up viciously, “let’s tell them to wait on it. Release it just as she’s arriving at the shuttleport in Ignite.”
“Where all the reporters who found out about her arrival will already be waiting.” It was smart. And it would cause his mother the most damage. The most distress. “Am I a monster too?”
Because none of that sounded bad to him and he didn’t regret the idea of destroying her life either.
Because obviously Baikal had also committed murder before and knew the best way to hurt people, and yet Rabbit wasn’t angry with him over it.
“No, bunny.” He reached up and grasped the back of his skull, pulling him in so he could brush a light kiss over his lips. “You’re not a monster, you’ve just got scars, that’s all. But I’ll help you heal them. You can get through this.”
“I know.” Rabbit searched his teal gaze. “You’re with me.”
“Forever,” he promised.
A tear slipped past Rabbit’s defenses and as a last-ditch attempt to distract himself, he brushed his fingers through the dark hairs over the mark on Baikal’s head his mother had made. “Does it hurt?”
“This is nothing,” he grinned. “I’ve been through much worse.”
“I’m pretty sure I’m going to cry now.”
“You don’t have to warn me, Rabbit, or get my permission. Just be you. If you need to cry, cry. I’ve got you no matter what, remember?”
Leaning in, he planted his forehead against the curve of Baikal’s shoulder and his neck, breathing in deep that familiar and now comforting scent of wood smoke and eucalyptus.
And then Rabbit let it out, all the pain and the pent-up agony. All the secrets he’d been clinging to and the pressure to make someone proud who had never even seen him. He sobbed and clung to Baikal, and when the Brumal Prince’s arms came around him and pulled him in close, he cried some more.
Chapter 30:
The song came easily to him, the sound light and airy, uplifting. It was a change from his usual, and he could tell right away that most of the audience—at least in the front row where the lights were bright enough for him to make them out—had noticed.
That didn’t really mean anything to Rabbit, however. He wasn’t playing for them. For once, he was up on this stage for himself and only himself.
Wisps of buttery yellow floated on the air, mingling with strips of teal and flashes of vibrant red. They danced in the air, bursts of green crackling like fireworks joining them when he switched to a different note and poured more of his energy into the instrument in his hands. It’d been so long since he’d felt this kind of connection with his beiska, and the corner of his mouth tipped up. Instead of fighting the smile down so he could maintain his aloof and unattainable persona, the smokescreen created by his mother to keep him and the rest of the world apart, he left it.
