Roy snorted, exasperated. “Nonsense. The best method of academic approach is an honest mind-set.”
“You lie toyourself,” Percival elaborated. “About who you are, what you want, and why you’re here.”
“I was brought to the Basilica by the Governor. I stayed here because it isrightto save this city.”
“I am not speaking of the Basilica, darling,” Percival said, soft and tender as a chaste kiss. “You know that. There’s no need to lie. You keep looking away from the truth. You don’t need to hide yourselforyour desires, Roy.” His name clanged through his body like a pealing bell. “Don’t listen to those instincts.”
“I’d rather listen to my instincts than toyou, Percival.”
“Is that what you were telling yourself on the sixth floor?”
The question tightened the air between them, weaving an illusion of bodies pressed together, of Percival holding his thumb against the seam of Roy’s mouth, waiting patiently for a request that did not come. Roy shivered at the juxtaposing warmth of Percival’s skin against the chill of the tunnels.
“I pulled away from you,” Roy murmured, though his words were slurred. He repeated, enunciating this time, “I pulled away from you. You know I did.”
Percival rolled his eyes. “I thank you for recounting what I saw with my own eyes. You walked away, yes, but there is something to be said for your reluctance to do so.”
“You’re no better than me, Percival. You said you can see into my mind, but I could be blind and still know who you are.”
“Tell me what you see,” Percival whispered, his eyes agleam with delectation.
Roy shook his head. “No. I won’t tell you what you already know. What would that do for me?”
And yet as he made to turn away, when Percival strode forward and bent his head intently toward Roy, Roy neither recoiled nor froze. He leaned in, tilting his head back and baring his throat. Percival closed his fingers around Roy’s neck, his eyes darting between the wall, slick with its invisible coating, and Roy.
Roy hooked his foot around Percival’s leg and pulled. Percival lurched forward, his hand still around Roy’s throat, pinning Roy to the wall behind him. The greasy, sap-like substance coated his hair and drenched the back of his coat and trousers. For a long while, in a deep silence, Roy hung his head and squeezed his eyes shut in discomfort at the alien, unsettling consistency of the sludge, his jaw clenched so tight that it felt permanently locked in place. He was about to scratch his arms to distract himself from his distress, but then he looked at Percival, and while Roy’s unease did not fade away, it was at least temporarily forgotten. Percival watched him with incendiary fervor. Roy met that searing look with a half-hearted glower. It was a light blow—hewasdrawing in Percival’s breath with each of his own—but Roy refused to lay down his only weapon: denial.
Roy swallowed, his heart tremoring, a sheen of sweat gathering on his forehead. At some point, he thought his vision was swaying. But it was the candlelight, distorting the outlines of Percival’s face. Percival stood uncannily still. Two droplets of sweat coalesced upon his left temple, then streaked down his cheek and splashed onto the gravel. They both started at the small sound, and as they jolted forward out of instinct, their lips brushed.
Percival tightened his grip, just a fraction, but Roy strengthened his resolve.
Yes, your resolve, he chastised himself.Your resolve not to kiss the bastard right on the mouth.
But if this was a battle, then it would be executed as such: meeting a jab with a punch, a punch with a bloody wound.
Percival brought the candle closer to his own face, exposing the blush staining his fair complexion. The shadowed hollows above his clavicle peeked through the collar of his tunic, the laces half-done. Blond dots of day-old stubble were speckled across his jaw and the lower half of his cheeks.
The scent of musk and pine filled Roy’s nostrils, overwhelming him with a baser need from which hehadto tear his gaze. He was about to do exactly that when a voice entered his mind.Oh, please, you’ve been slavering for my attention since you caught me in that reading room. Thatwasthe look in your eyes, wasn’t it?
“That’s quite enough,” Roy said, even while he was curling his fingers around Percival’s trim waist. “Let me go, you bastard.”
Percival grinned. “What pretty names you have for me, darling.”
“Stop calling me that,” Roy spat, grasping Percival’s waist. “Let me go.”
Percival frowned. “Oh, I don’t think I deservethat.”
“You deservenothing, you—” Roy stopped himself, the word sitting on the tip of his tongue.
“Say it, love,” Percival whispered, his voice echoing through the tunnels. “Say it with every bit of hatred in your soul.”
Roy wanted to. No, he wanted silence. He wanted to freeze himself in this moment to avoid moving forward and accepting what Percival was.
Instead, his pulse racing, Roy observed the man who occupied the better half of his thoughts, whose beauty and spite had ensnared Roy like forbidden sorcery, binding him in its cold clasp. Even when he looked away, the impact Percival had on him was undeniable, and that was why Roy despised himself when he said the words, an inevitable untangling of his tongue.
“You’re a distraction,” Roy hissed. “Nothing more, nothing less.”
Percival recoiled, a barely perceptible, surprised hurt shuddering across his face, but he covered it with a grin, a ferocious hunger in his eyes. He ran his hand slowly from Roy’s neck and up to his jaw, the sides of his fingers hot against Roy’s parted lips. “There you are.”
