“Do I?”
“I’d say, or you’d know I fucked her.”
Her exhale was abrupt.
“I fucked her because I wanted her. Because she’s stunning. Have you looked at her?”
Elloven lowered, shrinking. He wanted to take it back, tell her it wasn’t true, and it was the least cruel thing he’d said that night. It was a lie, a lie against his own ethics, and it somehow cheapened what Lexsea had done to him, which was more than just uncomfortable; it was wrong. Even thinking about it made him want to retch.
“Well,” she said evenly. Her hands returned to her sides. She eased off. “If you’d have broken our bond tonight, then you’d be free to have her whenever you want.”
“I already can.”
“You’d be free of me,” she replied, sweeping him with indignant ferocity. “And I’d be... free.”
“No,” Jesstin said, laughing. “No, darling, they’ll never let you be free. Neither will he, if he’s allowed back into your life. But that’s what you need, isn’t it, for the cycle to continue?” He shoved off the wall, forcing her to back up with each step he took. Her bravado dimmed as they moved, daring him to finish the thought. He warred within himself whether he should, knowing he would regardless, because it had to end, and it had to end now. “Because if no one’s there to hurt little Elloven, then who is she? Do you even know?”
Elloven brought her hands up like a shield. Her mouth fought between words and silence.
Jesstin’s resentment abated just long enough to acknowledge how far he’d gone. The things he’d said to her that night could never be unsaid. The hurt he’d driven into her might never heal. Had there been a mirror, he’d have seen Sestinn Edevane grinning back at him. Was it better, then, to accept his nature? To see himself for who he really was, to stop pretending?
That was the trouble with words said in the heat of anger. They might be cruel, but they were the most honest someone would ever be, with themselves or others. There was a cost to truth, and he was already paying it as the gulf between them widened, knowing there was nothing he could do to stop the sundering, even if he wanted to.
A part of him did. A part of him wanted to walk her all the way to the other wall, tangle his hands in her matted hair, and crush his lips to hers until neither of them could breathe.
But he was not that man, and she was not that woman, and the bond between them had run its course.
“My mother, you know, she...” Elloven paused to get a hold on her shaky breaths. It was a moment before she continued. “Esme, my mother, told me something about you before we left. She said you...”
“What about me?” Jesstin demanded.
“She said ‘you will learn something about Jesstin that will bid you forsake him, a great treachery that will send you to your knees.’”
Jesstin’s blood cooled. There was only one great treachery of which Esmeray Hawthorne would bear any concern, and if she’d known... If she’d known about Gennady, Jesstin would not be standing there.
“She warned me.” Elloven laughed and wiped her face, sniffling. “And still I persisted, didn’t I? Believing the best in you. Because that’s who I am, the ‘perpetual victim’ who refuses to confront her bullies because she enjoys the abuse. Because she cannot possibly know who she is if someone isn’t grinding their fists into her lower back or raping her against a tree with a knife pressed to her throat or shoving searing heat into her birthmark because he couldn’t bear for her to have even one thing that was just her own. She couldn’t possibly have just wanted to hold onto even one single shred of the humanity that separated her from the fiends, suffering instead of becoming one. No, she endured it because she liked it, because only through inviting others to demolish her could she find any semblance of self.” She turned and faced the wall. A light, desperate moan escaped her lips as her shoulders rose hard and fell harder.
Every barb he’d flung at her exploded back at him. Why had he needed to hurt her so thoroughly?
It’s the only way she’ll leave without you.
“Take the bed tonight. Go. Go on.” Her voice cracked, strained. When Jesstin didn’t move, she repeated the order as a scream. “GO!”
He ducked when the croft shook. Dust filtered through the rafters, sifting into lines on the floor. “Sending me a nightmare?” He laughed. She wouldn’t hurt him. She should, and he fucking deserved it, but she wouldn’t. “We both know you only act when it’s too late to matter.”
“Just... go.”
The one good decision he’d made that night was ending it there.
Jesstin trudged up the stairs, each step harder than the last. All he’d wanted was some time alone to think, and he’d imploded both of their lives instead.
The heaviness sent him sprawling into the bed, and he was out before he could find a comfortable position.
Sesto had no earthly idea how to follow through on Jesstin’s request, nor whether he even should. It had sounded more like a demand, but no Skylark had ever made demands of him. Jesstin’s plea came from deep love and trust. He had been a shy boy and was now a not-very-forthcoming man, so anytime he laid his vulnerability in front of Sesto, Sesto accepted it with the care and reverence it deserved.
Simply put, Jesstin had asked Sesto because he loved him.
Sesto’s relationship with the family was the most fulfilling part of his life. Rhiain would slay a village for him. Asterin trusted his insight and often relied on it. The children called him “Uncle Sesto,” and playing their strange games were often the brightest moments of his day. And Jesstin... It was a relationship that had begun similar to the one he had with Rhiain and Asterin’s children, but as Jesstin aged—and his secrets with him—it was Sesto Jesstin confided in. Sesto he trusted with his deepest, darkest secrets and shame. Sesto he’d come to when he’d needed help with a delicate matter no one could ever know about.
