“Well I know what I want,” Dorian said, making for the door. “I want you to live. I want you to have a life that isn’t hiding in abandoned houses and freezing to death or worse. I want you to see gardens again.”
“Fuck the gardens. I don’t want to go home if it means leaving you behind—” Hadrian stopped, eyes going wide.
Dorian froze with his hand on the door as he heard what Hadrian already had. Voices outside the house. Close. Close enough there was no way they hadn’t heard them.
“Go out the window,” Dorian said quietly. There wasn’t much point in that now, but at least he could get Hadrian to safety.
“What?”
“Go out the window. I’ll go outside and draw their attention.”
“Are you insane? If they are magic users, they’ll kill you.”
“And if they are rebels they will kill us both,” he hissed.
“You go out the window,” Hadrian said. “I’ll draw them. At least I have a 50/50 chance of surviving.”
“There is no way in hell I am letting you do that.”
“And there is no way in hell I’m letting you die for me,” Hadrian growled.
Dorian felt close to tears. He knew, without a doubt, Hadrian would never take the smart way out of this, no matter how idiotic it was. There was no way he could keep him safe. He was too stubborn and too brave.
Dorian hated and loved him for that.
If he had to die, at least he was going to die knowing what it meant to be loved.
12
They watched each other, standing there in the tiny kitchen of the rundown farmhouse on the edge of nowhere that had come to feel like as much a home as Hadrian had ever known, and came to an unspoken understanding. Whatever was about to happen, neither would face it alone. Maybe that had been fated from that first night when Hadrian was drawn to a stranger under an ashberry tree—neither would be alone again, no matter the consequences.
Dorian nodded, and Hadrian smiled at him. It was probably a silly time to be smiling, but behind his fear and sadness there was a happiness. Happiness that he had found his way here, found this man, and they got to keep each other, for however short a time.
A few days with him was worth a lifetime without. Far better than another lifetime of death.
Dorian moved past him and swung open the door without a word, stepping out onto the porch with his dagger ready. Hadrian stepped out after him, ready to do whatever he needed to defend them—probably talk too much.
Four men stood at the bottom of the porch steps. Rebels by their attire, so both he and Dorian were done for. The man closest to the house, tall and slim with deep red hair, jumped when the door opened and turned, wide-eyed, to look up at Dorian.
“Holy shit,” the man said as the others turned to stare at them, and Hadrian prepared himself for what was to come. “Dorian? That you? Leeam said you was dead. Like dead, dead.”
“I was, Ash,” Dorian growled. “I got better.”
Ash tilted his head curiously while the other men gathered closer to the porch. Hadrian could tell a few of them were quicker on the uptake than their friend. They understood the confession behind Dorian’s words. To them, he would be a traitor.
“How’d you get better?” Ash finally asked, obviously unable to come to any conclusion on his own.
“I healed him,” Hadrian said, and stepped around Dorian. Dorian put a hand on his arm to hold him back, but Hadrian ignored him. “I am a magic user, and I healed him. He didn’t have a choice in the matter.”
A couple of the men reached for their weapons, and Dorian took another step forward. “He saved my life, and I am grateful he did. I will see no harm come to him,” Dorian snapped. Hadrian sighed in exasperation.
“We ain’t planning on harming no one,” Ash said. The others looked less convincing with hands on bows or daggers, scowling at Hadrian. “We ain’t allowed no more. Markious would come down on us. You know that. Just want to make sure you wasn’t being kept against your will or nothin’. You know who these mages are? You ain’t right?”
“I am not,” Dorian said loudly. “Just know, neutral ground or no, I will shed blood if I have to to keep him from harm.”
“Stop belly aching man,” Ash said. “You know we ain’t allowed to touch these mages no more. Markious said. The Black Butcher too.”
“We’re not supposed to call him that anymore, Ash,” one of the other men said.
