“Zack?” Takashi asked.
“What the fuck have I come home to?” Zack demanded, his tone sharper than he meant it, but it vented a tiny fraction of the pressure in his skull. He started to push past Takashi.
Takashi put his arm across the doorway and blocked the entrance. Zack could have forced his way through, but there was a surface tension in his mind. The desire in him wanted to shred and rip. Giving in to it would be like slipping into that place he’d found when he’d dominated Takashi.
But this wasn’t the same at all. This didn’t feel like the calm he’d found when topping his lover. This was violent. Angry. Not something he would be in command of, but impulses that would ruin everything around him.
So he stayed outside in the hallway.
The pressure had to ease, though. He had to find a way to release more before it exploded and forced him into that malicious place. He shouted at the girl, “For fuck’s sake, you’re a fucking mage. Stop making the knots tighter, and use a thread of kinetic energy to undo them. If you can’t manage that, try burning or freezing the damn thing. Fucking idiot!”
Takashi glared at him. “What is wrong with you?”
“Nothing,” Zack snarled. He hissed.
Takashi straightened, and a pulse of cold anger came from him.
The coolness doused a minute fraction of the burning rage within him. Zack took a few steps backward and put his palms to his eyes. “Seamus. It’s Seamus. I can hear …”
“The fucking, no good, useless piece of shit! Eight hundred years! Eight hundred fucking years and he does this to me!” Seamus shouted with that echo quality.
But at the exact same time, Zack heard him snarling and growling. Seamus snapped, “I have loved you eight hundred years, and you do this to me?To us?”
Confusion was better than the rage, and Zack clung to it because it was a life buoy of his own emotions in a tidal wave of desire that had nothing to do with him. He tried to focus on what he was hearing, but Seamus continued to have two voices at once.
Doesn’t make sense. Zack frowned and blinked, bringing his hands away.
“I will figure out his fucking game,” Seamus said while also saying, “How long have the two of you been planning to stab me in the back?”
“What did you just hear Seamus say?” Zack asked Takashi.
The pinch in Takashi’s brow shifted, anger morphing into concern. “He’s accusing Anton of betraying him.”
“My love, I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Anton said, the plea in his voice obvious even at a distance.
“He’s always been good at playing a part,” Seamus said in echo, and more loudly, at the same instant, “You have always sought greater immortality, and now that you’ve found it, you don’t need me anymore. Is that it?”
“What did Seamusexactlysay?” Zack demanded of Takashi.
“‘You have always sought greater immortality, and now that you’ve found it, you don’t need me anymore. Is that it?’” Takashi repeated.
“And that’s all you heard?”
Takashi frowned more and stepped, reaching for Zack’s shoulder. “What’s wrong?”
“Love, please, explain what I’ve done. I’ve many skills, but I’m not a mind reader,” Anton said.
Mind reader.Am I one?Zack thought.Not possible.
“Zackery, this is not thetime,” the echoey Seamus voice said. But he was also diving into his argument with Anton, accusing him without explaining anything.
Zack glanced down the hall. Cold dread tempered the rage more. “Takashi, did you hear Seamus say my name?”
“No,” Takashi said.
Zack clenched his fist.Am I hearing your fucking thoughts?
I’ve been talking to you since you rose, you stupid little shit, Seamus replied.
