Page 319 of Eight of Swords, Part Two

Jules steps back.

Lachlan can’t look away.

Julian’s hair looks almost black when wet, his clothes plastered against him.

His lovely mouth is painted with watery red because the kiss was too rough. It drew blood. Lachlan feels the faint sting of evidence in the middle of his bottom lip. His skin is pale and his chest rises and falls heavily.

His fingers stretch and flex like tentacles.

And despite how wet, dark and pale everything else about Jules is, how much of a drowned demigod he seems then, his eyes burn furiously gold. Lachlan knows this boy isn’t human, he’s known that for a while now, but this is the first time he truly sees it.

And the water seems to move like sheets of rain in strong wind.

And the steam seems to curl.

And the earth itself seems to shake.

But it just seems that way.

Because in reality, it’s just them in the prison Lachlan helped build.

The same one he’s going to get him out of.

Jules, Mimi, Vasily, Blaire and Danya.

They’re his reason.

His sanity.

Their freedom means everything.

It means more than love.

More than happiness.

His, at least.

Julian seems to read all of it in Lachlan then.

Reads him to his core.

Softly, he says, ‘I won’t let God have you, Lachlan.’

‘He wouldn’t want me.’

‘I won’t let anyone have you.’

It’s dark, almost frightening.

Demanding.

Decided.

The last of the boy has gone, washed away, shed like snakeskin.

Julian is a man carved into adulthood by pain.

Lachlan will never forgive himself for being a part of it.