Page 83 of Eight of Swords, Part Two

‘I want to free you from Harker,’ Lachlan admits. ‘The bond.’

The nine words make for a complicated statement.

Kade feels many things, gives the spotlight to none.

‘And then what?’

‘Then nothing.’

‘You’ll die for failing to get justice for who you lost.’

‘I suppose.’

‘That doesn’t feel like giving up to you?’

‘It feels fair.’

‘What if I don’t want that?’

‘Then I’m sorry.’

‘That’s a bullshit apology and I don’t accept it.’

‘You never did.’

Kade scrubs Lachlan’s underarms. Lachlan is pliable, malleable and obedient. Kade gently presses his fingers into the pit and wiggles them, curious. No reaction beyond a wry smile. Not ticklish there, then.

‘Do you still want to take me out tonight?’

‘I do.’

‘Where?’

‘I wanted to take you to the Estate.’

‘The Penhalyx Estate?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Don’t you think it’ll be hard for you to go back?’

‘It’ll hurt, but I still want to take you.’

Kade traces one of the longest scars right between the ridges of Lachlan’s shoulders. It’s driven so deep, must have hurt like hell.

‘You can handle pain, can’t you?’

‘Physical pain, yeah. That’s easy. Always was.’

‘What’s not easy?’

Lachlan thinks for a while before he speaks.

‘A body is just a body until you love the soul it holds. Then the fragile mechanisms that sustain it become as essential to you as the rising sun. I’ve been killing men since I was seventeen years old. I know all the ways to stop a heart. When Harker shot you both, the sun set for me and never rose again.’ He looks up at Kade, but this time he turns himself around, brings them face to face, kneeling in the water. ‘Until I broke in here and saw you again.’ Lachlan swallows thickly, smiles. ‘A little bit of dawn.’

‘Only a little bit?’ Kade asks, surprisingly choked up.

Lachlan’s gaze roams over him as though, even now, he’s committing every inch of him to memory. He has a way about him, Lachlan does. A kind of predatory tenderness in the way he treats Kade and no one else. Quiet, ruthless devotion and a dizzying degree of confident knowing.