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I laugh sweetly at the memory, but I don’t let it derail me.
“Have you considered… seeing someone?” I ask softly. “A psychologist. A therapist.”
Ilya pushes himself back, propping one hand against my uninjured shoulder to look me dead in the face. His pupils are narrowed, and that defensive prickliness flares across his features like a shield slammed down between us.
“What? Do you think I’m sick?”
Before he can spin the offense into a full-blown war, I lift my hand, cup the side of his jaw, and pull his face down to mine.
I kiss him until the violent resistance drains out of his posture. When I finally ease back, I press a soft kiss directly to the crown of his head.
“No,” I whisper into his hair. “I don’t think you’re sick, my prince.”
Underneath the brilliant strategist who just dismantled an international syndicate plot, I know what’s really sitting in my lap.
He lost his entire world in the span of hours. His father died on that floor. His sister was a traitor who tried to put a bullet through his head before dying in the dark. Anton, the boy he thought was his brother, died leaving behind a note that revealed Ilya’s entire childhood had been an orchestrated stage play.
He’s carrying a mountain of corpses on his back, and he’s trying to sprint with it.
“You’ve been through hell, Ilya,” I say, wrapping around him. “More hell than anyone should have to survive in a lifetime, and now you’re hiding.”
“I’m not hiding. I’m doing what needs to be done.”
“I know you are,” I sigh. “And you’ve done it brilliantly. Nobody else on earth could have pulled this off.”
He bites his lip, his throat moving on a hard swallow. “I don’t need a stranger asking me stupid questions about my feelings, Kento. I don’t need someone trying to ‘fix’ me. I’m fine.”
“You don’t need to be fixed,” I correct him softly. “Because you aren’t broken. But talking to someone might help.”
I take a slow breath and try to find my words. He’s spent too much of his life being made to feel like there’s something wrong with him, and I’d rather bite my own tongue than add to that.
Still, I can’t forget the way he sometimes vanishes behind his own eyes. He’ll be standing right in front of me, yet somehow impossibly far away, and no matter what I do, I can’t seem to bring him back.
“I’m your man,” I say quietly, looking into his troubled green eyes. “I will stand in front of every bullet meant for you. I will listen to you scream, I will hold you when you panic, and I will tear apart anyone who tries to hurt you. But you deserve to heal properly, Ilya, and I don’t think I can fully help with that. I think you need someone more… experienced.”
Ilya stares at me. His lower lip trembles before he catches it with his teeth. The fierce, untouchable prince looks suddenly very small.
Slowly, he sinks back down against my chest, burying his face into the hollow between my neck and shoulder. He wraps both arms around my ribs, mindful of my wounds, holding on with a tight grip. “I don’t even know what I’d say,” he whispers. “Where would I even start?”
“Wherever you want,” I murmur, kissing the side of his temple. “You don’t have to figure it out tonight. Just… think about it. For me.”
Finally, with a soft sigh that shudders through his entire frame, he mumbles into my collar, “I… will think about it.”
A smile touches my mouth. I press another kiss to the top of his head. “Good boy. That’s all I ask.”
Ilya huffs a small breath, though he doesn’t move an inch away from my warmth. “Don’t call me that when we’re having a serious conversation. It ruins my authority.”
“Your authority is entirely intact, my prince.”
He stays curled against me for another few minutes. Eventually, he shifts, then he blinks, his brows knitting together.
“Where is… your spider?” he asks, glancing back at me.
“He’s not here anymore. Rei took him yesterday.”
Ilya turns around in my lap, staring at me like I’ve grown a second head. “Why? He was your pet. You’ve had that terrifying eight-legged demon since before I met you.”
“I know,” I say easily. “But you flinch every time you walk in here.”
