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As Seth pulled Raider’s arm into him, the movement exposed the wound in his shoulder, which his shirt had been covering. His other shoulder had a similar wound, and Seth knew that more marked his back. He had seen it, all of it, after the sand serpent fight.
Raider didn’t resist and didn’t flinch, not even when Seth pricked his vein, but he did make a small sound in his throat. Like it hurt him, on some deep, non-physical level, that Seth would do this.
It hurt Seth too, even though he knew his own intentions. It was the idea of it. Doing this to Raider. Even if he was an assassin. Even if everything had been a lie.
Because if that book incriminated Raider? He had likely intended to steal it from Seth.
Raider hadn’t known about the book when Seth had hired him, but Seth had described the book to him during their journey. Though Raider had flirted from day one, it hadn’t been until later, until after Seth had told him about the book, that he’d tied Seth’s heart in knots. Had he done it on purpose?
Maybe.
But, intentional or not, it had happened. Seth’s heart was in knots—and no degree of logic or principle could untie it.
And that was why Seth withdrew the needle and squirted the serum onto his already wet pants, outside of Raider’s vein, leaving only the tiny blood spot to suggest otherwise.
Raider’s eyes opened and met Seth’s. They weren’t so neutral now. They were full of sorrow and regret and a hopeless sort of yearning.
Seth had seen so many different things in Raider’s expressive eyes. Amusement and mischief. Passion and need. Torment and fear. Seth had seen Raider’s strikingly beautiful face in so many lights and moods. Seth had seen and touched his gorgeous body in so many ways.
Seth’s heart ached at those memories—because they might have been real, but they had never been fully honest. Raider’s body and mind had so many secrets. And, even now, Seth would not learn them.
Seth dropped Raider’s arm and stood, backing away to make sure that Malik and Rahim could see the spot of blood. Seth passed the empty syringe through the bars to Malik.
With a note of satisfaction in his voice, Rahim asked, “Did you kill Emperor Hassan?”
And Raider, despite not having been injected with the compulsive drug, despite being a very good liar, said, “Yes.”
The meaning of the word, the significance of it, took a moment to hit Seth. “What? Why would you say that?”
“Because it’s true. I killed the emperor.”
“Wait,” Rahim all but purred, stepping up to the bars, his tone shifting back to that awful relish. “I remember you now. Gods, I should have seen it from the start. I only saw you with him once, the day he assigned me this post, but I should have recognized you, even if you have filled out since then. You’re that street rat Hassan took to his bed.”
Seth reeled. “What are you talking about? Raider, what is he …” Seth trailed off as Raider met his gaze with bleak eyes.
“It’s true. I was … with him. Then I killed him.”
Seth staggered and caught himself against the bars. A political assassination was bad enough, but to kill a lover? And his lover had been the emperor?
Seth couldn’t process it all. It whirled through his brain. Amid that chaos, however, one thought settled, one truth became, at last, wholly undeniable.
“You lied. About your memory. You knew all along what you’d done. That you’d killed a man you …”
Fucked?
Loved?
Seth’s brain scrambled to cast everything in a different light. What if there was a reason for all this, a good reason? What if Raider had done all this to destroy a tyrant? The little that Seth knew about Emperor Hassan didn’t suggest that he’d been cruel, but royal reputations tended to be more fiction than fact.
Seth heard the desperation in his own voice as he asked, “Was he a bad—”
“He was a good man,” Raider said, clearly seeing the direction of Seth’s desperate thoughts. “And, yes, I loved him and I killed him and I lied to you.”
For the second time tonight, everything shattered—including Seth’s heart.
But Seth had to think, had to speak. So he let the broken pieces of his heart grate together, let the pain of that fill his voice as he said, “I wish I’d never met you, you lying piece of shit.”
At Raider’s flinch, Seth turned away and stalked to the cell door, which Malik swung open for him. Seth heard it clang shut, but he didn’t stop, didn’t look back. He walked straight to the staircase and climbed it.
