“You don’t smell bad.”
“But I must look terrible—”
“You don’t.”
Cass looked up at him, something uncertain in his expression. “You keep saying that, but you also keep making the face. So either I’m doing something wrong or...” He trailed off, brow furrowing. “Or what? What’s the other option?”
The other option is that you’re the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen and it’s taking every ounce of control I have not to find out what you’re hiding under those robes.
Chapter eight
Elysian Dynamics Beauty Standards
Riot
Theafternoonpassedina haze of fever management and careful distance. Riot learned things he didn’t want to know—like exactly how Cass’s hair looked spread across the pillow when he tried to rest, or the small sounds he made when he thought Riot wasn’t listening.
Around midday, Cass sat up suddenly.
“I want to tell you about Honey,” he said. “Is that okay? I keep thinking about her, and you’re the only person I can talk to.”
Riot’s chest tightened. He had been carefully avoiding that topic because he felt like he wasn’t going to like whatever came out of Cass’s mouth about her. “Honey?”
“My best friend. My... designated partner.” Cass’s voice went smaller on the last word. “The one I’m supposed to bond with when I go home.”
“Go ahead,” he said, keeping his voice neutral.
“We’ve been best friends since we were really little. Before all the partnership stuff started.” Cass’s expression softened. “We used to play dress-up. All the little kids did it, practicing the sacred bond ceremony. When it was Honey’s turn to practice, I’d dress like a girl so she could pretend to bond with me. And when it was my turn, she’d put her hair up and dress like a boy so I could practice too.”
Riot filed away the detail that Cass had apparently needed a male partner for his childhood bonding fantasies. He filed it away very carefully, in a folder labeledthings that matter more than they should. “It sounds like you are close.”
“We were. We are.” Cass’s smile flickered. “But then we got older, and everyone got weird about us. They kept asking when we were going to realize our ‘spiritual connection,’ when we’d start showing proper partnership interest. The compatibility assessments matched us perfectly. Everyone said we were destined. But...”
“But?”
“We never really wanted to bond to each other.” The admission came out quiet, almost ashamed. “I love her. She’s wonderful and brilliant. But when I tried to imagine our sacred bond ceremony, it just felt like playing dress-up again. Not real.”
Something eased in Riot’s chest. Not jealousy—he didn’t have any right to jealousy—but... relief.
“There are different kinds of love,” he said. “Friendship isn’t the same as romantic love.”
“That’s what I thought.” Cass looked up at him hopefully. “But Brother Matthias said proper spiritual development would help me understand my deeper feelings for Honey. That my lack of romantic attraction was a spiritual deficiency.”
“Or maybe,” Riot suggested, not wanting to push too hard, “your lack of attraction was your body telling you something your brain hadn’t figured out yet.”
Cass’s eyes widened and his mouth fell open, but before he could respond, he pressed his head to his knees again with a weak whimper, his arms shaking as they tightened around his shins. “I really, really don’t feel good,” he whimpered. “Why does it hurt?”
Riot was across the room before he could stop himself, kneeling in front of the bed. “Where does it hurt?”
“Everywhere. But especially—” Cass’s face flushed even darker. “Lower. In my stomach. But also... lower than that.”
“That’s normal,” Riot said, keeping his voice calm.
“It doesn’t feel normal.” Cass’s eyes shone with unshed tears, his lower lip sucked between his teeth as he peeked up at Riot. “It feels like I’m falling apart.”
“You’re not falling apart. You’re just—”Going into heat and killing me slowly.“You’re just going through something new.”
Cass reached for him, fingers closing around Riot’s wrist. The contact sent a jolt up Riot’s arm and made his pulse spike and his vision begin to blur gold at the edges.
