His thoughts touched on Isobel, on the way her mouth couldmake him forget for small portions of time that he’d never be his normal self again, that he’d never been normal to begin with. While his body craved her like a drug, his heart still couldn’t figure out what to do with her. Despite everything happening, the woman occupied most of his thoughts.
Was this love?
If so, Sean wasn’t sure he liked it. It lacked control. A pulse connected them, sourced by the magic that bound them, and he expected he’d feel echoes of that pulse even through collapse or creation, down to the very moment his body returned to dust.
Yet he still didn’t believe she was meant to die for him, and keeping up the charade of the star-crossed lovers had grown tiresome.
Did he really have to do this for the rest of his life?
As the sun dipped beneath the trees, the chilly autumn breeze crept under Sean’s clothes, and he shivered. Feeling no better after his lonely contemplation, he stepped into the warmth of their suite, stilling as David exited the washroom, gold hair darkened with damp and combed back from his face. He massaged his shoulder as if it bothered him.
The starburst scar was on full display, and a split-second flash of pain blinked over Sean’s forehead, there and gone before he had time to truly experience it. Almost like…a memory.
David paused. Their eyes met.
Sean’s gaze lifted to that scar. Crooked silverish lines branched out from a central wound marring the left part of his forehead near the hairline. Horrific.
David slowly raised a hand and ran it through his wet locks. A casual move that dislodged a few strands, scattering them across his forehead.
Sean remembered the day David had showed up to school after days of absences, his head bandaged and bruised.
What happened?he had taunted.Did you forget how to walk or something?
David had responded with his blank stare.It’s from the headboard when I was fucking your mom.
“How did you really get that?” Sean asked now. “We were what? Eleven? Twelve?”
Like it had back then, David’s face remained an empty mask.
Sean sighed, quelling the urge to roll his eyes. What was he expecting? An actual conversation? He turned toward his bedroom.
“Do you know how old I was when my father discovered I could control people with my voice?” David asked.
Sean looked at him again, and for unknown reasons, his pulse bloomed in his wrists and throat.
“I was six.”
Sean just stared.
“Do you know what happens when a narcissistic criminal discovers their child has the power to influence the behaviors of everyone but them?”
Sean shook his head.
David’s green eyes sparked, then went dead. “The child is no longer a child to them. The child is a tool.” He took three steps closer, his gaze intense. “But tools have to be learned, right? Broken in. Upgraded.” A faint smile appeared. “That’s how I got the scar, Sean. It’s how my father upgraded me.”
Sean’s attention shot to the violent mark again, now covered by fine gold hair. “Yourfatherdid that to you?”
David laughed, low and dark. “Do or die. That was my life. Do you think it’s easy to talk someone into doing something that goes against every instinct? Do you think I was born knowing how to whisper suicide into a person’s ear, then hand them a knife and watch them do it? I paid for those skills with my own blood.”
“You could have said no,” Sean said, though his voice lacked conviction.
He pressed his lips together, nodding bitterly. “I tried. I couldn’t.”
“Why not?”
David’s tone went sharp as a razor’s edge. “You keep asking that like I’m going to have a different answer.I don’t know.”
Sean ran a hand through his hair. “So why are you finally telling me this now?”
