Page 110 of Autumn Queens & Shadows

“It can easily not be your choice if he puts that in your head,” Malik gritted out.

“Then come and find out,” I said, reaching a shaky hand to him.

Kilian pushed away from the door and called, “Neo, would you join me for a walk outside? Malik, let go of him.”

Once I was left alone with him, I said, “You have no right.”

“I have every right!”

“You started this, Malik! Remember!”

He stalked up to me until I was backed to a wall. “And you gave me your word you would never let any other Empath mess with you. Did you or did you not, Thora?”

“I had to,” I whispered. “You don’t know how it was. How bad it was back then. I had no choice. I couldn’t live like that anymore! Fearing every moment I breathed because the simplest words and actions would remind me of things I didn’t wish to remember. Waiting for panic to sweep in and send me spiralling inside my own mind. I was drowning, Malik. Suffocating.”

The black in his eyes began dissolving, revealing amber eyes—hurt amber eyes. “Tell me one thing, then. Having gotten rid of it, has it helped at all?”

No. I just felt other things more and it wasn’t always less painful. “I can sleep.” At least I wasn't haunted in my dreams anymore. At least the nightmares were gone.

He barked an incredulous laugh, almost maniacal. “Tea can help you fucking sleep!”

“Malik—”

“You don’t know how it is to be numbed out on purpose. Knowing how a particular emotion feels, knowing you’re supposed to feel it and then nothing. No matter how deep you dig for it, no matter how hard you try to recall what you’re supposed to feel and not be able to. Because I do, Thora.” His shaky fingers came down on my face, torn whether to touch me or not because they only hovered over my skin. “I don’t want your colours to disappear. The way you feel is one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen. And you let him take away a piece of that. You let him touch you.”

My throat felt like it was tied with barbed wire. “It. Hurt.”

“I know it did, Rora. But we all must fucking hurt apparently.”

“How do I stop it?”

“We will figure it out. I will figure it out,” he repeated, still in a frenzy. “Right after I rip Neo’s soul off his bones.”

“I talked him into it.”

“Don’t protect him, you’re only making his case worse.”

“No, I did. We had an agreement.” The moment the words left me, I wanted the earth to swallow me whole.

If he’d been angry a second ago, he looked furious now. “What sort of an agreement?”

I wasn’t going to tell him that Neo had agreed to my methods of bedroom manners which were quite appalling if I was frank. There wasn’t an easy way for me to be with someone. Being intimate meant touching and I didn’t want anyone to touch me—anyone but him. I only wanted him to touch me. Neo wanted me despite that, so that made it our little private agreement. I confided in him because he had already accepted one other thing being wrong with me. I couldn’t tell Malik that I’d agreed to Neo’s company only how I allowed him to be. Tied up. In the dark. Wordlessly. No hands touching. No talking. I refused to die from embarrassment. “It is private.”

Suddenly he looked taller, bigger. Somehow frightening. “Oh?”

“Yes.”

“Is this how that moron got you? Is that why you’ve let him touch you? He’ll take away your pain for a fuck?”

I flinched. “That is not what I meant.” Partly, at least. Surely, there was more to the ten year long waltz me and Neo had entangled in. But the more I tried to justify the reasoning in my head, the more unreasonable it seemed. Maybe that is what I’d done—given him my body to him in exchange for freeing me of the burden of my emotions.

“Then what did you mean?”

“I don’t want to tell you.”

“That’s cute.” He backed away. “Very cute.”

“Where are you going?”