Page 19 of Forge the Blade

To be with someone else. Someone he loved. Someone he respected. Someone who had probably left those marks on Sevastyan weeks ago, rope marks and bites and bruises.

There was no world for Rei without Sevastyan. He’d shared Sevastyan with the mission, surviving on the moments when they were together. Surviving on the rules and directions inherent in their existence. As long as Sevastyan still wanted him, Rei could exist. He could share, even though this Ellisandre felt so loud, so large, there didn’t seem to be any air left in the room for Rei to breathe.

Ellisandre was everything Rei was not.

Rei didn’t realize he’d frozen in place until arms wrapped around him from behind. “I’m cold,” Lisa whispered.

“I don’t . . . I’m not . . .” Rei looked at the bed and he couldn’t. Strip naked in a room full of men who’d happily watch him die? That he could do. But crawl into that bed, he could not. Even though he’d just been there two hours before.

Lisa pressed against Rei gently and let go. He opened the armoires and closet until he found a space and dragged extra blankets from the chest at the end of the bed into the enclosed nook. Then he came back and held out his hand. Rei put his palm in Lisa’s. He let the other slave lead him into the enclosed space, close the door behind them, and settle both of them with their backs to the far corner, the hanging clothes settling around them smelling faintly of cedar.

And then, finally, wrapped in the dark, his body cradled between Lisa’s thighs, he could breathe.

Lisa said nothing for a long time. His body buzzed with tension beneath Rei but even that was comforting. Sevastyan and Ellisandre had been so outwardly calm, acting like nothing had happened, like they hadn’t all met in the middle of a battlefield and destabilized all their worlds.

In this moment, only Lisa’s abrupt anger felt true.

“I don’t want to go to Richard,” Rei whispered.

“What do you mean?” Lisa murmured.

“A life for a life. My life for Jun’s. I don’t belong in that world anymore. Sevastyan’s already going to destroy the Merchari. He’ll do it without a deal.”

“No, he won’t,” Lisa said.

Rei gripped Lisa in surprise. “What do you mean?”

“Sevastyan is playing the villain,” Lisa said. “Richard already has Jun. He’s that rich man we were watching, right?”

Rei nodded in the dark, but they were so close Lisa could still feel him.

“He can’t trust Richard to value your life. He has to make it a deal, put something valuable on the line for both sides so that he can risk working with someone he doesn’t know.”

Rei squeezed his hands together, if only to feel how the bruises and scabs burned from the pressure. “I don’t want to be sold. Not again. I don’t want to be bought.”

“It’s not buying or selling.” Lisa pressed his cheek to the back of Rei’s head. “It’s mutually assured destruction.”

Rei pressed his eyes closed. Tears swelled up and burned behind his lids but there was no liquid falling. It was locked too deep for the moment. He might not cry again until Sevastyan tied him and fucked the built-up emotions out of him, turning him loose and pliant again, all the emotions flogged from his skin.

It would almost be easier if he were alone, without Lisa. If Sevastyan would order him to his knees and force him to endure. He could endure. He was the perfect slave. This twilight place in the middle was frightening. He needed to find that numb place from which he could do anything, experience anything.

But he couldn’t go there. Not when his master’s eyes were so brokenly human. Not when his hands were covered in blood. Not when people like Ellisandre were looking at him like he was a person.

He needed Alexi. The slave master would put him on his knees and tell him exactly what he had to do to be right. He would tell him when to eat and drink, when to sleep, tell him exactly how to please him.

Rei turned, pressing his face against Lisa’s shoulder. “How are you okay?”

“I’m not,” Lisa said. “I haven’t been okay in years. Why do you think I’m hiding in the closet with you?”

“What are you afraid of?”

Lisa laughed, low and dark. “I don’t know. I don’t know. If you weren’t here . . .” Lisa’s voice trailed off and his hands stroked over Rei’s back. “You keep my demons from taking control. You always have.”

Rei tangled his fingers in Lisa’s shirt. “This isn’t normal. I . . . I don’t . . . get like this. Up doesn’t feel like up and down doesn’t feel like down.”

“Concussion,” Lisa sighed and kept petting Rei wherever he could touch in the tight space. “Confusion, emotionality, mood changes, those are all natural. Do you have any memory loss?”

“No.” Rei slumped against Lisa. “It’s like my thoughts are sliding through my fingers.”