Page 70 of Bloom in Darkness

I start forward, and Caelan catches me around the chest before I reach the stairs. I drag him a full step with me and feel his bad leg hitch before he plants himself harder.

“Let go.” I shove against his arm hard enough to drag him a step with me, his bad leg hitching before he plants himself again.

“No. He’s upstairs, and I know you want to get to him.” Caelan shifts his hold higher when I push again. “But you’re not going through Sabine and half her security to do it.”

“Then move.”

“Not like this.”

I turn toward him, ready to make him choose whether he’s actually going to hold me there.

Then Astra’s voice comes from above us. “Bryn.”

Everything stops. He stands on the landing in the same clothes he left home in, bag over one shoulder, phone in his hand. He looks tired and pale around the mouth, anger sitting right under the surface, but he’s standing there whole.

I pull free of Caelan and take the stairs two at a time.

Astra meets me halfway. I get both hands on him as soon as I reach him, checking his shoulders, his face, then both wrists. I need to know he's standing here because he's actually okay, not because he's forcing himself upright again. He lets me check until my hand reaches for the back of his neck, then catches my wrist.

“I’m okay.”

“Come home.” My hand stays at the back of his neck while the other settles around his waist.

Astra exhales my name like he already knows this argument is coming. “Bryn. I am coming home. Just not yet.”

My grip tightens before I can stop it. “No.”

Astra's fingers tighten around my wrist. "She wants me at the Night of Scarlet. I said I'd go."

“Why the fuck would you agree to that?”

“Because I need to.”

“No, you don’t.” The answer comes out before he can soften it with big guy again. “Eighty-seven thousand eight hundred and twelve. Fine. I pay it. We walk out now."

Astra flinches. “You don’t understand.”

“Then explain it.”

He looks past me at Caelan before stepping closer, using my body to block most of Sabine from his view. “If you pay it, I leave because another man paid for me.”

"I'm not another man."

“I know.” Astra swallows before he can continue. "That's why it's worse. You'd never hold it over me. Caelan wouldn't either. I'd do it to myself every time I ate your food or used your shower or asked you to come get me. I'd keep waiting for the day I'd cost enough that you changed your mind."

Last night he told us he keeps waiting for an invoice. I didn’t realize paying the debt would become one too.

Astra puts his palm flat against my chest. "I know where I belong."

“Then come with me.”

“I will. Tomorrow.”

I stare at him. “Astra.”

His mouth almost curves despite everything. “You’re very bad at the part where I ask for something difficult.”

“Then ask.”