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“I…you…what?” I asked. “Owain, this is not a game.”

“I never said it was one. You just look like you’re about to keel over and I think you’d feel much better if you sat down.”

I glared some more.

I felt my nostrils flare.

I was breathing like I’d just run a marathon under the threat of castration and he was giving me cheek. Which…great, good for him. I liked cheek. Except right now the only cheek I wanted was his arse cheek on a cushioned surface. Resting.

I folded when he kept staring at me like we were in a contest. One I was clearly losing. “Fine!”

I trudged over to a chair in the corner of the room and threw myself into it in a beautiful display of a hyper-masculine temper tantrum. The soft surface sank under my weight, and as pissed off as I was, it felt nice.

It felt even better when Owain walked over and straddled me, sitting down in my lap and pressing me deeper into the chair. This close, I could hear how laboured his breathing still was. There was a tiny whistle on every inhale, and I turned my head to the side, resting my ear on his chest.

“How are you feeling?” I asked, feeling some of the rage and anxiety melt away. His heartbeat was strong. Present. He was there.

“I’m good.” He smiled when I turned my head again and quirked an eyebrow at him. “I really am good, Ryan.”

“I don’t believe you,” I said quietly.

His face fell. “You don’t?”

I shook my head, reaching up to cup his cheeks in my palms.

“You’re not realistic when it comes to your own well-being,” I whispered. I ran my finger down his cheek to his neck, tracing the dark bruising covering the skin there. He flinched slightly and I lifted my hand to avoid hurting him.

“I think it might look worse than it is,” he said, but he wasn’t looking me in the eye.

“You’re not helping by not telling me things, love. I won’t feel better just because you’re lying to me.”

“I’m not lying.”

“You almost died,” I said sharply. “I stood there, listening to you, following your lead like I’d been told, and you almost died.”

“I didn’t die—wait…” Owain frowned. “Like you’d been told? Told by whom?”

All of a sudden my lap was empty, my thighs cold, and Owain was on the other end of the room, glaring at me. I could see his chest rising and falling rapidly, the bruises stark and his body curving in on itself like standing upright was a chore.

But he was angry now. For the first time since we’d met, he looked and sounded truly angry. Even when he was trying to run me out of the house he hadn’t looked like this.

“Have you been talking to my family? What did they tell you? Have you been in contact with them this whole time?” He was working himself up into a fit, so I stood up and walked over to him.

“Owain.”

“Don’t Owain me, you…you…bum,” he spat at me. I snorted despite my fear, because even his anger came wrapped in a polite little bow.

“Bum?” I asked, trying to keep a straight face when repeating it.

“Yes!” he said. “You unwashed, smelly bum. How could you? I trusted you!”

My smile vanished and I decided it was now or never. All the cards on the table. “Apparently not enough to tell me you’re a psychopomp.”

His gasp echoed in the room. “What?”

“Yeah.” I crossed my arms. “Who’s the bum now?”

“My parents wouldn’t have told you that,” he said, chewing his nail as he paced the room. “They want to forget about it. They would die before letting anyone know I was a weirdo.”