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“I want to be with you,” I hiccup, stumbling over the words. “I want nothing more. I’m in love with you, Azron, but I have too much in the past. There are things that will keep dragging me back into the past for the rest of my life.”
“Maybe.” Azron’s voice is soft, and he sounds very rational. “Maybe if you talked about it, the past would allow you to let go.”
You can’t tell him about that. You can’t tell him about the killing. Everything else but that.
“I lost both my parents when I was very young,” I speak slowly, choosing my words carefully. “My father brought us to New Solas. He was a devout man. And he was obsessed with gaining his wings and eventually joining the rest of the xaphan on Neomia.”
I feel Azron stiffen next to me, but he doesn’t say anything. He also doesn’t pull away from me.
He knows the stories of the humans who have tried to gain their wings. Everyone does.
The non-humans of Aerasak consider those humans crazy. Those humans who try to become like the xaphan.
“He died when I was very young. Then my mother, when I was seventeen years old, became desperate. She wanted to take care of me. We were struggling, we were starving. She made a deal with a xaphan who tricked her.”
My body burns with anxiety as I tell Azron. I edge around the truth, careful not to step into dangerous territory with him.
“She was killed by other xaphan. They thought she was a spy. But the xaphan who tricked her didn’t tell her the whole truth about the situation. She had no time to get out, and no time to defend herself.”
Azron’s body has gone completely still. I am not even sure if he is still breathing.
“I hate them.” I whisper the words, and something in my chest purrs in satisfaction. I realize that I have never said the words out loud.
“I hate the xaphan. They destroyed my life. They took everything from me.”
“Oh, gods.” Azron finally speaks when I have descended into silence.
“I am so sorry.” He pulls me onto his lap in a long, warm hug, and I start to cry again. But he holds me like that until I stop crying.
“I’m sorry. But why can’t we be together?” he asks me. Shock explodes in my chest.
I pull away from the hug to look at him.
“Why can’t we be together?” He strokes my face. “When I love you, too?”
“What?” My voice is filled with confusion, and I know my face is twisted with confusion, too. “But how could you possibly love me? How could you possibly want me?”
Now, confusion twists Azron’s beautiful face. “Why wouldn’t I love you or want you?”
You can’t tell him. You can never tell him.
Azron must take my silence for acceptance, because he takes my chin in his hand and pulls my face towards his.
I am hopeless to deny him anything. I am hopeless to push him away.
And right then, I don’t want to push him away.
All I want is for Azron to swallow me whole. To envelop me in all of him. So that hopefully, I become something else.
Someone else.
Someone who isn’t a killer.
We are rolling over, with Azron on top of me and my legs around his waist.
I don’t know how it happens, but soon we’re entangled in one another, and he is pulling my clothes off, and I am lifting my hips and my arms to help him.
He isn’t moving fast. Instead, he moves almost methodically, and part of me wants to lunge up, grab him, and have him plunge into me.
