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Essos flops on his back. “And now I have the image of my own brother covered in his seed in my mind. My love, why are you torturing me?”
“Maybe because when you lock me back in my tower, I’m going to be stuck with that visual too.” As soon as I say it, my stomach drops out. I don’t want to fight with him anymore. “I’m sorry. I don’t know why I said that.”
Essos sits up and reaches to pull me to face him, and I let him. “You said that because you’re hurt. Throw whatever you’ve got at me. I’m not going anywhere.”
I reward him for his words with a small kiss, a graze of my lips against his while I reach for his crown and set it back on his head.
“I love you,” I promise him as I get back to my feet.
“I never deserved you. Not the first time I somehow convinced you to love me, and not now.”
“Essos, that’s the crux of the issue. Youdodeserve me. You do deserve love. You have it in your head that you don’t deserve a great love, and apparently thousands of years of me loving you didn’t convince you.”
“It did, but it felt like losing you was some sort of cosmic balance righting itself. It felt like I never should have had you to begin with, and that I was lucky to have had you for the time that I did.” His fingertips dig into my sides. I’m standing between his legs, and I hate the hurt in his eyes. I hate that he’s not just saying this but really believes himself unworthy. He believes that my love is not something that should have ever been given to him.
If I see her again, I’m going to punch Octavia in the face, not only for raising a psychopath in her youngest son, but for making Essos feel like this. I also wish I could bring Titus back from the dead just to kill him again.
Essos’s head drops forward, resting against my sternum as he hugs me to him. There is still so much trauma that neither of us has resolved.
I hug Essos, pressing his head against me. His arms come around me, tugging me closer until I perch on his lap. It’s going to take us some time to get back to who we were before Galen did the damage that he did.
A pounding on our door startles us both. Essos doesn’t hesitate, moving gracefully to stand and place me behind him. It takes me a heartbeat realize where we are, causing my body to shudder. In the space of that heartbeat, I thought it was Galen here for retribution, but then I remember he’s dead. I did that.
It’s just Xavier.
There is a slight release to Essos’s posture before he turns to face me. His cheeks have pinkened, like he’s embarrassed that his first reaction was to protect me. I can’t blame him; my first instinct was responding to a threat too. It’s a reminder of the reason we’re here, of the danger that comes with Posey running roughshod over the whole city.
I step around him, sliding my hand into his, and open the door to find Xavier, whose cheeks are still red. Good. He deserves to be embarrassed for jerking off onmycouch.
“Why are you here?” Xavier asks, following me into my kitchen.
“That’s a good question,” I hedge, furrowing my brow. “You seem to have everything in hand.” I can’t stop my smirk.
“That’s right. Get it out,” Xavier snarls.
“Nope, you already did, and all over my nice towel too,” I point out, grabbing myself a glass of water. I didn’t realize how badly I needed some levity. Every day since I met with Rafferty has dealt another blow. I wish I could go back to the easy time immediately after the failed wedding, when things were just regular-hard as we tried to figure out what was wrong, and not this fucked-up situation where we don’t know who could die tomorrow. The image of the slash on Finn’s arm comes to mind, and I have to shake it away.
“You could have at least used the tissues,” Essos points out.
Lightning crackles off Xavier’s finger.
“Not in the house,” I order. I want to plop on the couch, but I settle in my old reading chair instead. I’m going to need a whole new living room set.
“I think that applies to more than just magic,” my husband adds. His cackle doesn’t help the situation.
“Seriously, why are you two here?” Xavier asks again. Essos perches at the foot of my chair while Xavier sits at the table.
“I’ve come to bargain.” I give a small shrug of my shoulder.
“With whom?”
“I thought that was obvious. I want to force your wife’s hand and make her give up all of this. I want to find out how to get her out of our lives.”
“Ex-wife,” Xavier corrects.
“Wait, I’m sorry, that’s your grand plan?” Essos interrupts. “You walked into breakfast like you had this idea or some way that we could solve this.”
“I do—it’s called reason. I’m hoping that if Posey sees that the people will not be easily cowed by her, that we will not be pushed around, maybe she’ll second guessherplan long enough that we can parlay with her.”
