Chapter 23
Chapter twenty-three
Marco: Protection
The party is a living, writhing nightmare.
The second I walk back in, all eyes are on me, and they know one way or the other.
Whether they think I fucked Robin or fucked the Emperor, everyone’s watching, whispering.
There’s nowhere to go, no one to turn to who can shield me, so I walk across the room, head high, to the drinks table.
“Alright?”
Cas. Fucking Cas.
“Shouldn’t you be talking to sponsors?”
“I was. I was just… taking a break—”
“Well, don’t.”
He lets out a sharp breath before walking away, but I can’t bring myself to even look up.
Let him think I’m an asshole. And anyway, I don’t want him near me.
I’m so fucking jealous of him. Cas going back to Robin’s room every single night.
The one place in this entire city I can’t go. And the only place I want to be.
Somewhere he’d whisper more of his beautiful promises in the dark. Somewhere it wouldn’t gut me to imagine there’s any truth in any of it.
But it’s all lies. And it’s beginning to eat me alive.
I should never have let him touch me again.
But I needed him. Tonight, more than ever, I needed Robin.
I needed him to take that control from me.
All the decisions I’m so sick of making, all the pretending, all the awful things I have to act like I want.
I needed him to make me forget. Needed his protection, the safety I only ever feel when his arms are wrapped around me.
The truth of it claws at me, tearing at me from the inside out. I wish I’d never met him. I wish I’d never felt this way.
Because now he’s gone. And I’m back here on my own.
“Haven’t seen much of you tonight.”
Fucking Jason.
Give me a fucking break.
“Why would you have seen me?” I turn away from him, leaning slightly back against the table in an effort to control my body. I’m still on fire after Robin. My hands are shaking. I must smell like him. Fuck, I wish I was still out there with him.
“Where have you been?”
The audacity of the question snaps my head across. “That’s none of your fucking business.”
Jason keeps his dead eyes cool on the people milling past. “The Emperor’s been in here. He was looking for you.”
A crawling dread scratches its way across every inch of my skin. I was sure the fight with Julius would have kept him longer.
As if I was thinking at all.
“So then I realized you weren’t with him,” Jason goes on, like he’s willing me to punch him.
“Can’t a man get a breath of fresh air?”
“Is that what you were doing?”
At that exact moment, Robin walks in. He does it as discreetly as possible, but not discreetly enough. His hair’s still mussed, his shining laurel not half as neatly entwined in his sandy locks as it was before.
Jason’s eyes bore into him. Cas beelines for him. He looks up, and I meet his eyes for one stupid, fatal moment.
Everything—the whole fucking world between us—is in that one look.
I hate the way he wants me.
I hate the way I want him back.
And it makes me fucking sick that neither of us can ever, ever have what we want. Because everything he said to me tonight… He knows. He knows the way I adore him, and I was never supposed to let him know that.
“I see,” Jason mutters. “Fresh air. Something new.”
“You know what?” A little wine splashes down on my fingers as I turn to face him.
“You need to get over it. I’ve spent a lot of long and brutal years in this place, and if I want someone to help me pass a bit of that time, I’ll take them.
I’m sorry it’s not you. I’m sorry it’s not ever going to be you again. Because you wore that welcome out.”
He settles his full, psychopathic attention on me and delivers flat words. “I would have done anything for you.”
“You would do anything for my house. For my sheets. For my clothes and my money. You’d gut me in a heartbeat if you thought you could hide the body well enough to keep it all to yourself.
” I lean nearer to him. “From one killer to another, you need to learn to hold your cards a little closer to your chest.”
I’ve walked two feet away when he says, too loudly, “And you think Robin’s any different? Like he doesn’t have one purpose in mind?”
I turn back just long enough to reply, “No. I think he’s exactly the same. I think you’re all dead inside, the lot of you. Just like me. But I think he’s really fucking pretty. And it’s going to be a long time before I get tired of the taste of his cock.”
For one sweet second, I think the flaring of his eyes means I’ve managed to reach some living part of him. But in a blink, his entire expression settles back into one of his foul smirks.
I sense the presence over my shoulder as quickly as I realize how much Jason’s enjoying the moment. A natural impulse stiffens my back to attentiveness. I close my eyes and breathe out, “My lord?”
“You were saying?” His hand slides down my back like a wet eel, settling just above my ass.
“Locker room talk,” I say quickly, quietly, in his ear. Then, “Jason, go.”
He doesn’t. He stands there, considering the situation. Weighing his word against mine. His eyes cut across to Robin, back to me, and he tries to pin me with them. Tries to threaten me.
I can’t and won’t show any weakness. “Now, or you’re going to feel it in training tomorrow.”
“It’s alright,” the Emperor says, no doubt drunk and forgetting himself, as much as he ever can. “I don’t mind meeting the men. That’s what we’re here for.”
Jason’s about to open his stupid mouth, so I close it for him. “Let me introduce you to some of them. But not this one. He’s one slip from a very long stay in Victora Prison.”
Finally, I get through. Self-preservation. It’s the only language he speaks.
He bows his head and steps away, just as the revolting hand slips inside my gown.
I feel sick. I can’t. I can’t let him do this here. But I can’t take him away. He’ll know I was with someone else. And it feels so wrong. More wrong, even than before. Than ever before. I’m not his. I’m…
I want so much to believe I’m for someone else. For Robin. But as close as the words are to my heart and my lips, it can’t ever be.
I stop his hand through the fabric of my gown as it moves upwards. “Did you want me to introduce you to some of the sponsors? There are some people here who would really like to meet you.”
His breath reeks of the aniseed liquor he’s been adding to his wine all night. “I thought you couldn’t wait to be alone with me?”
“I can’t—I—Julius s-said—”
“Julius doesn’t know anything.” His body presses into mine, even as I step back. “Julius hasn’t learned the pleasures an Emperor and his favorite are born to yet.”
“We can’t here,” I try, turning my face away as he leans in, even though I know I should never do that.
“You’ve gone shy?” He laughs a sticky laugh. “Then come with me.”
His hand locks around my wrist, like molten iron fusing with my skin.
There isn’t a choice. I cannot refuse him. And I don’t think I’ve been this close to losing control in a very long time.
He walks. He pulls me. I follow.
Then I almost crash into his back when he stops dead in front of me.
I raise my eyes and meet the tumultuous depths of a stormy Atrean sea.
“Robin.”
His name slips from my lips, a living thing, the very essence of fear and grief and hope and this stupid, desperate, useless adoration I can’t snuff out.
He doesn’t say a word. He stands there, and he blocks the way, and I can see from that furious, stubborn look on his face, this is it.
This is the moment I’m going to have to make a choice.
And just for one fucked-up second, I think it’s him.
I think, with the flicker of my eyes in search of a weapon, that I’d actually defend him.
That I’d sink five years of my life, my freedom, my family, my very existence, for him.
But before he opens his mouth, before the Emperor slaps him, before I throw the man to the floor and snap his neck in front of everyone, Max steps in between them and bows. Some frantic, sycophantic slurry of words sloughs out of him, but I can’t hear any of it. Can’t see a thing but Robin.
Steadfast. Beautiful. Protective.
About to get us both killed.
“Please get the men,” I tell him weakly. “You all need to go back now.”
The smallest shake of his head, his eyes remaining still. “You need to come back with us tonight.”
My heart beats for him. My blood flows for him.
At his words, the Emperor swivels back to me, flicking his head away from Max, even as he talks on, forever trying to gain the man’s favor, gunning for my place as captain and favorite.
Robin says, “They’re drunk. Some of them. I think they need you to take them back now. Or a fight might break out.”
“The guards can surely do it,” the Emperor snaps out.
“I wouldn’t chance it,” Robin continues, eyes firm on mine. “I’m worried what might happen if you don’t. You should at least see them safely locked in their cells.”
“Maybe I should…” I whisper.
“You should not.” The Emperor almost laughs in disbelief I’ve said it. His grip on me tightens, but Robin doesn’t move an inch.
I don’t think another person in this room could have any idea how dangerous this situation is, beyond me and Robin.
I can feel the tension radiating off the Emperor now.
He’s wanted me all night, and now this upstart is making demands of me, his prize pet.
I cannot be seen to be choosing Robin over him, not for either of our sakes.
“I have a meeting,” I tell him firmly. But all it does is harden his features, his jaw locking in place.
“Do you?” he presses, voice and eyes like steel, the simple question a dark threat.
It feels like the floor’s given way, and we’re in freefall. I can’t let this happen.
“Robin, go back with the men now.”
“No.”