Chapter 21
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Communication in a relationship is almost as important as respecting one’s right to make bad decisions.
“You’re actually the cruelest person I have ever met,” Slate says as we leave the Mystic Forest and head back to his lab. “Oh, come throw a bomb at something for me. No, you can’t ask a single question when I pull a clearly anciently blessed sword from a magic lake rock.”
I’m too busy looking at my pretty new sword to listen too intently to Slate’s tirade.
It sparkles yellow and pink in the late afternoon sun, and the smallest swipes send a little rain of magic fluttering off the shimmering blade.
“Is this what you came here looking for? Are you planning to leave now?” Slate asks, and that does catch my attention.
I turn toward him. “Absolutely not. Gem Ridge is my home.”
“Hm. Sincerity.” He crosses his arms. “Very well. I’ll believe you. But someday when you’ve come to trust me more, I will want to have a long talk about how you knew exactly how to take down a queen slime with such immaculate ease.”
“Excuse you. Ease? My arm hurts so bad.”
“Yes, because you approached a queen slime with naught but a training sword. That thing is made of wood and only blessed because Lia was practicing her abilities around the same age Pyro was learning combat.” Slate cups his hand to his mouth, notably pensive.
“The tactic you employed in taking down the most dangerous slime variant thus far discovered is going into a research paper that I am sending to Amecrest’s Adventurer Guild.
The result of dissolving the queen slime into her seven components with an explosive creates a painless battle that could save countless lives. ”
My brows rise, and…he…is very right. I guess it’s still a little hard for me to think about how this place is connected to an entire world that I’ve never even seen pixelated.
The knowledge I have could save people, because while the queen slime is a unique boss in Vale of Gems, it is not unique in this entire world.
“Will they distribute the information to other guilds?”
Slate settles a hand at his chin. “You’re right.
” He sighs. “The adventure guilds are notorious for malicious practices. There’s more money if fewer hands make it back to the noble’s pockets.
I’ll send this discovery to other scientists, to papers.
Making it common knowledge is safer than trusting a guild head.
” He beams at me. “Brilliant mind. We should conduct experiments together.”
“Um…” I don’t know why, but I think that experiments with Slate pose more potential danger than diving headfirst into the Sky Dungeon. “We’ll see about that.”
When we crest the final mound separating Slate’s house from view, my vision hyperfocuses on a hulking silhouette sitting on the front step, head in his hands.
My heart launches and falls in a single instant.
As though he felt the disturbance, Samson startles, jerking, and he’s on his feet before I can get a breath.
“Citrus.” Pounding strides carry him across the mud-strewn grass to me.
He just barely has the sense to shove the hand holding my new sword away before his arms close around me, crush, lift me an inch—or a mile—off the ground.
Shaking, he swears into my hair as his fingers dig into my back.
“Never again,” he whispers, tone black. “Don’t you ever do something like this again. ”
My thoughts stumble, and I stammer, “I…I told you it would be fine.”
His embrace presses the air from my lungs before releasing abruptly, sending me plummeting the million miles back down to the ground.
Fixing my body securely behind him, Samson stalks into Slate’s space, jabs him in the chest with a finger, and spits, “What the—” He swears. “—were you thinking? Do you ever use any of the common sense in that brain of yours?”
Unbothered, Slate flashes a smile as he tosses his hands in the air. “As I’ve said before, Citrus is very convincing.”
Samson grips Slate’s collar, lifting him to his toes with impressive ease that makes my heart skip.
Slate’s electric green eyes flash as he murmurs, “Interesting choice, given one of us has a flamethrower.” Angling his head forward, Slate drawls, “Correct me if I’m wrong: Citrus is a grown woman capable of making her own decisions, independent of your mother henning.”
Samson’s knuckles pop as his grip twists.
My stomach curdles, and I reach for his tattooed arm. “S-Samson…come on…it’s not Slate’s fault. Please. I knew I could do it, so I did. I’m sorry I worried you.” When I swallow, it tastes like acid in my throat. “B-but I’m not helpless. Really. I’m not.”
“Really,” Slate echoes, unhelpfully smug, “she isn’t.”
Samson, without pulling his attention off Slate, growls, “I know that, Citrus.” His muscles flex beneath my grip as he unceremoniously drops Slate, abouts-face, and sweeps down to throw me over his shoulder as though I am not holding a sword.
I, obviously, squeak.
Slate whistles.
Some foreign, beastly sound rumbles from Samson’s chest, then he’s plodding away from the lab, toward home.
My head is still spinning by the time he dumps me on the couch in the living room and slams his palm against the back cushions, caging me there.
Naturally, a reasonable amount of attraction goes jetting through my veins, turning my body a modest seven thousand degrees.
His chest rises and falls with his deep breaths as his attention cuts from my face to the sword I’m still holding.
It is a miracle I lost neither it nor my glasses on the march here.
Tense moments suffocate me while I wrestle with finding something to say.
By the time I think I have a proper apology rallied, he drops his forehead against mine.
Damp air coasts across my lips when he exhales.
My interior temperature rises to nine thousand.
“I am…” He swallows. “…so mad at you.” He rolls his head, pressing into my skull.
“Yet I am too relieved to see that you’re okay.
” Broken eyes meet mine when he drags himself an inch back from me.
“If anything happens to you, I will blame myself forever, Citrus. Do you not get that? Out of everyone here, I’m the only person who knows your secret.
I feel responsible for making sure I live up to that trust. If anything happens to you, it’s because I failed to protect you from an alien world. ”
Mouth dry, I whisper, “But…it isn’t completely alien, Shoulders. There are a lot of things I do know.”
“I’m not trying to undermine that, Lemonade.
” He lifts his free hand, cups my cheek, skates his touch around the shell of my ear.
“But all it takes is one variable being off between what you know and reality. A single miscalculation…” His fingers tremble, so he draws his hand back and collapses into the space beside me.
Covering his face, he whispers, “There is so much blood on my hands. So many lives I was encouraged to leave behind. Please.” His voice fades to near silence as he echoes please once more.
Resting my sword against the couch, I wrap my arms around him, holding as tight as I can.
“I’m sorry.” I sniff. “I’m so sorry.” I bury my face against his shirt, in the earthy scents, until the rims of my glasses bruise my nose.
“I wanted to prove something. But I shouldn’t have gone behind your back to do it.
I just…I want to take care of you, too.”
Without notice, his arms sweep me into his lap and cradle me there, against the hammer of his heart.
Lips to my hair, he crushes me as close as physically possible.
“You are the first person in my life who feels like my own flesh and blood, Citrus. I don’t know how to explain it.
I just don’t think I’d survive losing you.
You’ve kept me up every night since we met.
First, from confusion, then worry and concern, then the phantom sensation of your nearness.
I lie awake, thinking about how you’re just one room over, and it kills me for reasons I don’t understand. ”
His grip on me is near bruising while my mind struggles to comprehend what he’s saying.
In not so many words, it sounds like a confession. The parts left out are the ones that imply he knows it.
As he holds me, his breaths even, level, and calm—like I’m a drug feeding peace into him from every place our bodies touch.
I understand the trauma of feeling like no one is safe. My family never created a space for me to thrive, so I grew up on edge, afraid. Samson never had a family fail him, but he also grew up in an environment that treated him like a tool and an inconvenience.
I can’t imagine adding horrors like death and threat of fatal injury to my upbringing. It was hard enough knowing I existed by mistake and served no purpose beyond making life easier for parents who never wanted me.
For me, the illusion of love came at a price.
For Samson, there has been no such delusion.
Starved.
We are both starved.
But I had pictures and ideas and media surrounding me to provide examples of love.
Samson’s had pain, then isolation.
“I’m so sorry,” I whisper, daring to lift my face so my lips skim his neck.
We both shudder in time, and his hold on me becomes more complete, fingers spreading to encompass as much of my body as possible. My heart can barely keep up with the sensation of his closeness. He’s so solid beneath me, and yet I’m barely tethered to this world.
This is everything I want.
Every day.
Always.
Someone desperate to have me.
Someone terrified to lose me.
Someone who wants me. Really, truly wants me.