Chapter Fourteen #4
I didn’t even do anything this time. Did I?
Urzoth, please. I don’t know what else to do. I obey all your commandments, I do everything I’m supposed to. Why haven’t you helped me? Why won’t you save me? What did I do wrong? Just tell me what I did. Tell me what I need to do to get you to help me.
I had to have done something. They didn’t take him for no reason.
But it isn’t Seb they took.
It’s Bel.
They have him in the same place they always take Seb, and he’ll come back with his face swollen and bones broken and—
Urzoth, please, please, save him; hate me all you want, but please, give me the strength to save him.
I see Bel, his rose-gold skin covered in garish purple-and-blue bruising, blood crusted on his nose and mouth. I see him curled around himself, whimpering. They smashed his ribs because I didn’t—didn’t do something.
Please, Urzoth. Tell me what to do, tell me what I did wrong, why, why, HELP ME.
Why aren’t you helping me?
They’re punishing Bel, punishing me, and he screams.
“Orok?”
My eyes open.
I think … I think they might’ve been open already; each blink feels like sandpaper, dragging across my vision, blurring the barracks.
Not the barracks.
“You’re in Philadelphia,” Bel whispers. Seb told him what to do when I have a night terror; he’s talking a little fast, his tone quivering, but he’s calm. “You’re in your apartment, in bed with me. I’m here, Orok. It’s Bel. You’re okay—we’re in your apartment. See?”
This is the first time I’ve woken up like this with him.
He’s next to me, clinging to my hand with both of his.
My sling came off at some point, and my shoulder doesn’t hurt anymore, but I’m still in my clothes, jeans gaping open, shirt covered in his dried cum.
The comforter’s pulled up from the other side of the bed, wrapped around Bel’s mostly naked body like a cloak as he sits on his knees next to me, his lace panties twisted around his hips, his eyes big and gleaming in the dark.
His illusion magic wore off; he’s in his demon form.
We fell asleep. What time is it? Night, at least, and sweat turns sticky across my body, limbs twitching as the nightmare recedes. Adrenaline’s always a relentless bitch of a drop, and it tugs me into the chasm of regret, of shame, of lingering waves of irrational fear.
I’m used to the nightmares about Seb. I’ve had them so many times over the past ten years, I compartmentalize them as easily as avoiding a sprain.
But feeling it all over again, the abandonment and helplessness, in relation to Bel?
A tremor runs from the base of my skull straight down my spine and I stiffen every gods-damned muscle in my body. Do not react. Not yet.
“Are you—” I clear my throat, tongue dry. “Did I hurt you?”
Bel shakes his head, lifting my hand to press it to his cheek. “No. You sat up, and you were moaning. You … you said my name.”
My palm twitches, feeling the softness of his skin, letting it ground me.
“If you—” Gods, I have to fight to talk, my mouth scraped clean. “If you want to sleep in the guestroom—”
Bel frowns, appalled. “What? No, I do not want to sleep in the guestroom. This doesn’t scare me. You told me that you needed me. Let yourself need me, because I want that, too.”
A hesitation. Just one more. “Bel—”
He presses my hand to his face. “I’m yours. You said so. This is what it means, Orok. I’m yours, and I’m not going anywhere.”
It’s as good as permission to my nightmare-addled brain.
“At Camp Merethyl,” I start, hoarse, jagged. “They paired us up. They made us—they forced us to—”
Bel strokes my sweaty hair, his face full of heartache. “I know, baby. I’m so sorry.”
“They took Seb. When I’d mess up. They forced us to do awful things, and when I failed, they’d take Seb and beat him even worse and—and I could never save him. I could never stop it.”
A sob rips out, gagging me. With a brittle cry, I yank Bel into my arms, rolling us sideways on the bed, and cling to him with everything I have.
“They took you,” I whisper. “They took you this time. I couldn’t save you.”
Bel melts against me, scratching his fingers over my scalp, burrowing into me as strongly as I hold him. “I’m here,” he says, his voice tear choked. He clears it. “I’m okay. You can feel me? I’m here with you.”
I made my peace with Urzoth abandoning me and Seb. It took almost every moment of the past ten years, but I’ve moved on. My brain still dredges it up when I’m sleeping; in my waking moments, though, I’m fine with it. I’m living, I’m healing.
But Urzoth abandoned Bel.
It was a dream. I know it was a dream. It wasn’t real.
My mind is a malleable, sleep-deprived mess of emotions and reality.
Urzoth should have heard me. Why didn’t he hear me?
Behind my closed eyelids, I see Bel in my dream, bloodied, beaten.
A whimper claws out of my throat.
With Seb, I always tried so hard to pull myself together after a nightmare. I’d sometimes make him sleep in my bed, but I never clung to him like this, and I always talked myself carefully through all the reasons why my fears were ungrounded.
But instead, I do what Bel told me to do. I let myself need him.
Shivers rack me as relief truly sets in, untying knots through my chest, releasing the cramping in my neck and back.
“You’re not leaving?” I ask. The magic wore off his necklace, too, making it visible now, and I run my fingers over it. “Gods, Bel. You can’t leave me.” My voice cracks. No—it shatters, and tears surge down my face, wet his neck and hair. “You can’t leave me. Fuck, please stay.”
“I’m staying,” he whispers. “I’m not leaving you. I’m yours now, remember? You own me.”
My whole body heats. Not just arousal, but burning righteous possession.
“I love you.” His fingertips scratch my scalp again. “Shh, Orok. You’re all right, and so am I.”
He keeps talking, reassuring coos and promises, and I breathe him in, breathe him like a drug.
He’s here. He’s okay. He’s not hurt, no one got him.
But they’ll try.
And I know better now.
I know better than to put my trust in anyone, any being who hasn’t proven themselves when the stakes are this high. When it matters.
My grief redirects. The adrenaline from the dream, the agony of losing Bel. It shifts, contracts, becomes an arrow targeting everyone trying to take him from me.
I keep him in my arms until his reassurances fade to the huffs and moans of sleep.
As gently as I can, I roll Bel to the side, tuck the comforter around him, and slip out of bed.
I strip off my sweat-drenched clothes and swap them for boxers. Bel stays asleep, and I brush a kiss to his forehead before I pad out to the living room.
My research is still spread across the dining room table. All the details and notes and secrets of how to protect him and stop these cultists once and for all.
I flick on the overhead light and sit down to read.