21. Cato #2
He glances over his shoulder and meets my eyes.
“Yes,” he agrees with a sad smile, then turns to face the window once more.
“I led our classes on Dreven history, and she was my student. We were friends for many years during her studies, and after her education was complete, she stayed in Maelithryne.”
“She was younger than you?” I ask.
He shakes his head. “You think of students and teachers in the human way, Cato. Life was never so convenient here. Most don’t have the chance to learn outside their villages until they’re much older. Pranna was a few years my senior, but we were both in our eighth decade.”
“So definitely not young, then,” I mutter.
“Ass,” he snaps back, cheeks lifting in a tiny smile. “We courted for many years before we became shaelin. We were happy,” he insists before another of those heartbreaking swallows works down his throat. “Then… we had a child.”
Aryn stares down at his lap, and for a moment, I picture him sitting on a night just like this, with a smaller version of himself cradled against his chest. He’d wear that same calm, contented smile, but his face wouldn’t have the worry he carries now.
His patience, I realize. Iron clad and unwavering.
The patience of someone who held a crying baby through the night and loved every frustrating minute of it. I think of my short temper, how easily I snap at others, and suddenly feel inadequate in a way that steals my breath.
Aryn closes his eyes, hugging his arms over his middle. “My life was everything I could’ve ever imagined wanting,” he whispers. “It was perfect.”
“Was?” I ask carefully.
“Was,” he agrees. “My father asked me to become the village leader just a year after our son was born. I believed it then… that all the praying I’d done to the Fates was paying off. That my devotion had given me the life I’d dreamed of.”
The pain in his voice nearly splits me in half, and I want to reach for him again. “Aryn—”
“Zadeus’s army came only three years later. You asked me once why I didn’t put up a bigger fight.”
“And you said… it was because you had family to protect.” A strange feeling grips my chest in a rush of emotions I can barely place.
Panic that he has someone waiting for him on this side, and relief that I won’t be expected to fill a role I wasn’t meant to fill.
Anger and jealousy, then maddening confusion that leaves me reeling.
He nods with a slow sigh. “At first, I turned them down. I had been surrounded by peacemakers and scholars for so long, I’d forgotten that ‘no’ is a word that not everyone recognizes.
I was foolish enough to think I had a choice.
” A heavy silence falls between us until he huffs and shakes his head. “There was never a choice.”
I don’t want to know the answer, but I can’t stop myself from asking. “What did they do?”
“They killed Pranna,” he answers quietly. “In front of me, with smiles on their faces. They slit her throat and kicked her body to my feet, then held the same blade to my child’s neck.” Anguished eyes meet mine, the emotion in them so potent it feels like we’re sharing the same pain.
“I’m sorry, I—”
“They let him live when I agreed to go with them. So I did. Gladly. My life was stolen, Cato. My shaelin, my home… it was all taken from me, but I would do it again to protect them.”
“Why tell me this?” I ask, hating the way I want to comfort him. “Why now?”
He finally turns to face me, and I’m momentarily breathless at how the golden glow catches the sharp angles of his face.
His knee sinks into the bed as his tail unfurls from beneath his shirt.
It glows as brightly as my matching mark, and I can’t look away as it wraps around my arm.
A jolt of something electric charges through my veins like lightning, so intense my fingers clench and my toes curl.
“Because I want you,” he admits quietly.
“Maybe it’s the Fates pushing me toward you, or maybe I’m just drawn to that fire you carry.
I haven’t felt in so long, rha khor, and you…
you make me feel again.” I instinctively lower onto my back as he crawls closer, and then he’s hovering above me, his ebony hair forming a curtain around us.
This is safe territory.
This is what I know. The physical.
My hands slide around his neck, but he doesn’t let me pull him down. “I don’t do casual, Cato. I won’t take you in half-measures. You give me all of you, or nothing at all.”
My grip on the back of his neck loosens. “I can’t promise you that.”
Another heavy sigh leaves him, defeat turning his face into pained exhaustion. “I know you can’t,” he says softly. “And I won’t ask you for more than you’re willing to give.”
“So what do we do?”
“We keep going. We do what we came here to do.” He tries to pull away, but my hands tighten on his neck and hold him there. “Cato,” he mutters in a soft scolding.
“I… we could… try?”
Aryn’s full attention locks on me as his tail squeezes tighter around my arm. “There’s no trying. No testing the waters because you want someone to warm your sheets. I am not a placeholder, and I won’t allow you to be one either.”
“That’s not—”
His hand weaves into my hair, making me gasp as it tightens. “All or nothing.”
“Okay,” I whisper. “We get the job done. We’re… friends, right? That hasn’t changed. We can still be friends.”
Something like disappointment flickers in his eyes as his fingers slip from my hair.
“Of course,” he says as he climbs off me and sits back on his heels.
Both our eyes drift to the way our marks weave together, lighting the room in their pale glow.
As soon as he pulls away, I feel the absence of his warmth, but I respect him too much to try talking him into something he doesn’t want.
It’s better this way, I tell myself.
He steps off the bed and crouches beside his pack. My brows pinch as I watch him mess with the buckles. “What are you doing?”
He pauses and glances at me over his shoulder. “Getting my sleeping bag. You take the bed, and I’ll—”
“Get up here,” I interrupt. “It’s a big bed, and we don’t know when we’ll get another chance to sleep in one.”
His jaw tenses. “It’s not a good idea.”
“I’ll stay on my side, I swear.”
“Until you’re asleep and your body gets a mind of its own again.”
I sit up and jab a finger in his direction. “I knew you were awake for that.”
A reluctant smile twitches on his lips, but it fades as he lets his gaze move over me. “You’re sure?”
This is a terrible idea.
“I’m sure,” I promise.