Sevastyan
Sevastyan watched Rei and Lisa limp out of the room, using the walls and each other for support.
He needed to get both of them crutches. Tomorrow.
He would do it tomorrow. He’d just make sure they both stayed off their feet as much as possible for the rest of the day and get that done tomorrow.
When he felt more like he could stand himself without wanting to fall over.
“Tell me what they mean to you,” Ellisandre said after the door shut behind them, voice pitched low.
“Rei is . . . everything,” Sevastyan said. “Lisa . . . has my respect. If he hadn’t been there, Rei would be gone.”
“Tell me their status, relationship to each other.”
“Close. Not lovers. Friends. More than friends. Soldiers in the same war.”
Silence lapsed in the room. Sevastyan looked down at his hands.
There were questions he should ask. Things he should explain.
His thoughts were hazy. Perhaps it was the pain meds and antibiotics burning through his system.
Perhaps it was the unnamed terror still gripping him by his throat.
It would be simpler if Ellisandre would just order him to his knees and take control.
But his goddex hadn’t made a single move in that direction since they had stood over him and promised to rain down Armageddon on their enemies.
It was the only promise he could hold onto now.
“I’ll find a new safe house. I just need a day or two. I know this is your sacred space.”
“There’s nothing more sacred than what the Bolthole is currently being used for,” Ellisandre retorted. “Those two boys of yours need safety and rest.”
Sevastyan opened and closed his mouth. Then he closed his eyes and hung his head.
“Ask your questions, Vast,” Ellisandre said.
“It doesn’t feel like I have the right.”
“I’m granting the right,” Ellisandre said. “I’m ordering it.”
“Why . . . are you . . . I own a slave.” Sevastyan stared at his hands. “Not in name only. I didn’t take him to help him disappear. I use him.”
“I know.”
Sevastyan risked a glance up. Ellisandre was looking out the window, legs and arms crossed, drinking from one of the coffee cups.
“We both know that’s wrong. I’m wrong, Elli.”
Ellisandre put the coffee down and faced him, hands folded in front of them. “Everything about your life has been wrong, Sevastyan. There have never been good choices. If I judged you by the same rules I judge others, I would be in the wrong. Let me guess, Raska is still alive.”
“Yes.”
“And until recently, you were still serving your father and his promise that you would take down Raska and the rest of the Merchari.”
“Yes. I was a fool. I should have realized . . . after so many years.”
“Stop.” Ellisandre held up her hand. “You’re thirty years old, Vast. You made that damnable oath when you were nineteen. You’ve lived through hell following a man you trusted. You’ve survived eleven years on your own, fooling one of the most powerful secret organizations on earth.
Based on what Rei and Lisa said yesterday, you’re near the very top. You have access to all but the highest levels.”
“Yes.”
“On your own.”
“Not on my own. I couldn’t have done it without Rei.”
“No, you couldn’t have.”
Soft silence settled between them.
“It took me years to take down my father’s criminal cell,” Ellisandre said.
“And I was his erstwhile son with the backing of the British and European law enforcement and intelligence. I was trained to take him down. You had to wring the knowledge of how to destroy your enemy from the enemy themselves. I had all the money needed relegated to secret accounts.
You’ve earned any money you had, stolen and hidden it. I didn’t lie to you, Sevastyan, when I said if you needed a prison, I would be your prison. If you need punishment, I will be your punishment.
There is no way you’ve survived or even brought Rei through this far and abided by any law of decency a common person would recognize. That’s not how this works. Don’t tell me you’ve taken too long, that you’ve been blind to Anton’s reluctance.
There hasn’t been a single day you haven’t had to claw your way through hell to be here.”
Sevastyan stopped breathing. He stared at Ellisandre’s face.
“The fact that you know you are wrong tells me all I need about how much of your soul has survived. That boy in there, that man who looked like his world had been reborn when you walked through the door yesterday, tells me everything I need to know about who you are,
no matter what you’ve been through together.”
“He doesn’t know any better.”
“Except he does. When he called me, he was calling for Jun. He asked if Jun was safe. He remembers, Vast. Don’t dishonor that. He lives everything with you, remembering. The only one who doesn’t is you. You’re the only one who has only window shopped a world without skulking and daggers.”
Sevastyan twisted his hands together, until the tendons threatened to snap. “I forget there’s a world beyond this.”
Ellisandre sat back and took a gulp of coffee. “That’s obvious. I should have included clearing that up in my list of things I will do for you.”
Silence settled between them. It was gentler now. A gentleness Sevastyan knew he didn’t deserve and yet valued all the same.
“There are two of us who have claim to you now.”
Sevastyan dug his nails into the backs of his hands. “I’ve broken no oaths.”
“And I will bring about Armageddon on the Merchari, Sevastyan, whether or not I have your submission. It has never been a transaction, not between us. I want you, even if the sky went dark tomorrow. Even if you came with ten boys calling you master.”
Sevastyan played Ellisandre’s words over in his head.
“Even if I kept them?”
“I would think less of you if you did not.”
Ellisandre met Sevastyan’s gaze. “It’s not either or, Vast. The world is a complex matrix. Linda Reevesworth is mine, though we share no romance and no bed. It makes me no less yours that I am also hers. And the fact that I share no bed with her makes her no less a person of significance. As I said,
Vast, ten boys calling you master would not change that I still want you to kneel at my altar.”
“I want to kneel.”
“Then kneel.”
Sevastyan slid from the couch to his knees.
He laid his head on Ellisandre’s thighs.
Ellisandre’s fingers curled into his hair, gripping the strands.
Tension trickled out of his shoulders. His eyes closed as the burn mounted.
The more of his hair Ellisandre gathered in their fist, the quieter the world became.