Chapter 41 #2
Lochlan snickers.
She grins. “Please explain how you didn’t fuck things up with her, if she’s not with you on a Saturday night.”
“I gave her a way out,” I growl. “And she took it.”
Lochlan frowns. “Uh, okay, and?”
“And that’s it,” I say tightly. “She had a way out, and she knew that the door out was a one-way exit.”
“My God, I wish I was into pussy,” Selene groans, pinching the bridge of her nose. “Men are so fucking dumb sometimes.”
I glower at her.
“You know what your problem is, both of you?” she sighs, glaring at each of us in turn.
“You're so used to being the smartest guys in every room that you forget that being right and being correct are not necessarily the same thing." She frowns. “I don’t know what the fuck Loch’s situation is, so I’m going to direct this lecture at you, big guy.” She turns and glares straight at me.
“It’s not always black and fucking white, douche.
Nor is it always about being right. It’s about being what she needs you to be.
” She exhales. “Okay, you gave her one door out.
And, surprise, she took it. What the fuck was the alternative? "
I start to open my mouth, but she holds up a finger.
“Keep in mind that I’ve known you my entire life, buddy,” she snaps.
“And I know you a hell of a lot better than you think. Truly. I’ve seen the way you look at Yelena.
The way you act around her, and even when you’re not around her.
” She shakes her head. “Achilles, you very clearly chose her. You made her yours. You surrounded her with your world, your rules, your one door out.” She shrugs.
“But did you ever once consider if she chose you? Or did you both sort of skip that whole part entirely?”
Well, fuck.
FUCK.
That did not, in fact, occur to me.
Ever.
The two of them look at me sharply as I shove my chair back and stand.
“There is no way I was that on the nose…” Selene gapes at me. “Seriously?”
“I have to go.”
Not to apologize for something I don’t feel requires an apology.
But to ask her the one question I never actually asked, because I was too busy assuming I already knew the answer.
It’s cold outside when I step out of Kingsward. I zip up my black Privateers hoodie and glance in the direction of Morvaine Manor before I head out into the darkness.
Did you ever once consider if she chose you?
I…didn’t.
I was too focused on making her mine.
I have never in my life operated on the assumption that the other person's sense of agency was a variable I needed to account for. Part of that—a large part—is that I’ve never seriously dated anyone before.
But with Yelena, I identified that I wanted her, identified what she wanted, and then created the perfect conditions for that to happen.
I gave her the chase she'd been fantasizing about. I gave her the darkness she'd been consuming in private by way of steamy books and MaskTok. I gave her the one person in the world who looked directly at what she was and didn't ask her to be something simpler or easier.
I protected her, removed threats, and stayed when every instinct said this was becoming something I didn't have a framework for, because it was moving past dark fantasy into something else entirely.
And my fucking cousin is right: I gave Yelena one and only one exit. I made it an all-or-nothing choice and pushed her to the fucking brink.
What the hell did I expect would happen?
Yes, I gave her everything when it came to her darkest fantasies, but I didn’t give her agency.
Yelena didn’t just want to want me. She needed to know that her wanting me was her choice she had made, and a decision she arrived at herself. Not the only exit from a maze I built from the pieces of her I collected before she knew I existed.
I took that agency from her.
But I’m going to fix that right the fuck now.
I’m going to give her a choice. A real one, not a bullshit one.
I grin to myself as I cross the dark, shadowed Knightsblood campus and approach Morvaine.
Time to make this right.
Time to tell her everything.
But mostly, time to stop pussyfooting around and decide if it’s “too much” to tell her that I’ve been in love with her for longer than she’d ever guess.
Time to be bold, unafraid, and un-fucking-repentant.
Thanks, Dad.
I’m hardly ever caught off-guard. I’m always aware of my surroundings.
…But that all seems to fly out the window when I’m figuring out a more eloquent way of saying “Hey, Yelena, I fucked up because I’m a bit of a psycho and beyond obsessed with you, and I need you to know you have a choice when it comes to being with me, but I’ll probably stalk you anyway. Also, I’m in love with you”.
Because that's the moment I’m completely blindsided by the muscled arm wrapping around my neck from behind and yanking me clean off my feet.
I grunt as I hit the ground hard and a heavy body lands astride my chest, a cold and very sharp blade pressed to my jugular.
“I’m just going to ask you this the once, Achilles.”
I frown, blinking away the spots in my vision from the back of my head hitting the ground, and look up into a face I know.
“Where the fuck is Yelena,” Damiano snarls.
My brow furrows. “Excuse me?”
I wince as he presses the tip of his knife to my neck. I grit my teeth when I feel the blade pierce my skin, followed by a hot trickle of blood over my throat.
“I'm not playing games, Golden Boy,” he says quietly. “Not when it comes to my cousin—”
“She’s not really your—”
I wince when he stabs the point of the blade again.
“Talk to me again about semantics, motherfucker,” he says grimly. “Please.”
I swallow, my throat bobbing against his blade. “What do you mean, where the fuck is Yelena?”
“I mean I know you and she are an item,” he growls. “I know I don’t trust you in the fucking least. And I know no one can reach her right now.”
My blood turns to ice.
“When was the last time anyone—” I grunt when Damiano settles himself a little more onto my sternum and digs the tip of the knife into my throat again.
“You're going to listen to me very, very carefully, Achilles,” he says in a low, eerily calm tone. He removes the blade from my throat, my dark red blood dripping from the tip. Then he looks me right in the eye, brings the blade to his mouth…and licks it clean.
Soooo, Damiano is officially a psychopath. That’s information that might have been helpful to know about significantly earlier than this very moment.
“Believe me, Golden Boy, you have no fucking idea what I hide under my surface,” Damiano murmurs. “So, for the last fucking time, tell me where the fuck Yelena is, before I happily wear your fucking skin.”
My jaw clenches. “I need my phone.”
He scowls at me. “What?”
“My phone is in my pocket,” I grunt. “If you want to know where she is, I need to get to it.”
“Why is that?” he snarls.
“Because I hid a tracking device on her wolf necklace two months ago.”
I mean, obviously.
“If I can get my phone, I’ll know exactly where she is.”
Damiano’s eyes narrow in distrust.
The guy is strong, built like a tank, and is a little more muscular than me. But I took Brazilian jiu-jitsu for ten years with my dad when I was younger.
Surprise, motherfucker.
He grunts when I flip us over, wrench the knife from his hands, toss it, and pin him to the grass, slamming my forearm against his trachea.
“Not fucking bad,” he grunts.
I ignore him and yank my phone out of my pocket to open the app connected to the tiny tracker I glued to the back of Yelena’s necklace months ago.
You know, just normal, rational behavior.
But I don’t make it as far as the app. Instead, I go utterly still when my eyes land on the text from my dad sitting on my home screen.
Dad
Just got off a call with my contact at the NYC FBI field office. Kyle Santoro was positively IDed by a speed camera leaving New York and entering southern Connecticut two hours ago. Keep an eye out.
“Achilles!”
I barely even register Damiano's voice as I leap up from him and take off at a dead run, Yelena’s location pinging on the phone in my hand.
And I hope to God I’m not too late.