27. What Doesn’t Kill You Makes You—??? #3
‘No it’s not, you just think that because I told you to calm down . . . I don’t know if I should stop, though. Alistair hit you pretty hard. The strain on your heart . . .’ Bastian nudges the door behind him closed with his foot, his eyes searching Briar’s.
‘Yeah . . .’ Briar can’t bring themself to care. The faint moonlight from the window has turned Bastian surreally beautiful, strong, sharp bones and a velvet-cut mouth. ‘Hey. Bastian.’
‘Hello,’ Bastian says, sounding very tired. He sits down, cross-legged, staying within Briar’s orbit. ‘This is Ease. I’m not very good at it, I can never target it right. You’re basically high. Do you understand what I’m saying?’
‘Mmm.’ Briar blinks at him, then frowns. ‘I wanted to say . . .’
God, this is good. What a great room. Briar’s in a castle. Or, something adjacent to a castle. Their mum is going to be so excited when they tell her. There’s some reason Briar’s not supposed to, but it doesn’t matter now.
‘What did you want to say? Tell me.’
‘That I wish you hadn’t kissed him,’ Briar says, the words slipping out easily.
‘Oh.’ Bastian looks at the floor. ‘Right. Well, it was just . . . simpler, that way.’
Briar nods. They can understand this. They touch Bastian’s bright white shirtsleeve, right next to his silver cufflinks. ‘Kiss me again.’
Bastian jerks back. ‘What?’
‘I want you to kiss me. I hated watching him touch you. I want to touch you.’
Colour floods Bastian’s cheeks, but he looks concerned, which is not the reaction Briar is expecting, and then he understands. ‘You don’t need to tell me everything you’re thinking, Briar.’
It turns out Briar is still capable of shame, because a hot flush creeps up their neck, too. ‘Shit. Sorry.’
‘No, it’s okay. I should . . . I’m going to stop Working, now.’
He does. Brutally. Painfully. Briar’s heart is still beating too fast, and there are bright sparks of panic dancing in their chest, but they’re more like aftershocks now. They feel completely and utterly exhausted; they don’t realise they’re sagging towards the floor until Bastian catches them.
He helps Briar up onto the bed, and then takes a step back, and another, and doesn’t seem to know what to do with himself.
‘I’ll go.’
‘Please don’t,’ Briar says. They’re so very tired, but they can’t face the thought of watching Bastian leave, after all that’s happened tonight. ‘Just . . . come here.’
Bastian doesn’t move. ‘I can’t.’
Briar takes off their borrowed tie, the silk slipping clumsily through their fingers, folds it carefully with shaky hands. ‘Why not?’
Bastian’s fingers flutter to his own tie, then back down again. ‘Because it’s too dangerous.’
‘Dangerous?’
‘I was just Working on you. You’re too . . . suggestible, right now.’
Briar leans back on their forearms, and Bastian watches them go. ‘You said you’d stopped.’
‘Yes, well, as you may have noticed, I’m not always in control of myself,’ Bastian snaps. Then he relents. ‘Sometimes I Work without trying. Without words. I can’t let that happen here.’
‘I don’t care if you break a window.’
‘You’ll care if I break you.’
Briar doesn’t think he will break them, though, which is probably very stupid.
Bastian isn’t a good person. They know that, logically.
They’re not on the same side. Is this still part of Hadley’s plan?
If Bastian’s walls are coming down, it only means that it’s working, even if Briar is a terrible covert operative.
It’s just . . . hard to keep that all in their mind at once, after champagne and a brush with what felt like death, and with Bastian standing there looking so nervous, watching Briar with a frown that’s almost like tenderness.
‘I trust you,’ Briar says, meaning it, if only when it comes to this - and Bastian’s brows quirk upwards, his mouth opening almost imperceptibly. Briar finds the strength to get up, and discovers that they’re the same height like this, with Bastian on the step below.
‘Briar—’
When Briar kisses him, his breath catches. It’s good. Gratifying. They draw him closer, one arm around his waist and their other fingers under his collar, and he kisses Briar back, tentative, then hungry. It’s going so well until he pulls away, steps backwards and down a step, almost stumbling.
‘I can’t do this,’ he says, shaking his head. He takes another step down. Away.
‘You can.’
Bastian is halfway to the door. He turns, and his eyes flash with something incendiary. ‘For God’s sake. I’m doing this for your sake. Why do you insist on making everything so difficult all the time?’
‘I’m not scared of you.’
There’s a desperate wildness about Bastian when he says, ‘Well, you should be. And you know damned well why. You have no defences against me whatsoever. You’d do anything I say, with just a hint of suggestion, and I don’t want that. Not from you.’
‘I won’t—’
‘Tell me you love me.’
‘I love you,’ Briar says at once, with no hesitation.
Bastian’s eyes flutter closed; when he opens them again, he doesn’t look angry any more. Just horribly sad. ‘You see? Anything at all.’