Page 61 of Lay It Bare

Sevastyan threaded the fingers of his other hand through Lisa’s hair, his elbows resting on his knees. He stroked the other man’s scalp slowly, never raising the hand on the back of Lisa’s neck.

The water in the shower in the other room started to run.

Lisa turned his head to the side. “I hate myself.”

Sevastyan’s fingers tightened, gripping Lisa’s hair. They both stilled. Now and then Lisa drew in a shattered breath, breathing through the tears.

“I hate that I want this. I hate that I’m letting you touch me. I hate that I need you to.”

Sevastyan released his fingers, going back to stroking. He drew his knees in, holding Lisa’s too thin form upright, protecting him. Lisa released the couch cushion with one hand and gripped at Sevastyan’s pant leg.

A dark crack ran through Sevastyan’s chest. There was no physical wound, no reason his sternum should feel marked as if hit with a battle ax and yet the pain was still there. He had been no different from Lisa, clinging to something that hurt him, except Anton and Raska had been less honest than Alexi and the slave masters that had ruined Lisa’s existence.

Lisa was a Pre-Raphaelite painting, beautiful even as he lay dying, every tear not a mere incident of happenstance but an essay on living. In his destruction, he was choosing beauty, choosing connection, loving Rei with the last of his air. Even choosing the facade of Sevastyan’s benevolence.

“You’re like Alexi,” Lisa whispered. “You’re right and you’re also wrong. You give and yet I know you’re going to take away. You’re going to make me love you because it hurts too much to not love you. Because not loving you is too confusing. Because it hurts inside my head when you show me kindness and I have to remember you’re a demon. I want to forget you’re wrong. I want to believe it will be like this forever, the three of us: the benevolent king, his knight, and his angel.”

Lisa buried his face against the couch again, his body shaking. Tears gathered in Sevastyan’s eyes. He blinked them away. He couldn’t let them fall, couldn’t let Lisa see.

Lisa lifted his head, still not looking at Sevastyan directly, not trying to get away from the hand on the back of his neck. “You win. You can have me.”

Sevastyan hauled Lisa off the floor and into his lap, wrapping his arms around the other man, crushing him against his chest. He tucked Lisa’s head against his neck and shoulder, holding him in place so he couldn’t see Sevastyan’s face. He couldn’t speak because his throat was thick with everything that couldn’t be said.

Lisa curled up small against Sevastyan chest, too small for a man of his size. By degrees, his body loosened, held in place only by Sevastyan’s grip. His head slipped down Sevastyan’s shoulder.

He was asleep.

Sevastyan cradled him, staring at the not

Rei

Lisa was asleep in bed, the covers pulled over his shoulders when Rei finished his shower and skincare. Rei pressed a kiss to Lisa’s forehead and went out to the living room. Sevastyan was on his computer. Rei started clearing away the dishes, sensing his master’s wish for silence. He was in the kitchen washing up when Sevastyan glided in on bare feet. Rei turned towards him, bowing his head. “Master.”

“Your phone.”

Rei reached into his pocket and handed it over. His master unlocked it with the passcode and navigated to the contacts. There were only two numbers in the list. Sevastyan started to type in a third. He finished and handed the phone back. His hand was shaking. He wasn’t looking at Rei.

“Master?”

“If you can’t reach me, and you see something happening on the cameras, movement against your friend, or . . . yourself, that number will reach Ellisandre Sollunae. Their personal phone. Sollunae is worth more than the entire police force of the city.”

Rei looked down at his phone, stunned. “Master.” He had an idea of what kind of person Ellisandre Sollunae was from his research on Jun’s new circle of friends. Calling them in was like breaking every vow of separation from the outer world.

Sevastyan turned and walked away.

Rei watched him go and then stared at the number on the screen.

Ellisandre Sollunae.

Why did his master’s voice crack when he said their name, as if he could barely breathe?

Why did it feel like Sevastyan was planning for his death? Sevastyan didn’t have the right. He wasn’t allowed to die. Not before Rei.

He waited in bed until Sevastyan joined Lisa in sleep and then slipped out of Sevastyan’s arms and back to the living room. Across the coffee table, he spread a map of the world, then knelt in front of it with a pencil in one hand and his laptop beside him.

There was a floating frame of a plan in his mind. There were bridges to be crossed, but if they never tried, they would be no different from Anton.

The plan to bring down the Merchari—as Anton had designed it back when Sevastyan was barely a legal adult—had hinged on taking down sections with evidence. Stacks on stacks of evidence. Sevastyan had carried out collecting that evidence. Anton was the one who was supposed to have known the legal frameworks and created the relationships with which to use it. The cover of international science conferences and industry regulation meetings should have given him the ability to navigate the systems necessary to pass that evidence to the proper authorities. Anton had never done so. While Sevastyan had started working on creating those relationships himself, his networks remained largely criminal and artistic, the ones that were defensible to Raska and her constant manipulation of Sevastyan’s life.