He kissed me again, and again, and again. He parted my lips with his and our tongues came together, and it was such a warm, wet, intimate feeling that I shuddered underneath him, which made him groan into my mouth.

“I wanted you since the first day,” he confessed, breaking our kiss. “I wanted to keep you pinned against that wall for hours.” His expression turned a little shy, something novel and quite sweet on that usually serious face. “It’s the first time I’ve ever felt this way about another man.”

“But Morgan…” I shouldn’t have said it. I don’t know why I did.

“Yes,” he sighed. “Morgan.”

And her name from his lips broke the spell.

What am I doing? Did it change anything that Ash wanted me the way I wanted him? Did I really think I could be with a man who needed to discipline and mark, who needed his lovers to belong to him? As much as my whole body screamed yes, yes we can do that, I had to think with more than my dick. All my relationships either had a completely even balance of power or I was in charge, and that didn’t even delve into the complicated realities of my emotional health. Didn’t delve into the complicated realities of our job.

He saw the shift in my face. “Say this isn’t the end, Embry. Say you’ll keep teaching me to dance. Say you’ll be my little prince. Please.”

His hand still cradled the back of my head, still protected me from all pain except what he wanted to give to me himself. I pressed my eyes closed; every single part of me wanted to say yes, and yet…little princes couldn’t play with kings. They’d be destroyed.

“We should get back to base,” I said, opening my eyes but not looking at his face. If I saw those green eyes flash with hurt, that square jaw tense with pain, it would be over. I would cave and let myself get sucked into something I would inevitably turn toxic and awful, because that’s what I did best.

Ash slid off me and stood, offering me a hand, which I didn’t take.

We walked back to the base in silence, parted ways without a word, though I could feel him looking at me the entire time. I feigned illness for the going away party, thinking that was the last time I’d have to see Colchester, though I knew even then that I’d never be free of thinking about him.

And that morning when I left my room with my bags, I found a small gift outside my door, a wrapped package. I forced myself to wait until I boarded the train at Lviv to open it, and when I did, it felt like someone had buried their Glock in my ribs and pulled the trigger.

A copy of The Little Prince. From Ash.

I pressed my forehead to the train window and willed myself not to cry.

14

Embry

before

Patroclus—

I’ll only email you this one time, but I hope you know that every day you don’t get an email from me is a day that I want to email you. I’ll be composing letters to you in my head for years to come, but I have to send at least this one.

I keep going back through this last year. Have I read everything wrong? Was I wrong about the way things felt when we danced, the way I felt you looking at me when I said your name? Was I wrong about the way you responded underneath me when I kissed you?

It must be Morgan. I can only imagine what she told you about me, but please know that everything we did that week was consensual…and optional. Embry, I don’t have to be that kind of man if that’s not what you want. I’ll be any kind of man for you. Just don’t disappear.

—Achilles

Life went on. For three years, it went on. I did a short stint in the South Pacific, went to Poland for eight months, then to Leavenworth for a year. Between deployments, I went home to Seattle, to my mother’s giant house with its expansive lake at the front. I played with Nimue’s baby boy, argued with Morgan, dabbled in every kind of dissolution I could find to take my mind off the things I’d seen and done in Carpathia.

And to take my mind off Maxen Ashley Colchester.

Not a day went by that I didn’t think about him. Dancing, kissing, what his thick erection felt like against my own. His email, his I’ll be any kind of man for you.

I couldn’t allow him to change himself for me. I wouldn’t. It was drastically unfair to him—not to mention that I didn’t want him to change. Maybe I was too fucked up to be what he needed, maybe I resisted the idea that he was what I needed, but in the close, quiet dark of night, my brain still buzzing from sex or liquor or worse, I knew the truth. Maybe I’d have to be wrestled into it, pinned against a wall or shot at, but once Ash had me at his mercy, I would be completely his. Any humiliation, any subjugation, anything he chose to do to me, I’d accept and enjoy. Hell, I’d thank him for it.

And that scared me more than anything else.

So it was settled: No Colchester. For his sake and mine.

And the years went on.

The world changed again. I was crouched behind a dining room chair in Vivienne’s lake house waiting for Lyr to come tearing around the corner so I could grab him and pretend to eat him like an ogre when my phone buzzed. It was Morgan.

Did you see the news?

No, I’m playing with Lyr before we eat. Btw are you coming to dinner?

Just turn on the news, idiot.

I still waited for Lyr, pouncing on him and nibbling on his cheeks as he giggled and squirmed in my arms. He was normally a quiet little boy—serious and reserved—but only Cousin Embry could make him laugh and squeal, so whenever I saw him, I made it my mission to do just that. Maybe it was a perennial flaw in my code, because seeing Ash laugh and smile had been just as gratifying to me. Maybe I just couldn’t stand to think of all these serious people living their lives so seriously; quiet and solemn even about the best things in life.