Page 92 of The Lost Art of Seducing a Mage Warrior

“I need you to listen to me. Are you?”

“Yes,” Brannal murmured, his gaze caught by Perian’s.

“I amnotscared of you,” Perian told him firmly.

He felt the shudder that ran through the other man’s body and watched his eyes get glassy and wet. After a moment, his hands came up to cover Perian’s.

Perian continued. “I haven’t been in any proper relationships either, and this one has definitely been more complicated than I expected.”

Brannal huffed something that was almost a wet-sounding laugh, and Perian released Brannal’s face, but continued to clasp his hands where they came to rest twined on Brannal’s knees.

“We clearly have some things we need to work on,” Perian acknowledged, “but Iwantto work on them. I really like you, all of you, including the fact you can conjure fireballs in your bare hands. That’s amazing. You and Cormal are completely different people no matter that you can both control fire.” Perian made sure he soundedextrarepulsed as he said, “I definitely don’t wanthimin my bed.”

Brannal’s lips tipped up slightly.

Quietly, Perian admitted, “I was upset and hurting, and I think I wasn’t wrong in a lot of what I said, but I wasn’t right, either.”

“You have every right to be upset!” Brannal jumped to his defense immediately, making Perian smile.

“Well, yeah. And if you try to tell me I’m overreacting or dictate where I sleep again, I’m going to ask Molun to drench you with water every time he sees you, understood?”

Brannal made a face but nodded. “That’s fair. I was out of line.”

Perian nodded firmly, because as much as he now understood where Brannal had come from, that really hadn’t been acceptable.

“I think we were talking but not really listening to each other. I hope that, in the future, we can actually communicate our way through a misunderstanding. But if that’s not working, if we need space, either of us, then we need to be able to take it.”

Brannal looked chagrined. “The night in the bedroom, you didn’t get why, but you knew I was upset and you accommodated me and listened to what I needed. I will do better.”

“Thank you,” Perian said. “I do also understand that’s easier to do when you’re not angry. Tempers flare, we say things we don’t mean or shouldn’t have said. I told Molun and Arvus that you didn’t want to touch me, and that was inappropriate too. I apologize for lashing out with that, and I especially shouldn’t have done it with other people listening.”

“It’s all right,” Brannal told him immediately.

“Truly,” Perian added, feeling like he still hadn’t apologized enough. “I’m sorry. I haven’t actually got in a lot of fights, and I don’t like what it says about me that I attacked like that.”

He mostly hadn’t been thinking, but he’d been hurt, physically and emotionally, and he’d just sort of… snapped.

Squeezing Perian’s hand comfortingly, Brannal said, “Like you said, it’s easy to say something we don’t mean in the heat of the moment.”

Perian swallowed. “I guess so. We both lost our tempers. And we can both work on it.”

Nodding once more, throat bobbing as he swallowed, Brannal said earnestly, “Thank you. Every time you say thatwecan do anything, you make me feel better, even when I don’t think I deserve it.”

“Well, look, here’s the thing,” Perian said earnestly. “We’ve already talked about how I feel about the set-up, and you’ve already agreed to improve on that front. It hurt me.” Brannal flinched again, and Perian said hurriedly, “No, listen. It hurt meemotionally, and we’ve talked about how we’re not going to let anything like that happen again.” He waited until Brannal nodded. “Yes, your whole idea was for Cormal to be able to beat me, but at the end of the day, the only person responsible for Cormal’s actions is Cormal.”

Brannal frowned, looking puzzled.

Perian continued, “He didn’thaveto throw a fireball at my face. He made it through that whole roomnotthrowing fireballs at anyone else, or at least not at their faces or at people who couldn’t counter it. No matter what the set up was, that was how hechoseto act, so when it comes down to it, that was all on him. Some of the anger I was expressing earlier was absolutely at you, but you didn’t deserve the anger I felt towards him.”

Brannal was still frowning. “I don’t think—”

“Let me ask you this,” Perian interrupted. “If any of the others could throw fireballs, do you think they would have? They were all in the situation he was. Half that room was supposed to capture me. Do you believe any of them would have thrown a fireball at my head?”

And after a long moment, Brannal could only shake his head because they both knew the truth of that.

And then Perian’s lips tipped up. “I mean, I don’t actually know everyone in the room, and I don’tthinkI’ve annoyed anyone as much as I’ve annoyed Cormal, but maybe there are some others who just wish they could throw fireballs at me.”

Brannal didn’t look amused. “Don’t joke about such things.”

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