Page 179 of Golden Eagle

“Nothing specific.” A small mercy. “But I got the impression that there was…a lot of stuff…done against your will.” Delicate, again, if awkward.

“I was raped,” he said, and only afterward heard how coarse it sounded, laying it out like that. He pushed a grin across his face, felt his fangs elongate. He laughed. “Did he tell you that? That I was the favorite pet of a sultan? You should have seen me in all my sapphires and diamonds.” He tossed his head, and the rest of his braid fell out, hair sliding over his shoulders, onto her bare legs.

He thought she’d recoil – maybe he intended it – but she only frowned.

“I wasglorious,” he went on, his voice going wilder, more dramatic. “The envy of the whole Ottoman court. Even the Romanian princes wanted me – Corvinus. Ha! He wanted to give metwoswords, you know, one steel and one flesh.” Another laugh, brittle, too high. His vision was blurring, but he couldn’t stop. She needed to hear this. His mate, he’d introduced her to everyone. And she was, dear, and lovely, and his, and totally ignorant of what he was, what he’d been.

“It doesn’t matter what a man thinks he prefers,” he said. “Given enough time, the right tilt of a head, the flex of a leg. A little coy look.” He gave her one; the best he could do while bubbling with manic energy, and had to glance away, because her pity threatened to choke him. “Even in captivity – maybe especially, then – I could always lure someone in. Guards, princes, scientists. Everyone but Cicero – but oh, did I try. Gods, I tried. Those early days, when he had me in silver fetters, keeping me in a cave like some kind of animal. If he would just let me go, I told him. All I wanted was to die; I’d even let him swing the sword, and I’d make it worth his while, first. ‘My brother’s cold as a frozen lake,’ I said, ‘but come touch me, I’m warm.’ I thought he might, finally. But he just sobbed all over me, begging me to tell him what I’d done with Vlad. I wouldn’t, of course. Vlad needed to be kept out of the fray for a while, and that stupid wolf would only get him tangled in another war. The torture started in earnest the next morning. I suppose he hated that I’d seen him so vulnerable…”

He hadn’t thought of Cicero in centuries, but twice now he’d recalled him. His fury, his sorrow. The bite of steel and silver in his own flesh; the awful wetness of his tears, sliding hot beneath Val’s collar.

“Val,” Mia said. She touched his face again, turned his head back so their gazes met. “I’m sorry.”

“Ha! What are you sorry for? It wasn’tyouwho did any of that.”

“No, but I’m sorry it happened to you. I’m sorry–” Her breath caught, and she swallowed, and her jaw firmed. Collecting herself. “The first time that we – when we were together. That first night. You seemed–”

He couldfeelthe way his face blanched.

“–no, no, baby, it’s not – you seemed nervous, and I just wanted…”

He laughed again – only it turned into a dry sob, and he laid his face down on her thigh, unable to look at her while she was saying these things.

She fell silent a moment, and raked her fingers through his hair, nails scratching soothingly along his scalp.

He had to say something. She was trying, but his past –he– was too awful a subject to be broached by someone who was wholesome and good. Someone who’d never gotten on their knees for a captor in exchange for a little more food.

“Every time I’ve touched you,” he finally gritted out, “it’s been because I wanted to. I hope you’ll do me the courtesy to at least tell the truth if the same isn’t true for you. Or if you regret what–”

“Val.” Her hands never wavered, smoothing his hair along his crown, off his face. “I’ve wanted to touch you since the night you appeared in my living room. Everything between us has been consensual. Everything.” She sounded relieved. Leaned down, and pressed a soft kiss to his temple. Just that light brush brought tears to his eyes, and he closed them tight against the burn. “I don’t ever want to make you uncomfortable. You can always tell me no. You can tell meanything.”

He nodded.

“I know things won’t be easy. I didn’t expect them to be.”

He let out a shaky breath. “I kissed him so he would see. So he would know that there’s a difference between lust and love, and so he’d see which one he feels, that it’s love, and that love isn’t a bad thing.”

Silence a beat. “Do you think lust is bad?”

“It can be.” He shifted a fraction, so he could peer up at her face from the corner of his eye. “Does it bother you? That I’ve been with men?”

“No,” she said immediately, and his belly unclenched a fraction. Her expression was hard to gauge, her gaze indrawn, her lower lip caught between her teeth, point of one fang winking in the lamplight.

“I’m attracted to men and women equally,” he said. Didn’t add,I’ve been raped by them both equally, too.“Does that bother you?”

“No,” again. Then: “But…I wonder if…if I’m enough–”

Val surged to his feet, surprising her, and herded her backward across the bed so he could kneel on the mattress in front of her. Catch her face in both hands and hold her still, hold her gaze to his. “No. Mia. Darling, no, don’t ever think that.” He was trembling, and her eyes were huge. “It isn’t like that. It isn’t a competition.”

“How could I even compete?” she asked, forlornly. “Everyone here: princes, and soldiers, and historians, and they’re all beautiful, and worldly, and I’m just this poor sick human that you–”

He kissed her to hush her. A simple press of lips to lips, but he tried to push all of his fervor into it; all his feeling, jumbled and wild as it was. His head was a wreck – but he knew exactly what he felt for Mia, and it was unwavering, incomparable.

He pulled back, and rested their foreheads together, wanting to be connected in any way possible, her cheeks soft and warm in his palms, their breath mingling. “Mia. My sweet darling. Please don’t think of it like that. I can’t – I’ve never had this before. It’s never been good, and right, and easy like this before. Like I’m drowning, and it’sgood, and I want more of it.”

She pulled back, so he could see her eyes, the tears glimmering checked at their corners. Her smile came lopsided and tremulous. “You could have that with Sasha.”

“But I don’t want Sasha. Sasha’s like my little brother. Like a son. You are mymate.”

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