Page 235 of Golden Eagle

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Alexei put enough syrup on his waffles to feel vaguely sick afterward. The walk home didn’t help, only added a headache to the problem.

Home. He flopped down on Dante’s fancy sofa and allowed himself an internal chuckle at the notion that he’d called Dante’s placehome. Like he wasn’t a lying, scheming, traitorous–

The vampire himself appeared at the end of the sofa, wearing dark bags beneath eyes still a little red-rimmed from crying in Colette’s kitchen. The wind had tangled his hair hopelessly; it was so curly when he didn’t put product in it, a thick, dark tangle down past his shoulder that highlighted the bony thinness of his face. His expression was one of subdued subservience; a quiet, respectful sort of peace. Unnerving.

But beautiful. Alexei didn’t like the way he kept ducking his face and playing the subordinate, but the real him was so much lovelier than the slicked-back playboy he’d pretended to be.

“Let me take your boots off,” he said, reaching for the laces where Alexei had kicked his shod feet up onto the arm of the couch.

No, Alexei meant to say.Don’t act like my fucking servant.

But he was at that point of exhaustion when people said stupid things, loopy from lack of sleep. He said, “You’re so pretty.”

Dante froze, eyes widening, fingers on the laces. “I’m sorry?”

Alexei knocked the toes of his boots together lightly, dislodging him. “You’re so, so, so pretty. Did you know that?”

Dante looked panicked.

“You do, otherwise you wouldn’t have tried to be this ladies’ man orgy guy. Right?”

He retracted his hands, slowly, holding them in front of him like he wasn’t sure if he’d have to use them to shield himself from an attack. “I…”

“I thought you liked me,” Alexei said, and, okay, he was definitely pouting. He sounded a little drunk.

Somehow, Dante’s eyes widened further. He swallowed, throat bobbing hard; it looked like a painful movement. “I do.”

“No, I thought youlikedme. I thought…” His voice shook; he hated how vulnerable he was being; would never have been if he hadn’t been so fuckingtired. “I thought you – thought I was special.”

Bright emotion flared in Dante’s gaze. He took a deep breath. “I do.” He moved around the arm of the couch and sat slowly down on the edge of a cushion, by Alexei’s knees. “Your grace,” he started, hesitant, and then a bit of fervor broke through. “Lex, I do think that. I do –care.” He put a strange weight on the word. It wasn’tlike.Caresounded heavier, somehow. Poised to flinch away, like a child approaching a big dog, he eased a hand down onto Alexei’s knee, and squeezed. “Icare,” he repeated, with even more emphasis.

Alexei twitched out from beneath his hand, though he regretted it immediately. “You were just saving your skin, snuggling up to me. I was a job – ascam. All of it was lies to make Gustav happy.”

His brow furrowed. “No, I – I mean I was trying to – but then I met you…” He frowned. “I thought that you…”

“Forgave you?” Alexei asked with a sneer.

“Well, yes. At least a little.”

And the thing was? He had. Logically. What Dante had shown him was too raw, too terrible to be anything but the truth. Just like he saw truth now in the hurt etched on the other vampire’s face.

But, emotionally…though he hadn’t intended it, he’d developed a bit ofcareof his own. He’d slept with countless partners over the years: humans, vampires, men, women, groups. He changed preferences like he changed clothes, and hadn’t given a single damn about any of them. It had always been ephemeral and performative; an itch to scratch.

But, though he’d gone home with Dante the first time out of boredom and a curious sort of arousal, he’d come back again, and again, and kept him close, out of something more. It had felt different – in his study, yes, when he admitted to being Basil Norrie, to being a historian who’d worked for Victoria, to having album after album of his family photos. But, if Alexei was honest, a little before that, too. In bed. It was a simple thing, silly, even, but…he’d feltseen. Like he wasn’t just another collection of pleasing body parts.

How petty and selfish and stupid of him, to want Dante to love him a little bit, but that was the truth of it, no getting around it. It wasn’t just his pride hurt, now, but his damned feelings, and that, he realized, was going to take a different kind of reckoning.

Dante seemed to realize it, some of the tension melting out of his thin frame, his expression softening. “Ah. I understand.”

Alexei sat up, which left the soles of his boots planted square on the sofa cushion. He didn’t care, he decided, with a spike of vindictiveness. Good: he hoped he tracked the damn thing up. “Oh, youunderstand?”

Dante’s head tilted. “I do. And Iamsorry, for what it’s worth. I hated keeping the whole truth from you.”

“Why, because youcare?”

This was terrible. He was being an idiot…one who couldn’t stop, apparently.

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