Page 99 of Damian & Jun: Episodes 5-8
“Really, truly stay?” Jun’s heart beat for reasons other than the run. He pulled his hands free of Damian’s clothes and wrapped his palms around the dome of Damian’s head, turning his face upward so he could look down into it. “My world is burning, and I don’t want to put out the flames.”
“I like where the flames take you.” Heaven and hell, Damian looked like he meant it. No fear, only fierceness, possession. Desire.
He had to know. He needed to know how far the insanity went. “I want to fuck in a ruined church, rip off my shirt, show them the scars. I want them to see, DaSu.”
“See what, wolfling?”
“How insane they made me.”
“You’re not insane.”
No, he was drowning in it. He hadn’t known until right at that moment, but he was. He was drowning in the desire to scream. He wanted to burn with cold and dance like he was outside their world. He wanted to scream in their faces and fuck the consequences.
“Not by your law, no. But for them, sane is tame. I’m not tame, DaSu.”
“Never, ever”—Damian punctuated each word with kisses against Jun’s chest—“be tame. Not for me, not for anyone.”
“I’ll stain you, Alpha.” They’ll destroy you with me. They have to. They can’t abide the unbroken, the natural, the uncontrolled.
“I don’t care.”
“If you screamed, if you tore down the walls of your father’s house because it wasn’t a home, what would they call you?”
“What they called me the first time, a criminal.”
The first time. How could he have forgotten? No, he hadn’t forgotten.
“That’s what they want me to be.”
Damian’s eyes glittered, and his teeth showed. “I won’t let them, wolfling, Jun. You’re good. You’re everything they’re not, and I won’t let them fucking win. I won’t let you let them win.”
This was the wildness in Damian that called to Jun. The fierceness and firmness that came from being an outcast that had survived. The blood in Damian’s veins held the wisdom Jun longed to drink. This man was precious beyond measure, the center of his world, a rock in a hurricane.
“I’m not good, Alpha.” Jun let his forehead rest against Damian’s. “I’ve been good so long my wings lost all their feathers. They burned. All that’s left is a demon.” He raised his head so he could look into Damian’s face and stroked his cheek. “They’ll hate you when they hate me. When I show them who I am.”
Damian stared back, unwavering, then kissed him hard, pulling him lower down the tree so they were face-to-face and wrapping Jun up against him. “You’re mine. So burn their edicts. Scream. Curse them. But your blood is mine. Your sanity is mine. Your body is mine. You don’t have permission to harm what is mine.” He wrapped his fist in the front of Jun’s shirt.
“What if I burn up, DaSu? What if I burn out?” He had to ask, had to be clear. “I don’t know how far this demon in me can go. What if that’s all I’m fit to be—what I’ve been—their slave? What if this is the end, my explosion, before I’m over?”
Damian pressed his forehead to Jun’s, speaking into his face, sharing his breath. “All your strength, you gave it to them. Dancing for them. Bowing for them. Bridling your own brilliance for them. That’s over. That strength is yours. All that power that you bent to their will, that power is yours; it belongs to you.”
Jun’s air caught in his lungs. Damian pulled back so their eyes met.
“All that power, all that brilliance and energy you offered, that is yours. Claim it.”
Tears. That was what was on his face. Jun blinked at them. “There are so many things I don’t know. So many things they made sure I did not know. I don’t know if what’s in my mind is mine or theirs. I only know I’m angry.”
“Then tell me, and I’ll tell you if it’s worth believing.”
Could he? Was he truly willing? Would Damian hold the storm inside him and pull out the threads that mattered?
“There are so many lies. The butterfly of my soul doesn’t care if it's a man or an insect anymore. It just wants to know the color of the sky.”
Damian grinned, his teeth showing in the dim space between them. “It’s midnight blue and brilliant white.”
Jun laughed through his tears. “All week, all week, I’ve been writing and practicing and pretending. It almost feels real, but right here, with everything I’m afraid of, with all the danger, this feels more real. We were running, and you were chasing, and I could smell the cold, and this, this feels horrible and real and beautiful. Tell me it’s real.”
Damian forced Jun back against the tree again until the bark marked ridges in his back through his hoodie. “It’s real.”
