Page 68 of Oh, Sacred Dark
Roman spun at the shout, stunned to see Tyler racing towards him, followed by Cross and Connie and Charlie. Just as suddenly, the woman beside him started groaning and clutching her head.
Roman fluttered his hands around her. “What is it? What’s happening?” He panicked before it dawned on him what was happening.
“Get thefuckaway from him,” Connie screamed behind him.
He turned again, lifting his hands. “Stop! Stop, she’s not hurting me. Cross, stop!”
The woman sagged, her noises of pain ceasing. He didn’t want to out Cross as having Psychic Magic—the rarest and most feared of all—but he couldn’t let the woman be hurt, either.
Luckily, the rest of them didn’t even seem to have noticed what was going on, too focused on Roman.
“I’m okay,” Roman said as Tyler barrelled into him and wrapped him up in his arms. “I’m okay.”
Tyler stared at him with wide, fearful eyes, and Roman couldn’t help but feel tears well up in his own. He’d been holding on these past three days, trying not to let the terror overtake him, but it was over now.
It was over.
Tyler pulled him away from the water, away from the woman, who was now standing there with her hands limp by her sides, a lost expression in her eyes.
Roman was swallowed up by Connie as she admonished him tearfully, by Charlie and Cross.
“Who the fuck are you?” Tyler demanded of the woman.
She held up her hands. “I just…I just wanted to know where my sister was.”
Roman grasped Tyler’s hand. “It’s okay. Let’s…let’s go.”
Tyler looked at him incredulously. “She kidnapped you. She used Chaos Magic!”
The woman interjected. “No I didn’t. I just made it so the magic that had infected him through his old coven bonds would awaken if he were to be clasped again.”
Roman’s stomach curdled at those words—the thought that there had still been traces of that magic in him, even after a year away from his old coven.
Tyler growled. “That’s not any better.”
Roman pulled at Tyler. “I don’t care. Or I just…I just want to go home. She’s not gonna hurt me.”
Tyler shook his head, and Roman understood what he was thinking—it couldn’t just end like that. After all that, there was supposed to be a big battle. Death, the authorities, something cathartic to make it all worth it.
Instead, there was the slow, insidious pain of grief. The debris of Chaos, lodged into people for the rest of their lives.
“Let’s go. I don’t want to be here anymore. Let’s gohome.”
**********
Roman slept for a whole day when he returned to Meliora. Twelve hours at first, getting up to be fed by Tyler and go to the bathroom, and then another bout, exhaustion knocking him out cold.
He was groggy when he finally roused, feeling warm and safe in Tyler’s arms.
A sudden, piercing wave of emotion swept through him. It was unidentifiable—a mix of fear and happiness and relief and sadness, for some reason, like his body just couldn’t believe this was real. That he could actually be home where he had imagined—tucked in Tyler’s bed, the man breathing beside him.
The last few days—weeks, really—while he was being consumed by Chaos Magic—felt like a bad dream.
Tyler stirred, hands pressing against Roman protectively and relaxing again.
Roman shuffled even closer to him. “Hey,” he said softly, voice croaky with disuse.
“Hey. Want some water?”
