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Pain reached his voice. “Allie… gods. I adore you. I fuckingadoreyou. Please. Jesus fuck… I don’t even have enough words for how badly I want you, all the time, every time I get anywhere near your light. What the fuck are you eventalkingabout?” Frustration hardened his voice. “What the fuck is this ‘feminine’ shit? What does that even mean?”

I didn’t answer.

His pain worsened. “Don’t leave me. Don’t fucking leave me again.”

“I didn’tleaveyou, Revik.”

“Bullshit.” He gripped my arms in his hands, his jaw hardening.“Bullshit,Allie. You fucking left. You left.” Pain returned to his voice. “I’m sorry. I’m so fucking sorry I did it like I did. I’m sorry I didn’t talk to you first. I should have asked. I should have brought you with me. I should have done all of it differently… but gods in the darkness… I didn’t want tofuckher, Alyson. I don’t want tofuckher. I want you. I was thinking about you… about us.”

I was already shaking my head.

My jaw hardened.

“I don’t want you to be sorry, Revik. I really don’t.”

“I won’t go near anyone else again… I swear to the gods. I’ll never do anything like thatever again.”

I didn’t want to hear that either, though.

I didn’t want his goddamned guilt.

“Then what do you want? What do you want, Allie?”

I wanted him to cut the shit.

I wanted us to be honest with one another.

“But I am,” he growled.

I shook my head.

Deliberately, I evoked images of what Ditrini had done to me, what I’d felt Revik fantasize about with me, even in his sleep. When I let those images grow explicit I felt him react almost violently. Jealousy snaked through him, grief, anger. His jealousy grew unbearable, even as more of those images swam through myaleimi, bringing up more conflict in his light.

I knew the thing with Ditrini pulled at him and repulsed him, turned him on and disgusted him, made him jealous and made him angry and sad until he couldn’t think straight. I could feel the conflict there. I even understood it.

Hell, parts of me could relate to it.

I could feel which images he reacted to the most, though.

I watched his face.

“Do you want me to bring someone else in here?” I asked.

His pain worsened. I felt him trying to control it. I felt the fear woven in, along with a denser jealousy, anger at me for even suggesting it.

“No,” he said.

“You don’t? Don’t bullshit me, Revik.”

“No.No,Allie… I don’t want that. I don’t. I don’tfuckingwant that.”

“What if I told you I wanted it?” I asked.

Conflict rippled through his light, paralyzing him.

Fear seemed to drive it that time, but the fear had so much pain in it, I let out an involuntary gasp, sliding my fingers into his hair. After a few more minutes of massaging him, he lay almost still, gasping out each breath, his light pulling on mine, asking me––

“Please,” he groaned. “I’ll do it if you want. I promised I would… I said I’d do whatever you want, and I meant it. Butgaos,Allie, please. No one else. Please.”