Page 184 of Discordant Cultivation

A strange flutter of pride bloomed in Kieran’s chest—warm and wrong.

Her neck. The angle of her neck. I can’t stop seeing—

But Vale’s voice in his mind cut through the spiral before it could take hold:

Trust me, sweetheart. We’ve done so many lessons in trust. Let me handle this.

“Just keep t-trying,” Kieran said to Alex, his voice steadier now. He reached out and smoothed the hood where it had bunched near Alex’s ear. “Vale knows what he’s d-doing.”

His gaze drifted back to Jericho’s body despite himself, and the trembling started again. Nausea rolled through his stomach as he stared at her twisted neck, remembering how quickly they’d connected in the studio, how perfectly their voices hadblended together. He’d wanted to surprise Vale by having her appear at the concert for their duet. Now her vocal cords were rotting in her throat.

She was nice to me.

I killed her.

I killed her.

Vale’s hands cupped his face, forcing his attention away from the corpse. “Focus on me,” Vale said firmly. “Not on her. On me.”

Yes. That’s easier. Just look at Vale.

The warmth still felt wrong. He held onto it anyway.

Vale turned back to Alex with renewed focus, his hands finding pressure points that made Alex jerk and cry out. “You want to know why you failed?” Vale’s voice carried cold fury beneath the velvet as he crouched down to look at the broken bone. “I gave you connections. Opportunities. Access to people who could have changed your entire trajectory.”

Alex’s attempt at the song faltered again as Vale’s thumb disappeared into the wound in his shin, screaming words Kieran didn’t hear. It was just noise. Ugly noise like Alex’s attempt to play his songs.

Kieran wondered, vaguely, what emotion Vale was trying to open in Alex by pushing into his wound. It made him nauseous, so he stopped wondering anything at all.

“I spent weeks helping you develop your sound,” Vale continued, his voice rising with each word. “And you threw it back in my face. You said you needed ‘creative freedom’ and ‘artistic independence’ like those weren’t just excuses for your own limitations. You tried to smooth it over by saying you had feelings for me.”

Kieran moved behind Alex again, his hands adjusting the man’s posture even as Vale’s fury made his own knuckles ache with phantom pain. He hadn’t seen Vale this angry in months.

His shoulders are climbing toward his ears. That’s not good. It’s hard to play with emotion if he’s tense.

Without thinking, Kieran began kneading the knots in Alex’s shoulders, working the tension loose with gentle pressure. The way Vale did for him after difficult sessions.

“Years of wasting what little talent you had,” Vale spat, striking Alex’s ribs. “And then you decided to whisper poison in some nosy girl’s ear.”

Alex screamed, the sound muffled by the hood, and Kieran flinched at the volume. “P-Please,” Kieran whispered, leaning close to Alex’s hooded head until his lips almost brushed the fabric. “Just try to f-focus on—”

“Close your eyes, sweetheart.”

Vale’s voice cut through his attempt at comfort, and Kieran’s eyelids dropped immediately. He heard Vale move to the equipment storage, heard a drawer open and close, then felt the familiar warmth of Vale’s body pressing close behind him. Something cold and hard was pressed into his palm—smooth and plastic that felt foreign against his skin. Vale’s larger hands wrapped around his fingers.

What is this? What am I holding?

But the question dissolved before he could chase it.

“What are you doing?” Alex’s voice cracked with new terror, higher now, desperate. “What’s happening? I can’t see—please, what—”

Vale’s breath was warm against Kieran’s ear and he felt Vale kissing his neck. Their joined hands hovered in the air, and Kieran could feel Vale’s cock hardening against him. His stomach fluttered and flipped.

Maybe we can just go upstairs and pretend this never happened.

“Do you remember when you smashed your guitar during‘Library Card’? Why you did it?”

Kieran’s jaw tensed, his headache spiking as Alex’s shouting intensified into incoherent pleas. The sound bounced off the walls, seeming to multiply until it filled every corner of the basement.