Page 83 of Insolence (Eisha’s Hidden Codices #1)

El

“ I can hear you in there, you know. Could probably hear you from the ground floor, if I’m honest.” Tiss’s voice comes from the other side of the curtain once Maida’s gone. “I’m not going to strangle you. I’d be lying if I said the thought hadn’t crossed my mind, though.”

Her words are slightly lisped and jarringly conversational. She’s sitting on the edge of the bed with her back to me when I step into her bedroom.

“Cordelia said you bit through your tongue?”

“The side of it.” With her left hand she gestures to the right side of her face. “It’s better now and mending quicker than my head or shoulder.”

Rounding her bed, I sink down next to her on the mattress. Look at the front of her dress, soaked with drying, brownish blood. “That’s a lot— ”

“Stop, El. Please.” She holds up a hand, her aura throbbing blue and shot through with ribbons of red-brown not far off the rust color of her sodden clothes. “I need to make sure I understand some things. And I desperately need you to be completely and totally honest.”

“Absolutely. Anything you want to know,” I say, and mean it.

“You knew we’d been together, knew our entire history,” she starts, “ before the flashbacks happened. True or false?”

I take a breath. “True.”

“Because you still have your memories. True or false?”

“True.”

The red in her aura spikes. Pulling in a long breath through her nose and exhaling through her mouth, she says, “Which you’ve been keeping from me, and in some cases outright lying about, this whole damned time.”

“True,” I whisper, running damp palms along my trousers, over the tops of my thighs.

“And you were , in fact, going to tell me at some point?”

“True! … Eventually.”

“ Eventually . Of course, silly me. Not sure why I bothered with that one.” Looking away, she gingerly rubs her injured shoulder.

Lets loose a sharp breath. “In one of our memories, you said you’d never forgive me.

Gods, you were so dramatic about it. But I guess that explains why we started out so rocky after the ritual. ”

“Yeah. Well. You know by now I can't stay away from you. Can’t stay mad at you. Fuck, Tiss, not even when I want to, which I very much did.” I shake my head. “I don’t have any choice when it comes to you—not so long as we’re bonded how we are.”

Eyebrows puckered, she studies me for a long moment. I can’t help but wonder how much she remembers about my being her Thrall. If she realizes how literal I’m being.

Does she still know what that means for us?

“You and I”—I motion between us—“we’re connected . To the point that I didn’t have the freedom to make any other decision. You saw to that when you pledged yourself to the goddess.”

“You did, though.” There’s a brief spark of… something in her blue eyes. The fact that I can’t quite parse it is maddening. “After I submitted to the ritual, you were the only one with a choice. I didn’t need you to protect me from myself so much as I needed you to simply talk to me, El.”

“Not in my mind. Not after you backed me into a corner. And I could say the same to you about how you left me that day in Aronya Dar.”

“All right, I’ll give you that one.” Her posture deflates. “So we’re both a mess, is what it comes down to.”

“Oh, we’re fucking hopeless together. And heartbroken without each other.” I scrub my hands over my face. “It’s a fine conundrum.”

“I understand that since I came here, I’ve had a history of overreacting. I realize my emotional instability has done… damage. I mean, look at me.” She sweeps a hand over herself. “I ignored your warning not to meddle in the sisters’ business. To leave Lydia alone.”

“ Again ,” I growl.

“Again,” she echoes and lets the hand drop. Winces, hissing through her teeth. “Gods, you probably think I deserve this.”

“Nobody deserves to be beaten, Tiss.”

“You’d be right if you did, though.” She pulls her good shoulder—the one nearest me—into a shrug.

“But I can’t stop wondering what it would have been like if you’d simply told me the truth from the get.

Whether you meant to or not, your secrets and lies left me with no capacity under which to govern myself.

No information with which to make better choices.

” Her aura flares a deeper, more sorrowful blue.

Closing her eyes, she rests her thumb and forefinger on her lids.

“You’re right,” I concede. “But it’s also not that simple, is it? Let’s say there’s someone you loved with all your heart. You loved her more than anything, more than life itself. Needed her like oxygen . But then she passed away. For instance.”

“Mm-hmm.” Tiss’s lashes flutter. Out of annoyance or something else, I can’t be sure.

“Then one day—for the purposes of this example—let’s say she magically reappeared in your life. Walked right through your front door out of the blue. It would be fantastic, right? A miracle, even. For an afternoon. But better than nothing so long as she didn’t do anything stupid.”

“El. I get it.”

“No. I don’t think you fucking do, Tiss.

” I turn to her, letting my eyes travel over her soiled dress.

The blood matted in her hair. The wary, haunted edge to her features I swear wasn’t there yesterday.

“Now picture having to stand aside and watch that person walk into a den of starving wolves with your heart in her hand and not so much as a toothpick for a weapon. What would you have done in that situation?”

“I didn’t need a weapon. I had you, didn’t I?”

I pin a look on her. “I lost my mind that day.”

“Oh, I was there. I saw.”

“Before you told me to keep you safe, I already knew what you were going to do. I would’ve done anything.

Said anything . Tossed you out of the temple complex myself if I thought it’d make a damn bit of difference.

But I saw you weren’t going to back down.

And then it was too late. So. Yes. Of course I said I wouldn’t forgive you.

After the fact, I was overprotective. Paranoid.

Frightened out of my damned mind half the time. ”

“Don’t forget your tendency to infantilize me. To withhold information and handle me.”

“I did the only thing I knew how to do to protect us both. Which meant hiding the truth.” I lean forward.

Put my head in my hands. “Goddess save me, I couldn’t have borne it if something happened to you.

I wouldn’t have survived losing you a second time.

I barely survived you leaving me—then getting sent here?

It was a nightmare I couldn’t wake up from.

To me, losing you was like losing a part of my soul.

And just so you know, hurting you now is almost unbearable. ”

She nods. “You know, it’s funny. Those flashbacks are what broke my heart to pieces by revealing how deep your secrets ran this whole time.

Gods, the extent of it felt like betrayal .

Those flashbacks got me even more fixated on talking to Lydia than I already was.

” She wraps her good arm around herself.

Groans in discomfort and swallows. “But they also shed such a bright light on everything else. Your coldness, your mood swings, your caginess. Even the lies. I’m still hurt and angry, don’t get me wrong. ”

“I know,” I murmur. “I’m so sorry. Please don’t think I’m not.”

“Right, El. But if I’d known you still had your memories— If you’d simply explained what happened between us, what I did to you before…

The way I pursued you? Hell, the way I seduced you…

” She trails off, eyes pointed at descending dusk beyond the window.

“I wouldn’t take no for an answer that night.

What I did to you was no different from how Sadrie seduced me.

No different from what happened in the greenhouse that day.

I”—her voice cracks, rupturing something deep inside me—“I took advantage of your attraction to me. Pushed you when you weren’t ready.

” She slouches, giving a little shudder.

“Even though you wanted me, that did not equate to consent.”

My heart cracks for all three of us—me and her and Sadrie. It shouldn’t have to be this way.

“As angry and sad and disappointed as I am in the level of deception you pulled off every step of the way— gods , El. Now that everything’s had a chance to sink in, I’m more ashamed of myself than anything else,” she says, a sob breaking out of her.

“I know why you did what you did. I swear I will never, ever force myself on you again. In any way.” Her chin trembles.

“Not like I did in the greenhouse, not like in the atelier, and not when I drove that stupid letter opener through your shoulder.”

Abrupt wrenching in my gut pulls me closer to her as if we’re tethered by steel wire rope.

“It was your chaos, Tiss. I believe it was trying to force you to feed before you self-destructed. The prioress… Goddess. I recently found out she does these experiments . Sick things to demuns that I had no idea were going on.

“She’s discovered properties about chaos I’ve never heard of.

Observed how it affects your kind in ways I know nothing about.

But I realize now that you weren’t you in the greenhouse.

Not in your bedroom either, when you stabbed me.

And it is not your fault society punishes us for being ourselves.

Forces us into hiding. Forces your kind into circumstances where you sometimes have no choice but to lash out.

In fact, that’s precisely what the whole system is designed to do. ”

She snorts wetly. Cries harder, letting out a little whine as her shoulders jerk. I put my arm around her. Carefully pull her into me.

“And that night in the atelier— I’m not being trite when I say you couldn’t help yourself, Tiss. You were a starving virgin Succubus for fuck’s sake.”

She clings to my shirt, wet cheek lodged in the crook of my neck. “It’s no excuse.”