Page 63 of Lady of Starfire (Lady of Darkness #5)

Cyrus

“Y ou do not have to do this, Thia,” Cyrus said as he watched her buckle on her fighting leathers.

“We can handle this, Cyrus,” she replied, her irritation with him over this seeping into her tone as she slid a knife into the sheath on her thigh.

“I do not doubt your skills,” he said. “I know you can handle this. What I am saying is something does not add up. Please don’t go. Help me convince Sorin to wait just a little longer.”

Thia sighed heavily, turning to face him.

She flicked her red braid over her shoulder as she moved towards him.

She took his face in her hands, and his palms landed on her hips, tugging her closer.

“When this is all over, you will see you worry for nothing,” she murmured, brushing her lips along his jaw.

“What if he’s wrong?” Cyrus said in desperation.

“What if he’s right?” Thia countered. “What if Eliné is indeed right across the border? We cannot walk away from this, Cyrus.”

“I’m not saying we should. I’m saying we need to slow down—”

She kissed him deeply. The kind of kiss that stole his breath and had his hands sliding to her ass and hoisting her against him. Thia pulled back, nipping his bottom lip lightly. Hazel eyes stared into his, her fingers sinking into his hair.

“Please, Thia,” Cyrus begged.

“This is happening, Cyrus,” she replied, brushing her thumb along his lower lip with her other hand. “And I hope Sorin is wrong.”

“What?”

“I hope Sorin is wrong. I hope this is a trap. I hope when I step outside this tent, it is the last time I see you.”

Cyrus shook his head, trying to clear his thoughts, to wrap his mind around what she was saying. “If something happens to you, I will break, Thia. I do not know how I will come back from that.”

“Good,” she breathed, letting her long legs slide down his body. “It will be no less than you deserve.”

“Cyrus.”

It will be no less than you deserve.

“Cyrus, look at me.” A warm hand on his face. “Open your eyes, Cyrus,” came a whispered demand.

He blinked, finding Cass leaning over him.

It was dark in their room, but Cyrus could make out the concern on his features.

His thumb brushed across his jaw. Cyrus swallowed thickly, his mouth too dry as he tried to pull himself out of that memory.

Trying to remember how things had actually happened.

But Gehenna had forced him to relive this particular memory so many times, truth and lie blurred together.

“Hey,” Cassius said quietly. “It was a dream, Cyrus. It wasn’t real.”

“It wasn’t a dream,” Cyrus rasped, pushing his hand from his face and pressing the heels of his palms into his eyes.

“What do you mean?” Cass asked, sitting up when Cyrus slid from the bed.

Cyrus didn’t answer, moving out to their sitting room and pouring a measure of liquor. He knocked the entire thing back, relishing the burn of the alcohol, letting it calm his racing heart. He set the glass back down roughly, bracing his hands on the cart and letting his head hang down.

She was growing impatient.

“What do you mean it wasn’t a dream?”

Cyrus lifted his head, looking over his shoulder to find Cass leaning in the doorway. His arms were folded across his bare chest. The low fire in the hearth reflected in his eyes. He’d stopped wearing that godsdamn eye patch.

Cyrus straightened, dragging his hand through his sleep-addled hair. “It was nothing,” he finally said, letting his magic stir the fire to life a little more. He moved to the sofa. There would be no going back to sleep now. “I’m sorry I woke you.”

“I woke you,” Cass replied. He came to sit beside him before he added, “You were dreaming of Thia.”

“It wasn’t …” Cyrus released a harsh breath. “Forget it.”

“I’m forgetting nothing.”

Cyrus leaned back into the sofa, gaze fixed on the flames. He lifted a hand, letting his magic play with the embers. The silence around them was loud, and his chest was so tight, he couldn’t speak above a whisper when he said, “It wasn’t a dream. It was a memory.”

“Okay …” Cassius said when Cyrus didn’t go. “Tell me why the difference matters.”

“Because she changed them.”

“Who did?”

“Gehenna.” Then he added, “The Sorceress,” when Cassius didn’t react.

He felt Cassius stiffen beside him then. “What do you mean she changed them?”

Cyrus drew the flames out into thin tendrils, absent-mindedly looping them through the air. “Exactly that. She changed my memories. Altered them. Made me relive them but changed the details. So many times that I …”

Of course they made a mistake.

No one wants you, Cyrus.

If you can’t see that all you do is damage everyone around you, then I will keep reminding you until you believe it.

It will be no less than you deserve.

“You what, Cyrus?” Cassius pressed.

Cyrus glanced at him out of the corner of his eye. He was leaning forward, arms crossed and braced on his knees, watching the flames Cyrus was toying with.

Cyrus cleared his throat. “She did it over and over. Kept me trapped in some for hours. The reality and the lies are mixed together so thoroughly. She altered them all, Cass. All the good. The things that reminded me the stars were worth fighting for? She took it all and—”

Cassius was pulling him into his chest, arms wrapping tightly around him and a hand cupping the back of his head. Cyrus hadn’t realized he’d started crying.

“I’m sorry, Cyrus,” he murmured.

“Don’t be,” Cyrus muttered. “Don’t feel sorry for me.”

Cassius stiffened again. “Why would you say that?”

Cyrus gently shoved him back, sliding away from him. “Because she broke me in the end, Cass,” he sighed. “Instead of staying strong, outlasting her until you all came, I gave in when she—”

He stopped, rolling his lips. The fire he’d been playing with faded away.

“We’ll clean it up together, Cyrus,” Cassius said into the now dim room.

“None of you will be saying that when you know …”

“Try me,” Cassius said sharply. “I swore not to tell you to get out again. This won’t change that.”

He may as well get this over with. He’d been selfish long enough, stealing moments with his family and nights with Cassius, just wanting a few good memories to cling to.

Ones the Sorceress hadn’t touched. But they needed to know.

He could go, and they could figure out how to work around what he had cost them.

“She altered them all,” Cyrus finally said.

“Merrick. Thia. Memories of my family. All the good ones are tainted now, but then … Then she came for memories of you.” He heard Cassius suck in a sharp breath.

“She altered one, and I begged— begged her, Cassius—not to touch any more. To let me keep those, because I could live without memories of my past, but you were not my past. You were …everything I did not deserve in the future.”

“Cyrus—”

“So I made a bargain with her,” he pushed on, speaking over Cassius.

He brushed his fingers over the Bargain Mark that wound around his bicep.

“Everyone knows you don’t do that. Everyone knows to deal with her is to make a fool’s bargain.

I knew it was foolish and could ruin so much for everyone else, but you?

You were the one sacrifice I was not willing to make.

Merrick and Thia were already gone. But you were here.

And you made me feel again. And the thought of her twisting your words?

Of carrying memories of you looking at me with derision? I couldn’t—”

“There is nothing you could do that would make me look at you like that, Cyrus. Nothing ,” Cassius said vehemently. “How could she even do this? Because Alaric gave her your blood?”

Cyrus nodded mutely. He could say that, but he still didn’t know—

And then Cassius was in his face, forcing him to look into his eyes. One brown, one pale and white. “I will never look at you with derision, disgust, or hatred. Never, Cyrus. Do you hear me? It is impossible when I love you.”

Cyrus stopped breathing because he couldn’t have heard him right.

“Say it again,” Cyrus whispered.

Cassius gripped his face in his hands. “It will not matter what you traded to the Sorceress because I love you, Cyrus. Whatever you promised her, we will figure it out.”

Cyrus wrapped a hand around the nape of his neck, closing the distance between their mouths.

His other hand ran down his chest, fingertips sliding along the muscled indents and grooves of his abdomen.

A low rumble came from Cassius, and he pulled back after a moment, his breathing ragged and eyes glowing.

“We need to finish talking about all of this.”

That was the absolute last thing Cyrus wanted to do at the moment. Not with Cassius pressed up against him in nothing but loose pants that could be taken care of far too easily.

“Cyrus,” Cassius growled, a knowing look on his face.

He let his hand fall from Cass’s neck and sat back with an embellished sigh. “Fine.” He swiped a hand down his face, trying to calm the want racing through his blood. “We should wake the others.”

Cassius stood, and Cyrus saw just how hard it was for Cassius to stop this right now.

“We should change,” Cass said.

“Why?” Cyrus asked with a smirk and a pointed look.

But what Cyrus had intended to be a taunt had Cassius’s eyes glowing brighter as he leaned over him in a move that had Cyrus tipping his head back against the sofa to see him.

“Remember what I said, Cyrus,” he said, his tone rough and low.

“I’m not as selfless as you believe me to be. I want, and I take.”

Cyrus scoffed, despite this doing nothing to calm him down. “You’re the most selfless person I know. Except maybe Tava. She might have you beat.”

Cassius said nothing, but the corner of his lips tilted up in a knowing smirk. He brushed his knuckles across Cyrus’s cheek before his thumb brushed along his mouth. Cyrus found himself trying to remember how to breathe. Do you take air in first? Or out?

“Make no mistake, Cyrus,” he murmured. “I’ll take what’s mine.”

Well, fuck.