Page 122 of Sage Haven

Castor arrived the nextday after I told him Sage was willing to give him the answers we needed. I knew why she was drawing another invisible line between us. She wasn’t ready to let me in. Maybe she never would be.

I told myself I was fine with that.

But as I paced the length of the room, burning off restless energy before Cas showed, I knew it was a lie. I wasn’t fine. I wasn’t anything close to fine.

And letting Cas handle this? Well, that was a recipe for disaster.

I needed to give him a pep talk first—make sure he wouldn’t fuck it up. That was the problem when I let other people handle things. I never trusted them to get it right. It was why I’d trained myself to rely on only me. My hands. My decisions. My control.

I was the one who kept things together.

At least, that’s what I’d always believed.

But Sage… Sage had wrecked that certainty. She had already dragged me into a tangled mess of doubt, forcing me to second-guess my choices, my instincts—my entiredamn life.

And now?

After tasting her, after feeling her body melt beneath mine… there was no walking away.

I was hooked.

And for the first time in a long, long while, I was scared.

Not of her.

Of myself.

Because I wasn’t sure I could protect her. Not the way she needed.

And worse… I wasn’t sure she wouldn’t turn on me and ruin everything my brother and I had built.

A system in place to keep us safe within the confines of the life we had chosen.

***

When Cas finally showed, he looked like hell. The dark circles beneath his eyes told me he hadn’t slept. His clothes were wrinkled, his jaw shadowed with days-old stubble. The usual easy swagger he wore like armor was gone. In its place was something rawer, stripped bare.

I grabbed two whiskey glasses from the cabinet and poured generously. Liquid gold caught the dim light, gleaming like something that might save us both in this endless black void.

Fat chance.

I handed one to Cas as we clinked them in a silent toast.

“Brother,” we muttered in unison.

We drank without speaking for a moment. The silence stretched long between us, familiar and heavy. The burn of whiskey down my throat didn’t even register. Cas sighed, dragging his palm over his face like he could rub the exhaustion away.

Finally, he spoke, his voice rough around the edges. “I’m a terrible liar.”

I smirked faintly. “You’re not as bad as you think.”

He shot me a look. “Don’t humor me.”

“Fine.” I leaned back in my chair, exhaling slowly. “Then keep it short, Cas. If you don’t overshare, you won’t have to lie.”

His hand tightened around the glass, knuckles blanching. His stare dropped to the swirling amber liquid, watching it the way you watch something you want to drown in.

“What is it?” I asked.