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“What are you so offended by?” I shot back. “That I’m stating the obvious aloud? You are a vampire. I am human. Maybe we don’t like to say those things, but they’re true. Look at yourself. You think I don’t see right fucking through you?”
I was upset. My heartbeat had quickened. A muscle feathered in his cheek. His nostrils flared. Even now, I could see it. The hunger lingering beneath the hurt.
“Our dream world is nice, but it’s not real,” I said. “And I don’t want to be woken up from it by you tearing open my throat.”
I regretted my words immediately. But I regretted them because they were cruel, and because the terrible, childlike hurt on Raihn’s face made my soul ache.
I didn’t regret them because they weren’t true. They were.
Did he think he was the only one who wanted to pretend otherwise? In this moment, I wanted nothing more than to live my entire life the way we had been over these last few weeks. Building something like a home in this shitty, dark Palace.
I wanted it so much that I even… even considered if I might be able to help him. Even though it was a foolish thought. Even though a human offering themselves to a vampire deprived of food for this long would mean near-certain death, no matter how good their intentions were. And yet, when I saw that look on his face, that desperation, I was willing to consider it.
Stupid, naive, childish.
But Raihn had already backed up, his back straight, knuckles white at his sides. He had taken several steps away, as if, even in his anger, he recognized that I needed him to put more space between us.
“Fine,” he said coldly. “You’re right. We’ve been stupid. If you want me gone, I’m gone. You shouldn’t be anywhere near that hallway. I’ll go.”
I already wanted to take it back. The familiar grip of fear had begun to tighten around my heart. Not fear of Raihn, but fear of being without him, and the things I might feel once he was gone.
“Alright,” I said, against every instinct.
Neither of us seemed to know what else to say.
So he went to his room, gathered his belongings, pushed aside the bureau in front of the door just enough to slip through, and then turned to me.
A million words hung there.
He just said, “Push this back when I’m gone. I—”
He bit down on whatever he was about to say.
I knew that feeling, because I found myself doing it, too. Swallowing down, Don’t go’s and I’ll miss you’s and I’m sorry’s.
This is fucking silly, I told myself. He’s just going to a different room, and it’s the only thing that makes sense.
But I knew—we both knew—that once Raihn left, once he became just another contestant in the Kejari, something will have changed between us irreparably.
“I—” He tried again, gave up, and said, “I’ll see you at the next trial.”
And he was gone before I could say another word.