Page 21 of Kuaket

The despair on his face hurt my heart, and made it rather easy not to be angry at him, which admittedly surprised me.

“And now I don’t know what to do. I was already uncomfortable with what I was being asked to do. And now...” He took a deep breath. “There’s no leaving, you know?”

“I can guess.” I’d seen enough cults come and go over the years in order to know how they’d deal with people leaving.

“So what do I do? I don’t want to do what they told me to, but I can’t say no without losing everything and putting you in danger.”

“Me?” I echoed.

His eyes widened, as if he’d caught himself saying something he shouldn’t.

I went up onto my knees, the blanket falling away and leaving me completely naked in front of him.

Not that he noticed. Which said a lot, I looked great naked.

“Abrax? What has any of this got to do with me?”

He met my gaze, a pained expression on his face, and understanding dawned on me.

“You were sent to find a god,” I answered for him.

“Yes.”

“So everything between us was a lie?” As much as I hated it, there was hurt in my voice. And in my heart. I thought I’d found someone who understood me, but really all he’d been doing was trying to keep me sweet so he could have easy access.

“What? No, Kua. None of it was a lie.” He sat up and reached out to take my hands in his.

I considered pulling away, but I didn’t want to. I wanted him to prove that what he was saying was the truth, even if there was a part of me that knew it was wiser to pull away and have nothing to do with him.

“When I agreed to the assignment, I didn’t actually think I’d ever find a god. I think a part of me didn’t believe that you were all walking among us as if you weren’t, well, gods.”

“There are plenty of stories about us doing that,” I pointed out, still not completely certain about how this was going to go and whether it was safe to be talking about this.

“They were just stories from long ago to me. I’d never seen any evidence that they were true.”

I nodded, understanding where he was coming from. I barely remembered being human, and it was a very different time when I had been one. But maybe if I’d been in his position, I wouldn’t have believed in gods either.

“I don’t know what to do, Kua. And I know this is probably way outside the realms of what we agreed we could talk about, but I have no one to turn to. No one to help me work out what to do.”

“That’s okay. I’m here.” The words slipped out before I realised they were going to, along with the realisation that I wasn’t as angry at him as I should be about all of this.

“You’re being very calm about it.”

I leaned back and stared at the ceiling. “I guess I’ve always known who you were. It’s not a surprise that you’re with the Sons of Seth. But I can tell you’re telling the truth, that you don’t want this.”

“I don’t,” he agreed. “I want to be free of them. But I don’t know any way that can make that happen.”

“Could you remove your tattoos?”

“I don’t know. Maybe? I don’t know anyone who has ever tried. For all I know, it could kill me.”

“Ah, probably not something you want.”

“No. I might not like my life as a whole, but there are bits I wouldn’t want to lose.” The way he looked at me made my heart flutter, though I wasn’t entirely sure why. “Let’s not talk about it.”

I nodded. “If that’s what you want.”

“What I want is you.”