At the age of fifteen, when Chance had been eleven, he’d discovered that he could hide them both from being seen, when Brassen had been searching for increasingly cruel ways to toughen up the only royal heir. If he wanted it badly enough, if he thought it desperately enough—

  Those footsteps had paused to check the ramshackle library, seen only dust-bunnies and moribund shelves, and gone on, grumbling about boys who were a useless waste of time.

  Chance had turned to him with huge hazel eyes, unafraid, awed into silence. Ember had always remembered that: that Chance had never been afraid. Not of him.

  He would protect his brother with every breath. With every secret of his unexplained and carefully guarded magic. From threats to the kingdom, to life and limb, to painstakingly gathered books and crumbs of information for their library.

  He couldn’t help imagining his thief’s reaction. He wished he could picture the young man’s face. He wished he could grab those slim shoulders and—

  Calm. Right. He wasn’t that good at this.

  He shut his eyes and felt firelight across his face and felt his awareness seep out and spread beyond the castle, into the city, into the quivers and sighs and crevices of the night. A few bright flares nagged at his attention; he knew them, because they were his book-wards.

  He counted. Exactly right: the number he knew he’d let visitors borrow, plus one. They all responded promptly when touched with invisible fingertips.

  Ember opened both eyes, smirked at his fireplace—flames swirled giddily in reply—and tucked himself into blankets and pillows, too lazy and tired to move. He had a bed, or at least a heap of antique wood and worn feathers that went by the name. It was in the other room and far away from the fire.

  Too tired to move, after that, yes; but satisfied. He yawned. Tucked a foot back under blankets. The blankets were thick and heavy and rather surprisingly made to bundle up someone his size; he’d found them in a storeroom and given them a decent wash himself, borrowing a tub—they couldn’t afford to pay the laundresses and laundrymen extra wages—and they’d dried large and fluffy.

  Twenty-four hours, more or less, it’d be. The rare books in the back room were all set to that. Snapping back to home shelves. Sense of place and belonging imbued into covers. The ordinary books in the front rooms, the ones he and Chance had declared would be available to everyone, would pop back after roughly three weeks. It’d taken some work on his part, but they’d been putting work into the library; he didn’t want to lose any pieces of stories, science, knowledge. Home.

  Home, he thought, cheek pillowed on one hand, drowsing. His little book-thief hadn’t known him on sight. His little book-thief wasn’t from Lyonheart. And also hadn’t been afraid.

  He wanted to know more. He wanted to find out more. He was good at solving problems, at being practical, at helping Chance fix the kingdom. He could solve this mystery. He would get his book back.

  He could find out who the young man had been, and why he’d tasted like cherries, and if he liked cherry tarts, and if he liked hands catching his elegant wrists and holding them deliciously captive in bed.

  Ember managed to fall asleep as dawn sidled in, aware of light, knowing he’d have to be awake for breakfast in three hours. He dreamed of bookshelves at his back, and laughter, and a kiss that left sweetness on his mouth like the juices of ripe red fruit, bursting over his tongue.

  The Comfort of Cinnamon Pancakes

  Colby couldn’t breathe. Too many bodies—too many people here at this London glitz-and-glamour awards-event after party, but that wasn’t the main problem—

  Jason had an arm around him and was steering them toward an exit. He appreciated that: Jason defending him.

  Jason thought it was simply about the crowds, the pressing-close in a too-small room, everybody coming up to offer handshakes and hugs and congratulations. That was part of it, but not all. Colby couldn’t make himself recall how to talk, much less how to talk over the din. Couldn’t explain.

  Blond hair, and height, and broad shoulders—not quite Jason-sized, but powerful enough to pin someone down—moved, and kept moving, his way. They sliced like a shark’s fin through the ocean of dresses and suits.

  A scent drifted. A cologne, a certain spice: too heavy, too much, too familiar. Getting closer. And closer.

  That wasn’t Liam. Couldn’t be. Shouldn’t be: Liam’s career had careened into nothingness, after a few drunken rants and also some sneaky vengeance enacted by Colby’s friends, because he did have friends, now—

  Liam couldn’t be here. But might be: if he’d known someone, been owed a favor, managed to get himself into this party—if those were his shoulders, if—

  Colby tripped over nothing on the floor. Nearly fell. Some well-meaning hands reached to help. He flinched, collided with Jason, realized he was trembling.

  No. No, he was better than that. He had to be. He couldn’t fall apart. Movie-star idol Colby Kent did not collapse into a ball of petrified fear and let everyone down.

  He could play a role. He knew how to do that.

  But he tasted dark thick spice when he tried for a next breath.

  It got into his nose and his mouth and his chest—God, his chest, his whole body, the way he’d once lain trapped under smothering weight while Liam’s hand shoved his face into the mattress and Liam’s massive cock split him open, and he’d just resigned himself to waiting for it all to be over—

  The sheets had smelled of that cologne too.

  He tripped over his feet again. They didn’t feel like his.

  He clung to Jason. Who stopped walking, eyes dark with concern. “Colby?”

  Colby opened his mouth. No noise emerged.

  He’d given up on making sounds, then. Anything he’d said had never made a difference. Not after the first time Liam had put him in handcuffs and pushed him to his knees, looked at him thoughtfully, and then hit him.

  He’d said yes to the handcuffs. He’d said yes to perhaps trying a bit more roughness in bed. He’d always liked more dominant men, more forceful men, charismatic confident presences; he’d wanted to make Liam happy, the way he’d tried to make Tony happy before that.

  He had said yes. Aloud. A choice. More than once. He’d kept trying to say yes. He hadn’t known what that would mean.

  Jason said that that wasn’t consent, and definitely not once it’d escalated past what Colby’d thought he’d been agreeing to. Their therapist said so as well. Colby thought they were probably right. After all, he had known it wasn’t right, even at the time; he’d just thought that perhaps he could fix things, could do better, if he tried harder to please. He’d known then, and he thought he knew now, that he might not be perfect, might not be the best at sex or relationships, but he didn’t deserve to be hurt. And he had done the leaving—or more accurately the final throwing-out of Liam from his flat, along with the movie producer who’d been having such a splendid time with Colby’s supposed boyfriend—in the end.

  Jason said that was a good thing, Colby having done that. So did Jill and Andy. Jason had in fact said a lot of words on that subject on more than one occasion, many of them profane, all of them cheering him on with protective fury. Jason said—

  But if Liam were here, then that hadn’t worked, and nothing’d changed after all—

  He hadn’t wanted this, with Liam. No—not present tense, not this. Right now wasn’t the past. None of that was happening now.

  No hands leaving bruises, no voice telling him to stop talking but keep that pretty mouth open, to try to be at least useful in bed, to take whatever he was being given because that was all he was good for, and if it hurt it was his own fault, not being good enough—

  The weight pushed against his chest more sharply. He couldn’t see well. Sparkles. Glittering and deadly.

  The shine of cocktail glasses, shimmery dresses, jewelry, chandeliers. The light swung tipsily, crazily, shedding drunken halos.

  He didn’t know where the blond hair and the shoulders had gone. He couldn’t find them.

  Jason was saying his name. Touching him. Colby couldn’t feel anything except the memories. They stampeded over him. All the air went away.

  If he couldn’t see, he couldn’t know where Liam’s hands might be, or where they’d land next. He couldn’t know whether Liam would pull someone else over at a party, both of them high or drunk and laughing, and invite the new man to fondle Colby’s arse or cock: showing off all the ways world-famous actor Colby Kent was his property, to be grabbed or shared or played with. Colby had tried to laugh, the first time; had tried to protest, the second time. Liam’s eyes had gone stormy, and one hand had closed around Colby’s wrist.

  They’d ended up in the bedroom, for a reminder of who was in charge. You’re embarrassing me, Liam had hissed into his ear while bending him over. Not doing what I want. Not even up for a little fun with my friends. You’d rather hide in here with your books, being fucking boring, the way you always are. You’re lucky I put up with you at all.

  Colby, hurting and confused, had thought that maybe that was true. He was boring, and he did like books, and he didn’t know how to do parties. He’d liked being wanted, the first time Liam had ever come over and looked him up and down and put a hand on his arm; that must have meant something, if Liam had wanted him enough for that once upon a time, so obviously something had changed, Colby himself must’ve done something wrong, not got something right, not done enough to keep Liam happy…

  He blinked and saw blond hair and icy eyes instead of Jason’s generous deep brown. He blinked again and couldn’t see anything. Swirls of color. Indistinct.

  That was Jason touching him, he knew it was—or was it? Hands on his arm, both arms…

  The world went away for a bit, inside his head.

  He came back when he realized he could breathe. The inhale tasted ragged but cool and clean. Jason was saying something he couldn’t quite make out. The noise had gone, otherwise. So had the people.

  A different space tiptoed into perception. Not the afterparty. A hallway. Where they were standing. Featureless and ordinary. Pale gold walls. Dry unremarkable air. Maroon and cream carpet with a sort of art-deco pattern, very retro.

  He stared at that carpet for a second, following lines. Their shapes felt comforting. Simple. Recognizable. Straightforward.

  Jason had a hand resting on his shoulder. He could feel that: just the one hand. Not hard. Not clamping down.

  But Jason’s voice cracked, and Jason’s eyes were wide and frantic, trying to project calm but utterly failing. “Colby? Colby, baby, you gotta wake up, come on, please. Please wake up for me. You’re safe, you’re here, I’m here, there’s nobody else, I won’t let anyone near you, I swear. But please—please look at me. Please try. You can see me, can’t you? It’s just me. Try to wake up for me.”

  I can, Colby wanted to say. I’m awake. Please don’t cry. I’m here.

  He couldn’t make even a syllable happen. How bizarre.

  “Oh God. Oh God, okay, just—just stay with me, okay? Stay with me. Can you hear me? I love you.” Jason was pulling out his phone, nearly dropping it, fumbling. “Please just—oh fuck, Colby, I don’t know what to do. I don’t—please come back, please come back to me, please wake up, I can’t—” Tears spilled over. One big shaky hand lifted from Colby’s shoulder, moved to touch Colby’s cheek, then skidded to a halt before landing. “I don’t know how to help, Colby, I’m sorry—I don’t know if you want to be touched, or if—I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, I think I gotta call someone, I don’t know if you want me to, if you want that, but this—this is worse than I’ve seen you—I love you and I’m really fucking scared, baby.”

  Colby tried to breathe some more. Air filled his lungs, and he felt that. Jason’s presence was large and frightened next to him, wrapped up in a familiar navy-blue suit; Jason smelled of woods and freshness and soap and the outdoors, not drenched in spice or smoke.

  He watched the carpet-lines, his new friends, for another second or two, borrowing their undeniable reality; he thanked them silently, and looked up.

  Jason had the phone poised to make a call. Doctor Priya. His therapist. Theirs, more accurately; they went in together, because Colby felt better that way, because he had no secrets from Jason, and because Jason wanted to know how to be a good partner, how to best support him, how and when to deploy protective care.

  One corner of his mouth wanted to lift. A smile. His Jason. Loving him.

  He became all at once aware that he was exhausted, hairline prickling a bit from sweat, legs uncertain about being upright much longer.

  But that was his body, in the present. Feeling those things. Being here and now. In a deserted hotel hallway. With Jason. And a compassionate carpet.

  He focused on Jason’s eyes. He watched as Jason registered that, as hope snuck into frightened forest groves.

  He said, tasting the shape of each word across his tongue, “I’m here.”

  “Colby,” Jason breathed, “oh thank God, oh God, fuck, you’re here—” and started to throw arms around him. Froze, muscles arrested mid-action. “I shouldn’t—should I—can I—”

  “Please. Please hold me.”

  Jason gathered him close, held on tightly enough that Colby’s feet nearly left the ground, and buried his face in Colby’s neck. Dampness brushed Colby’s skin; Jason was crying.

  “I’m here,” he tried again, and ventured an attempt at resting his own hands on his loyal champion’s back. Jason made a sound and kept on holding him.

  “Er…Jason?”

  “What do you need? What can I do?” Jason pulled back enough to search his face. “Anything.”

  “I think I’d like to go home. But…how did we get here? In a…hallway?”

  “You don’t remember—” Jason stopped. “No. You don’t. Christ. Um, okay. You, um. You went so fucking quiet—and just completely white, like you were seeing a ghost—but you were still on your feet, you walked out of there—with me—I didn’t realize how bad it was. I knew you weren’t okay, but then we got out here and I said your name and you just…you weren’t there.” He stumbled over the words. Anguish shredded the velvet of his gaze. “You weren’t seeing me or hearing me. Or anything, I think.”

  “I’m so sorry—”

  “No,” Jason said. “No. It’s not—it’s not your fucking fault, Colby. It’s not. Everything he did to you—that’s not your fault, and this isn’t either, you came back and woke up and looked at me and that was amazing, you’re amazing, every fucking day you wake up and let me kiss you is amazing. You’re not apologizing to me because you don’t have to. Not for still being here.”

  “Oh,” Colby said, bewildered and wrung out and suddenly wanting very badly to sit down. Perhaps to lie down. To have Jason beside him, a shape and a tower he knew and loved. “I…I don’t know. I can’t think. Was I…was it very melodramatic? Me making a scene?”

  “You didn’t.” Jason’s eyebrows drew together, darkly defensive of him. “Seriously, you basically just—I mean, you looked like you’d seen—something—and you stopped talking, but you kept everything together and we got out the closest door. People might’ve seen you were upset, wanting to leave, but I don’t think they knew you were—you weren’t…”

  “They won’t’ve realized everything was essentially functioning on autopilot,” Colby filled in. “Any actual pilots had leapt out of the emergency exit, I’m afraid.”

  Jason winced.

  “If anyone’s allowed a dreadful extended metaphor at the moment, that person should be me. I’m awfully tired and I’d like to sit down, but I’d also very much like to go home, if we could?” His legs had transformed themselves into pudding. The wobbly kind.

  “I’ll get us out of here right now. And…I love you.” Jason sounded wobbly as well. Colby wondered whether Jason also felt like pudding, got an exceedingly strange mental picture for a moment, and discovered that he knew how to smile.

  “Colby?” So tentative. So afraid. It must’ve been bad, for Jason to look this way.

  “I was picturing you covered in custard and jam,” Colby attempted to explain, which only prompted more worried wrinkles on Jason’s forehead. “Oh…no, I’m all right, I’m not handing the controls back to a delirious autopilot, I promise. I thought about my legs and being wobbly, and then I thought you must be feeling that too, and I thought about jelly…it made sense in my head. I love you, of course.”

  “That…actually, you do sound normal,” Jason said, rallying. Knightly courage gathered up to lean on. “Like your normal, anyway. I can carry you if you’re feeling like, um, structurally unstable dessert food. I’ll call the car, but…home? Not…I don’t know. A hospital?”

  Colby fought back a shiver. More people, more touching. “No. Please. I’m not hurt, I’m only…”

  “Wobbly?”

  “Yes. I need…” He wasn’t sure. He essayed a shrug, or half of one, or an approximation. “I’m not certain what else I might need, but I want to be home with you.” Too plaintive? But Jason didn’t appear to mind.

  Jason, in fact, tucked him even more securely into a circle of muscles, and guided Colby’s head down to rest on his shoulder, and stroked Colby’s hair. “We can do that. I’ll get the car to pick us up right now, okay? You just rest. Don’t worry about anything, I got it.”

  “I know you have,” Colby whispered back, and let his eyes close, face nestled into Jason’s strength and scent and love. He could stay right here, being held, and let Jason handle getting them home. He trusted Jason.

  * * * *

  Jason, having gotten Colby very carefully home and up to the bedroom, having removed collective jackets and ties and shoes—keeping motions slow, measured, in plain sight—and having gingerly settled Colby into bed under blankets, finally managed to believe they might be okay.