Semua Bab Tempted By Him: A BL collection of romantic stories: Bab 61 - Bab 70

Elian's pov I should not have read the last line aloud.The book had been dust and arrogance, a thing stolen from a locked case because I was tired of copying other men’s warnings.I spoke it.The air tore.Heat punched through the cheap plaster. The lamp died. Something hooked behind my ribs and pulled. I did not fall. I was taken. Stone replaced floorboards.I woke on my back on black rock.The hall was too large. The stone under my spine was not cold. It beat, slow, like a heart that was not mine.I was not alone.He stood at the foot of the dais as if he had been standing there since the first kingdom learned fear. Tall beyond sense. Shoulders that ate the lamplight. Horns swept back from a brow that was almost human and not. Skin like cooled bronze. Eyes the color of a coin held to fire. A circlet of dark metal sat between the horns like it had grown there.“Elian,” he said, and my name in that voice sat in my bones. “The book answered. You drew. You spoke. You are here.”“Let m

Elian's povThey moved me in the morning.A chamber with a real bed and a window that still showed the wrong moons. Food waited under a dome of dark metal.A room that was not a cell, which was a kinder lie than bars.Varrak stood by the window without the full court cloth. He pointed at the bath.“In. The water takes the ache. I need you able to speak and able to take. Both.”“You need a vessel who can walk.”“Yes.”I got in because the ache had its own pulse and I was tired of pretending grit was a counter-rite.Varrak watched. He did not look away to be polite. Kings in this place did not learn polite.“Why a human,” I said. The question had sat in my mouth since the council table. “You have your own kind.”“My kind do not open the gate the same way.” He came to the rim of the bath and crouched, which should have made him smaller and did not. “The book is a human wound. It wants a human mouth to finish the line and a human body to hold what comes through. Other fools started the se

Rowan's povHe was the last table. He always was, once I learned to see him.Julian Hart drank like a man who could buy the distillery and still wanted the bartender to remember his pour. Dark suit. Watch that could have paid my rent for a year. He tipped in cash that made the other staff go quiet. He never asked my name the first month. He used it the second, which meant someone had told him.“Rowan,” he said, when the club was down to ice and the lights over the bar. “Do you want a ride.”Not a question shaped like a question. I wiped a glass that was already dry.“I don’t need charity.”“It isn’t charity. It’s a car that’s already here.” He signed the check without looking at it. “You can take the subway and think about the tip, or you can sit in leather and hate me closer. Both are free.”I should have clocked out and walked. I clocked out and followed him through the staff door because pride is cheaper than curiosity and I had already spent mine on the glass.The car had a partit

Rowan's povHe used the stairs.Friday had come and gone. I didn’t read the pictures. A coworker showed me one anyway: Julian in a tux, C. Lang at his shoulder, both of them looking like money that photographed. I worked. The last table stayed empty. I poured too heavy once and had to dump the glass. The chain on my door stayed off like a stupid dare.I told myself if he didn’t come by Sunday I would put the chain back on and call that a decision. Saturday night made the decision for me.Saturday night someone knocked like they didn’t own a building.I opened because I had left the chain off on purpose. Julian Hart on my landing. No jacket. No earpiece in the hall. A folder under his arm and rain in his hair. He looked like a man who had walked out of a dinner and forgotten how to be printed.“Can I come in,” he said. A request. I almost didn’t recognize it.“If you brought an envelope, you can stay in the hall.”“No envelope.” He held up the folder. “The thing you saw the edge of.”I

Nate's povThe stall nights stacked. Three, then four. My knees knew the rubber. My ice time ticked up and the room noticed in the way rooms notice without saying the word. I told myself it was my feet. Cole told me it was both. I hated that I believed him.Then we won ugly and the room got loud.Someone dumped Gatorade on someone who didn’t deserve it. Cole did the captain thing — short speech, fist, eyes that counted heads. He didn’t look at me extra. He didn’t have to. My phone had already buzzed in the stall before the third period.**stay**I stayed in the shower row until the last winger left singing. I soaped my hair twice so it would look like I was just slow. Steam. One head still running on purpose. Tile slick. The hall still had laughs in it, trainers, a stick bouncing off a can. Someone yelled for the bus in ten. Ten was not enough. Cole had never cared about enough.Cole came in with a towel on his shoulders and the C not on him for once, just skin and the nick on his lip