The Price Of Fate
Tobias said.
Their eyes locked again, and I felt that old ruler tension return, though softer this time, wrapped around love instead of politics. I stepped back slightly. “I don’t want to hurt you,” I said. Tobias looked at me as if I had said something foolish and precious at the same time. “You are my child,” Tobias said. “Taking from me when you need strength is not harm. It is inheritance.”
I did not know what to do with that. Inheritance. Not stolen scraps. Not begged kindness. Not secret touches in abandoned cabins. Not acceptance bought with silence. Inheritance. Something mine because I was his. Something I did not have to apologise for needing.