Page 45 of Vesuvius

‘He’s important to you?’ Disdain coloured Julia’s voice, as though she couldn’t fathom how Felix could be important to anyone.

‘Very, my lady,’ Loren insisted.

‘Like a little pet. Will he be spending the night, too?’

‘If he may.’

Felix tracked the way Julia’s eyes devoured Loren as he knelt. An uncomfortable chill rolled across his shoulders, but Loren was moon-eyed and oblivious. Julia could have been a goddess, the way he gazed.

Finally, she nodded. ‘Very well. You’ll both bathe, and tomorrow we’ll attend the games.’

A servant – Clovia, Felix realised, embarrassed – materialised from a doorway. She gestured for them to follow, and he shook off Loren’s offer to help him stand.

Felix felt Julia’s piercing, hungry gaze trace them into the shadows.

Bathing would have been awkward if the hot water hadn’t felt so damn good.

Loren didn’t say a word as they each washed, didn’t so much as glance in Felix’s direction. Fine by him. The bath complex was enormous. Easy to pick a corner and stick to it.

But when Clovia returned to show them to their rooms, Felix’s hopes fizzled. For one, it wasaroom, singular. Two, the narrow beds stood inches apart. Small mercy Julia hadn’t expected them to share. Three, once Loren shut the door behind them, their temporary truce evaporated with the bath steam.

‘I know you trip your way into any mess you come across,’ Felix said, ‘but why are you here?’

Loren huffed. For the first time that night, he met Felix’s gaze, coolly arrogant in a way meant to make anyone lowborn shrink. ‘Julia has connections. It was worth my time to speak to her – for a number of reasons, not the least being she has access to information about the helmet. The council’s theories about it. Their plans. Information to keep you alive.’

‘I keep myself alive. Forget the helmet. You aren’t here for the helmet.’

‘I said the helmet was one reason.I’mtrying to fix my city, as it seems no one else cares to and, funnily enough, I have a life beyond you.’

‘Do you? You haven’t shown it.’ Felix eyed him. ‘She’s rich, she lured you here at night and nothing about that strikes you as odd. So either she offered something you want, or you really are that clueless. I don’t know which is worse.’

‘I can handle myself.’ Loren’s long hair curled, damp from the bath, several shades darker brown. Ridiculous, foolish, arrogant. ‘I’m not a child.’

‘I’m not your pet.’

‘Julia’s words.’

‘Fuck Julia.’ Felix’s lip curled. ‘Or was that the plan? She’s a little old for you.’

Loren’s mouth snapped shut, disgust and fury spoiling his features, and Felix’s pulse quickened. This was it. He’d pushed Loren too far, and now Felix had to flee the fallout, whether that came from stinging words or swinging fists. Loren didn’t seem the type to take a physical approach to anything, but Felix’s bones were shaped by history proving the least likely perpetrators caused the worst hurt.

A polite knock interrupted the brewing storm.

Loren’s shoulders slumped, tension bleeding from the room, and he cracked open the door. Felix couldn’t see their visitor, blocked as they were by Loren’s stupid head, but a moment later, he returned clutching linen strips.

‘For my ankle,’ Loren explained flatly before Felix could ask. ‘Twisted it running. Go to sleep. I don’t want to talk.’

The dismissal rankled. ‘I’m not a pet.’

No response. Suddenly bone-tired, Felix picked a bed, kicked off his sandals and curled under the fine wool blanket. Sleeping here was the last thing he wanted to do, but to his surprise, neither did he want to leave. He wanted to figure out the weft and weave of Loren, pick athimuntil he unravelled, the same way Loren wore holes in Felix’s nerves. He wanted to unstitch Loren from his life, so when Felix finally fled for good, there would be no loose threads.

Loren sank onto the other bed, drawing up his hurt ankle to wind linen around. His hair fell as a curtain between them.

‘What point are you trying to prove,’ Felix said when he couldn’t stand the silence a moment longer, ‘by keeping your hair so long?’

Loren stilled. ‘I said I don’t want to talk.’

‘Pity.’ Felix propped himself on his elbows. ‘I do.’

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