Chapter 196: Afraid of you

"Now can you see why I’m so afraid of you?"

The words landed wrong, true, in the ugliest possible way.

Liam stared at him, the remaining heat draining from his face until only hurt stayed behind, clean and sharp and far too visible. For a second, Arik looked as if he regretted the sentence before it had even finished leaving his mouth, but regret was not fast enough to catch it.

Liam let go of his shirt.

Arik’s breath caught.

"Afraid of me," Liam repeated.

"Liam—"

"No." Liam lifted one hand with enough force that Arik’s mouth shut. "No, you do not get to say that to me and then look like I stabbed you when I hear it."

Arik went very still.

Liam’s laugh came out broken. "Gods. That is what this is, then? You hid the truth, you let Felix feed it to me like poison, and now I am supposed to stand here and understand that you were afraid of me?"

Arik swallowed, trying to find better words and failing because every word seemed to cut somewhere. "I am afraid that you can choose to leave. Your mark on me, on the soul I have, is eternal; nothing can break it anymore." He closed his eyes, his breath still shaky. "Mine on you is not. You can decide that everything around me is too much and leave. You can hear about Goliath, about an empire erased from the world by your grandfather, and choose that it is too much. That my revenge on the Canmore family is too much. I would not blame you if you wanted peace from all this madness."

Liam stared at him.

The anger did not vanish, but it became something heavier, something that hurt more because it had room now to understand the wound beneath Arik’s mistake. Liam could see it suddenly: Arik had not hidden Goliath because he thought Liam was too weak to bear it.

He had hidden him because Arik was terrified Liam would bear it perfectly, look at all of it with those clear crimson eyes, and still choose to walk away.

That understanding made Liam’s throat tighten.

It also made him furious all over again.

"You idiot," Liam whispered.

Arik’s mouth twisted faintly, without humor. "You have established that."

"No, I clearly have not, because you keep discovering new architectural levels beneath it." Liam pressed both hands over his face for a second, exhausted, shaking, sick from the poison and from the bond and from the unbearable tenderness that kept trying to survive the hurt. "Arik, you were afraid I would choose peace from the madness, so you decided to make sure I did not have the choice at all?"

Arik flinched.

Liam lowered his hands.

"I know you thought you were buying time," he said, voice quieter now. "I know you thought if I loved you first, if I chose you first, then maybe the rest would not matter as much."

Arik’s eyes lifted to him.

"And I understand that," Liam said, the words rough enough to scrape. "I hate that I understand it, but I do. I understand wanting to be chosen before the rot comes out. I understand wanting one person to look at you and not see everything old, ugly, and inherited standing behind your shoulder."

Arik did not move.

"But you still hurt me," Liam said.

Arik’s face tightened like he had taken a blade between the ribs.

Liam’s own eyes burned. "You let Felix make me feel like a stranger inside my own bond. You let him know something about you that I did not. You let him stand there with that portrait and smile because he knew exactly where to press."

"I know."

Liam’s mouth trembled.

Arik corrected himself immediately, voice breaking lower. "I understand. I am sorry."

The apology sat between them, not enough but not useless either.

Liam looked away first, jaw clenched so hard it hurt.

"I am sorry too."

Arik stilled completely.

Liam laughed once, small and bitter. "Do not look so shocked. I am angry, not blind."

"You have nothing to apologize for."

"Yes, I do." Liam’s fingers curled at his sides. "What I said earlier, about the bond. About ending it if it had not been complete." He swallowed. "I was angry. I was hurt. I wanted to hurt you back. I knew exactly where to strike, and I struck there."

Arik’s expression changed in a way Liam hated.

"I gave you the weapon," Arik said.

"That does not mean I had to use it."

"You were bleeding."

"I was cruel."

"No."

"Arik." Liam’s eyes flashed, not with anger this time but with insistence. "Do not take that from me too. If I say I was cruel, I was cruel. I did not mean it. I would not have done it. I do not want to break the bond."

Arik’s breath left him as if he had been holding it since the moment Liam said those words earlier.

Liam’s own chest ached in answer.

"I wanted you to feel afraid," Liam admitted, his voice barely above a whisper. "Because I felt afraid. Because Felix made me stand in that room and wonder whether everyone knew pieces of you except me. Because for one horrible moment, I felt like I had been the last person invited into my own life."

Arik’s eyes shone gold, but no power moved in the room.

Only grief.

"My eshara," he said, and this time the pet name was not a shield, not a plea, only a broken thing leaving him because he had no other name soft enough for Liam. "I am sorry. I should have told you. I should have trusted you with the truth before Felix could turn it into a knife. I should never have made your choice smaller because I was afraid of losing it."

Liam’s lips parted.

Arik stepped closer, slowly, as if approaching a frightened animal, though there was nothing frightened in Liam’s eyes now except the part of him that still wanted to forgive too quickly.

"I wanted you to love Arik," Arik said. "But I forgot that loving me meant you had the right to all of me. Not only the parts I thought were safe enough to give."

Liam’s face twisted.

"That was almost a good apology."

Arik’s mouth trembled. "Almost?"

"You are still making me want to forgive you before I am ready."

"I will try to be worse at it."

A sound escaped Liam, one between laugh and sob.

Something exhausted and wounded and terribly fond, which made him angry again because his heart had no discipline whatsoever where Arik was concerned.

"I am still hurt," Liam said.

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