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To Pollux, fear without any hope had always tasted so bitter. Purposeless.
It knotted in his stomach and made him hate the roots of what he was.
“Daddy?” Andromeda prodded once more, poking him in the back.
He shuffled deeper under his blankets. “Meda. Please.”
“We’re worried about you,” Alexios called from somewhere behind Pollux, possibly at the open double doors to his bedroom.
Great.
Just what Pollux needed.
To worry his little family.
“I’m fine,” he grumbled.
Andromeda gasped. “Daddy. Language.”
Curse his tiny, sort of but not exactly, offspring.
Curse the fact his stuffed bee barely smelled like Kassandra anymore.
He did not know if it was appropriate to ask that she correct such a thing. He wasn’t even entirely certain whether or not Kassandra was upset with him.
He’d agreed to go with her and help keep her kids safe.
He’d made things worse.
Then he’d bailed on her when it got so overwhelming he could barely breathe.
Kassandra had only just started to warm up to him.
She’d been monitoring herself less in front of him.
Now, she probably hated him again.
“I don’t believe Kassandra hates you,” Alexios offered.
“Get out of my emotions or I will fill your soul with so much terror you will wet yourself.”
Alexios freed a hollow laugh. “Oh my dear friend, I would find much amusement in seeing you try.” Starkly emotionless, the yamachichi said, “I would devour every centimeter of your efforts before they could graze me. I am trying to help.”
Pollux didn’t want help right now. He wanted to collapse in on himself in the empty loneliness he was familiar with. He’d been too ambitious when he said he’d quit liquor. His brain was begging for the illusion of numbness the burn gave him. Alas, in his over-eagerness to be rid of the past and start a new future with his precious wife, he’d drained his stores. All he had left was a collection of pretty bottles.
The pretty bottles did less than the nothing of the alcohol itself.
But maybe he didn’t deserve anything akin to a distraction.
On some level, torment suited him. It was the least he could offer as penance for…
Existing.
“Should I call Cael?” Alexios asked.
“Don’t you—” Pollux swore. “—dare.”
“It seems as though you are in need of support. And since it’s clear you don’t want it from me, it is my duty to alert a higher-ranking friend.”
