Page 171 of The Amber Sunburst

“I needed to know who you were. Whether there were more following you. Imagine my surprise when I found out that you were just a sad, lonely boy crying for someone to love him.”

“Fuck you.”

“I even went through the trouble of giving you a guide. Though I suppose he’s more of a spy than anything else.”

What?

“Come along, boy.” The Educator smirks like he’s been waiting months to do this. But he’s not looking at Alexander. He’s looking at⁠—

No.

Kallias doesn’t glance at Alexander as he walks toward the Educator with his head down.

He wouldn’t.

“I do enjoy a good reckoning,” the Educator says.

Kallias.

The Educator looks smug, smug, smug and Alexander wants to rip his head off.

But it’s not his fault, is it? Alexander shakes violently—the voice in his head has changed. Cain is back again to mock him. You fell into this trap. You let Kallias trick you. You assumed that he would love you without leaving. Newsflash, Alexander: you are not worth sticking around for.

“Stop it,” Alexander says to Cain, and at the sound, Kallias turns to face him.

His mind goes quiet when their gazes meet, and he suddenly understands why people say Kallias has dead eyes. But they just aren’t looking close enough. Because right under the glass of his irises there is passion, desperate to get out. It’s banging on the walls and screaming in its bonds.

He wants to scream back. Because why? Why did Kallias give him something he knew neither of them could keep?

He wants to shake Kallias by the shoulders and tell him that they weren’t meant to end like this. They were meant to end four thousand miles away on a warm California shore with water lapping in front of them. The last time they were supposed to see each other was tangled in an embrace sixty years from now, when one of their hearts simply had to stop beating.

But he can only find it in himself to whisper.

“Kallias?”

The Educator smiles and places a harsh, possessive hand on the back of Kallias’ neck.

“Don’t touch him,” Alexander barks.

Kallias has ruined everything. He gathered all of Alexander’s carefully crafted personalities and pushed them into one—made him feel like he was worthy of the love that he always craved, and now… Now he’s ending it all with a deep stare and a silent grimace.

Alexander wants to tear his own heart out right here and throw it at Kallias’ feet, just to make it clear who it belongs to. And then he wants to watch Kallias break it with his own hands, not with this quiet betrayal that he should have seen coming from a mile away.

In fact, he did see it coming. It was ludicrously obvious.

But he let Kallias consume him and draw him away from any semblance of truth he formulated.

And now?

Now, Alexander stands on the precipice of his own ruin, unable to stop loving him.

“He really did a number on you, didn’t he?” The Educator laughs, tightening his grip. Kallias doesn’t say anything, but his eyes don’t leave Alexander.

Kallias told the Educator every button to press, every sob story, everything. But somehow it doesn’t matter. Because when the Educator says, “Make no mistake, Alexander Jameson. This boy is not yours,” Alexander wants to kill him, take Kallias, and run.

“He’s not anyone’s,” he growls instead.

“Wrong again.” The Educator pulls Kallias’ chin sharply to the side, baring his neck. Faint bruises make their way down Kallias’ throat and end in a bite mark. “He’s mine.”