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Unchecked emotions can be a great weakness, Eridan. My apprentice should be smarter than that. If you get angry with someone more powerful than you—socially, politically, or telepathically—the right reaction would be to feign subservience and wait until you become powerful enough to destroy them.”
Castien was something of a sociopath. His utter disregard for other people’s feelings was startling. He didn’t seem to feel any guilt or remorse for mistreating others. To be entirely fair to his Master, Eridan was pretty sure Castien often didn’t even notice that his actions or cutting words might hurt others. Castien Idhron found people interesting only when he could use them to achieve his goals. If his Master had any feelings and emotions, they were so deeply hidden they might as well not exist.
Eridan knew he should despise Castien—he was easily the most horrible person he had ever known—and he did despise him, but truth be told, at this point, he was kind of desensitized to his Master’s horribleness. Eridan blamed their bond. Over the past seven months, it had become so strong that he could always vaguely feel his Master on the other end of the bond, something that should have felt invasive and creepy but didn’t. Eridan found their bond weirdly comforting, especially since he knew how much his Master disliked it.
Eridan scowled. “I’m not letting him inside my mind again.” He met Castien’s eyes. “If you keep insisting on it, you might as well send me away to the servicing department right now, Master. I’m not doing it again. Understood?” Castien gave him a hard look. “You insolent brat,” he said, his voice deceptively soft. “It appears I was too lenient with you or you wouldn’t dare speak to me in that tone. Do you even know what will happen to you if you end up in the servicing department?”
“If you are already twenty years old, your transgression is even more serious, Eridan,” Tethru said, with the same saccharine, grandfatherly look that just looked creepy. “You should know better by now. Perhaps I really should handle your punishment myself—” “That will not be necessary,” a familiar voice said from the doorway. Eridan’s head whipped around. He broke into a wide, helpless grin. He drank in the sight of his Master’s tall, proud form, not even caring about the cold, warning look he received from Castien. “Master,” he breathed.
“So, enlighten me on what it was about,” Castien said. Eridan dropped his gaze before lifting it again. “I want you to fire him,” he said. Castien stared at him. His face became blank, the bond between them going completely quiet as Castien brought his shields up. Silence fell, thick and suffocating. Eridan felt himself blush, his skin prickling the longer the silence stretched. “You do not want me to fire him,” Castien said at last, looking him in the eye. “Trust me, that would be a terrible idea.”
“Don’t tell me you are scared of breaking the rules, Master. I won’t believe you. You make those rules.”
Eridan breathed out, for what felt like the first time in hours. What his Master had said was nothing he didn’t know himself, but he had needed to hear it.
A hand on Eridan’s shoulder or his lower back, the way Castien’s telepathic mark lingered on him long after they parted, the way he kept Eridan close to him, taking him with him to his meetings… If Eridan didn’t know better, if Castien wasn’t Castien, he would think… he would think his Master was feeling a little clingy. A little possessive. Or something. They didn’t talk about it. Just like they didn’t talk again about their ugly argument before Tethru’s death. Just like they didn’t talk about the fact that they wanted each other in the basest sense of the word.
Castien’s face was unreadable but his telepathic presence was tense and agitated. “I could erase your memories of this,” he said
Maybe his affection and his trust didn’t matter to Castien, but they did matter to Eridan, and taking them away would at least preserve some of his pride and self-respect when his Master inevitably threw him away like a used thing.
Irrene didn’t know what to think. There were all sorts of rumors about Master Castien and
his apprentice, and some of them were not fit for polite company, but she had never believed that Master Castien and his apprentice were in an inappropriate relationship. Not because she thought Master Castien wasn’t capable of it—she had no delusions about him: men like that took what they wanted, and damn the morals—but because she could sense so much toxic, unresolved tension between them that it made her uncomfortable just being in the same room with those two.
Your friendly neighbor might actually be a mass murderer, and your loving relative might be plotting your death.”
his anger and hurt eased a little from the knowledge that Castien had actually cared enough to check. But he was still angry. Caring a little wasn’t enough. He wanted more. He wanted everything. He wanted to be his Master’s world in the same terrible, unfair way his Master was his.
“Very well,” Idhron said before getting to his feet and striding past them toward the door. As soon as it closed behind him, something changed about Eridan. He seemed to deflate, the fight in him, the fire in his eyes—gone.
He laid a hand on Eridan’s shoulder and said gruffly, “It’ll be all right, Eri. He’ll fix it, and then it will be over. You’ll never have to see him again.” “Yeah,” Eridan said with a crooked little smile that made Warrehn’s stomach twist into a knot of unease. “Let’s return to the wedding reception and see how bad the gossip is.”
And when Castien eventually officiated his wedding to another man, Eridan’s heart wouldn’t hurt—he wouldn’t even know that the Grandmaster of the High Hronthar had been his first, hopeless love.
She gazed at the man across the desk and thought that he looked tired. It was a strange thought. Castien had always been relentless. He was one of those people who never seemed anything less than put together and ready for anything life might throw at them. But he looked tired now. Or perhaps stressed. “Is everything well?” she said, breaking the silence.
At last, Idhron said stiffly, “I find that I dislike living in a world where you do not remember me.” Something rueful and self-deprecating appeared in his telepathic presence. “Apparently, I am that selfish. I need you to need me. Therefore, calling your… love for me unrequited is not accurate. It is very much requited.” Eridan found himself softening a little. Although it wasn’t exactly a love confession, he could sense that it was as open as this man would be with him.
Whatever this man felt for him, Eridan clearly was important to him. That was something. Eridan hoped he wouldn’t regret this decision once he got his memories back.
“Eridan?” Castien said, peering into him. “Do you remember me?” Eridan’s hand curled into a fist. “You’re such a selfish asshole,” he said. It came off more affectionate than he had intended. He chuckled, hating himself for his inability to be properly angry. “One would think you’d be happy without me and my distasteful emotions constantly compromising you, but no, apparently not. What is the matter, Master? Did you get attached?” Castien didn’t look fazed in the slightest. He continued staring at Eridan with the same intense, greedy look. Then he lifted his hands and cradled Eridan’s face.
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can get over you. I will get over you. Leave. I’m sorry for wasting your precious time and asking you to erase my memories for nothing. As always, you were right: it was a bad idea. It’s better if we just avoid each other from now on—” Castien kissed him.
He soaked up the hungry desperation and the overwhelming affection pouring into him from Castien. But affection wasn’t the right word. It felt all-encompassing, unstoppable, and limitless. It felt like a necessity. He was a necessity. His Master needed him. His Master. Needed. Him.
I love him, Eridan suddenly thought. I will always love him. I will never love another person as much as I love him.
Their minds were still joined in a deep telepathic merge, and it was impossible to lie in a merge. He could feel everything Castien was feeling. He felt precious. He was precious. The most important thing in the world. Eridan blinked his eyes open, having trouble believing what he was sensing. Was this why Castien had denied him a full merge for years?
“You are mine,” Castien said, sucking a hickey into his neck. “You will always be only mine. I will kill anyone who touches you.” Eridan shivered. Coming from any other man, that would have sounded like melodramatic exaggeration. Coming from Castien, it was just a statement of fact. “If you didn’t kill Tethru yourself, I would have done it anyway.” Castien nuzzled against his collarbone, nipping at the skin there. “Therefore, your guilt over his death is not only foolish, but misplaced and irrational. He was dead from the moment he touched you.”
“I know I should not have done it, but I’m not perfect, Eridan. And fear was the one emotion I had never experienced until I realized you would stop being my apprentice—that you would stop being mine. I was irrational. Rash.”
