But I guessed we had to.
“We don’t have to do this,” he told me.
I turned around. “Did you just read my mind?”
“No. I just think I have harangued you enough.”
I lifted an eyebrow, dislodging some water that trickled down my face. He moved closer, to kiss it off, but I stopped him with a hand on his chest. “Wait. Does this mean no more freak outs? No more knight in shining armor bullshit? No more talk of locking me up to keep me safe?”
He winced slightly at that, which he damned well should have.
I pressed my advantage, and pressed myself against him at the same time, because it felt good.
“No more ‘oh, no, my weak little wife is in danger’? No more, ‘I married a dhampir, but I wanted a Christine’?”
“That’s unfair. I never wanted Christine.”
“And me?”
“I wanted you from the first moment I set eyes on you, however I may have acted at the time. This wasn’t about you.”
“Then what was it about? And why the change?”
He looked like he was struggling, so I pushed him around to soap up his back. And to give him some time. He took it; that was the cleanest back ever by the time he finally spoke.
“I’ll start with when it changed.”
“Which was?”
“When I saw him with Efridis. When I saw the man who had captured me, had humiliated me, had hurt my family and had threatened . . . who I thought had threatened . . .” he trailed off, but I didn’t need the help.
“To rape you.” I finally said the words that we’d been dancing around for a while now.
Louis-Cesare didn’t say them himself, but his head nodded. “It happened before, not with him, but when I was a boy . . .”
“You don’t have to tell me about that.” I already knew the story. Not in detail, but enough. He’d been a captive; his jailer had done what jailers sometimes do, him and some friends. It had left deep scars that still surfaced occasionally.
Like with Jonathan, I assumed.
“You thought it was going to happen again.”
He nodded. “He had me utterly in his power. I could not have resisted him. And he kept touching me, talking about wanting my body . . . what else was I to think?”
“Not that he meant it literally,” I said. “The man was insane.”
“But brilliant, and intelligent, and strong . . . or so I thought.”
“Until you saw him groveling at Efridis’ feet.”
“Yes. It changed everything. I had been so afraid of him, for so long, and so ashamed of myself for it. Everyone always talked about how strong I was, but if they could have seen me with him . . . they would not have thought so.”
“Then they’re fools,” I said, brushing damp hair off his forehead. “You went to him the first time to save Christine; you were going back this time for me. How is that not strong?”
He looked surprised at that, which pissed me off, although not at him. Jonathan was dead, killed by the fey before we could get to him, and so yet again, Louis-Cesare had been denied his revenge. He deserved it, like he deserved to not have to feel like this.
“You knew he might capture you again. You knew, if he did capture you, what might happen. But you went back anyway, because he had Dorina’s location and you needed that information. Not for you, but for me. You were willing to risk so much, for me . . .”
“You are a part of me,” he said hoarsely, his Adam’s apple working. “So, it was for me as well.”