The Fever King (Feverwake #1)(89)

It was the wrong word. Dara recoiled, cheeks flushing dark. “No. He didn’t.”

“You were fifteen, Dara, and he’s . . . it can’t have been consensual.”

“Well, it was.” Dara’s shoulders shook with each shallow breath. “Not only was it consensual, but I liked it. I loved it.” He hurled the word toward Noam like a live grenade. “There’s something so much better about being with someone older, isn’t there? Someone experienced.”

It was Noam’s turn to flinch. Don’t react. Don’t react.

The sharp curl to Dara’s lips suggested he knew exactly what he’d said and how Noam felt when he said it. He took a step toward the door.

“Dara,” Noam started, but Dara ignored him.

No, fuck that, he couldn’t just walk away from this—

Noam grasped Dara’s arm. It was like touching white-hot iron. He yelped and stumbled back, Dara’s magic sparking over skin.

“Don’t you touch me,” Dara hissed, and he shoved Noam so hard he nearly knocked him off his feet. “Don’t you fucking touch me.”

“I’m sorry,” Noam said. “I didn’t—”

“You should mind your own goddamn business, álvaro.”

Dara pushed Noam again, rougher this time. Noam’s head slammed into the wall. Silver stars burst behind his eyes, a searing pain that made him gasp. Dara’s face swam before him, blood-drained and furious.

This time, when Dara left, Noam didn’t bother chasing him.

Noam spent over an hour in the bathroom with the door locked and the water on, huddled under the heat with steam filling his lungs. His argument with Dara played on an unending loop in the back of his mind.

He should have let it go. Dara was right. It was none of Noam’s goddamn business, and if Dara wasn’t ready to talk about it, well, that was that.

He sat down on the tile floor and stared at his arms resting atop his knees. Training bruises he got sparring with Lehrer blossomed beneath his skin, all ages and colors. A sudden sickness knotted in his stomach—Dara killed Lehrer’s best friend. What would Lehrer do when he learned Noam was hiding Dara’s betrayal from him?

And Lehrer would find out. Sooner or later.

Noam stayed until the water went cold. It was only when he had turned off the shower and started toweling himself off that a knock came at the door.

“Noam?” Dara’s soft voice said. “Are you all right in there?”

Noam froze where he stood in the middle of the bathroom, towel around his waist and comb halfway through his hair.

“I’m fine.”

A heavy sound, perhaps Dara leaning against the shut door. Noam imagined him in his drabs with the sleeves rolled up, one hand on the doorframe.

“Let me in?” Dara asked.

He could have let himself in, of course. But he didn’t. Surely that was a good sign. Noam clenched his hands against the sink counter and made himself exhale, nice and slow. “We’ll talk after I get dressed. All right?”

“All right,” Dara said. His footsteps retreated into the bedroom and then away, the bedroom door clicking shut.

It wouldn’t look good to rush to obey the second Dara wanted to talk. Still, Noam barely managed to wait about ten seconds before he stepped out into the bedroom, scrambling to grab civvies out of his dresser drawer. He heard voices down at the end of the hall as soon as he opened the door, Bethany’s and Taye’s, but not Dara’s. Even so, Noam sensed Dara’s wristwatch and the buttons on his uniform, warm against his skin. Noam entered the common room, where Dara was sitting in an armchair.

“You ready?” Noam asked.

Dara nodded, pushing up to his feet. “Want to go for a walk?”

He meant outside, of course; you couldn’t talk treason in the barracks like it was just any Wednesday.

“Sure.”

Dara trailed after him out into the corridor and down the stairs to the ground floor. The street was quiet this time of night, just a few cars idling beneath the black sky and glittering streetlights. It was hot even for June, humid air clouding his lungs.

The farther they got from the complex, the more Noam thought he ought to say something—I’m sorry or I’m glad you want to talk—but nothing came. His throat was too dry to speak.

“We should keep walking,” Dara said when Noam slowed. “The more distance between us and those guards, the longer we’ll have before someone comes to retrieve us.” A beat. “Don’t worry—I’m not going to hurt you.”

Noam wondered if this was what passed for an apology in Dara-land.

“I know you’re not,” Noam said.

“That’s not what it looks like.”

“I can’t help my face, Dara.”

“It’s not just your face,” Dara said. “You think I’m unstable. That I might get violent.”

“Not really. Maybe you’ve been a little moody lately, sure.”

A lot moody.

Sixteen times.

“You said you wanted to talk,” Noam said.

“Yes.” Dara exhaled long and heavy, glancing at Noam like he thought Noam might have changed his mind about listening. “I think there’re some things I ought to tell you. Things I should have told you a long time ago.”