The very first thing AJ notice was Roth, kicked back on a chaise lounge. There was smile on his face. The next thing he saw was Brian. It took everything he had not to scream and start throwing lightning bolts. He did rush forward, dropping to his knees beside the limp form on the floor. “Oh, baby. Baby. Come on, talk to me.” AJ scooped up Brian’s head, cradling it to his chest.
There wasn’t a part of Brian that didn’t have blood on it. What scared AJ even more were the bruises that were on Brian’s skin. That meant that the one thing AJ had feared above all else had come true. Roth had mastered the ability to injure immortals, at least while under his control. Even sitting there, AJ could feel the weaves of spirit that Roth had put inside of Brian.
“Release him, Roth. That was the deal.” AJ looked up at him, eyes blazing. “You know you only wanted me here. Well, I’m here now. Let him go.”
Much to AJ’s surprise, Brian gasped in his arms at the same time that AJ felt Roth release his weave of spirit. For a moment fear kept AJ frozen. But then he saw the bruises starting to fade from his lover’s body and he sighed in relief.
Slowly, Brian’s eyes fluttered open. For a moment they were hazy, unfocused. But when AJ shifted his hand on Brian’s face, he watched as his lover flinched under his touch and every part of him snapped to attention. In an instant Brian was full of magic, and panic was covering his face. That told AJ more than any words could have. He felt his heart break.
AJ lifted his eyes to stare at Roth. He knew that Roth was waiting for his reaction. Some of it may have leaked through, that was beyond AJ’s control. “You’ll let him go now? Your point has been made, Roth.”
“Has it, Alyck?” Roth’s voice was smooth and amused. “I am not so sure. Has it really sunk in for you? Do you fully appreciate what has happened?”
“Enough games, Roth. Enough of this!” AJ said. “Let him leave!”
A spark of temper flashed in Roth’s eyes. “Do you not want him to know what it is you’ve done, Alyck? Why should he be saved, when my Isadora was not? Where is the justice in that?”
AJ squeezed his eyes shut, fighting off the hurt and grief. They would do nothing for him right then. Later, he would grieve. Later, he would try to help his lover heal. His rage, on the other hand, that he gripped tightly to using it to lend himself strength. He had to be strong, for Brian. “I have told you, time and time again, that I never touched her! Dammit, Roth, I never laid a hand on that girl!”
“Lies!” Roth surged to his feet, glaring down at them both. In his arms, AJ felt Brian start to quiver. “She told me what you had done, Alyck! My daughter was not a liar!”
“Look at me, Rothalo!” The use of his full name had Roth’s eyes locking on AJ. “Look at me, right here, right now. I am holding the one person in my life that I love more than anything else. More than myself. What gender is he?” he paused, his eyes pleading. “A male. I never touched Isadora, not only because she was your daughter, but she’s not my type. I have always preferred men, as you should well know! Women have never kindled that fire for me. I never even desired to touch her!”
“With all your years on this earth, you expect me to believe you have never sampled a woman, Alyck?” Roth said wryly.
“Don’t be ridiculous.” The look AJ gave him was scornful. He felt more than saw Brian shift in his arms. Thank all the God’s that he hadn’t tried to leave. His only protection was in staying in AJ’s arms. “Of course I have. Early on, for sure. How could I make the decision that women weren’t what I desired if I never tried to desire one? But by the time I met your Isadora, I already know who and what I was. Roth, I swear it to you, I did not touch her.”
For just a moment, a split second of time, it looked like Roth was going to believe him. The mask slipped, and AJ caught a glimpse of the grief and insanity underneath that cool façade. He shivered back from that look. Then the mask slipped back down, and fury tightened Roth’s features. Before AJ could react, Roth flung a whip of spirit at Brian, bringing him under his control again.
Brian’s back arched, and the sound that tore from his lips child AJ down to his very soul. There was nothing he could do to stop it as Brian writhed under the pain that Roth was causing. Tears built in his eyes, and he felt his heart break even more. “Stop it, stop it!” he shouted, running his hands over Brian, trying to hold him against his chest. “Let him go!”
As Brian’s body slumped back against him, Roth smiled. He looked down, his smile growing at the sight of the tears on AJ’s face. “Oh, now this is perfect. I find myself enjoying your begging. Continue, and I may do as you wish. On your knees, Alyck, and beg for the life of your lover.”
What else could he do? With infinite care, AJ laid Brian down on the ground. His eyes met those of his lovers, trying to tell him without words how much he loved him. “Alex,” Brian whispered “Don’t do it.”
A tear fell from AJ’s eye, splashing onto Brian’s cheek. Without a word, AJ turned away from him. He moved to his knees before Roth and tipped his face up, letting the tears continue to flow. “Rothalo, please. Just let him go, don’t hurt him anymore.” He put everything he felt into those words, into his eyes. “Please, just let him go. Don’t hurt him anymore.”
“What do I get out of this, if I choose to listen to you, Alyck?”
Since this had started, AJ had known where this was going. Even as he’d hoped to change it, to make the end result something else, he had known in his heart what would need to be done. He steeled his heart and looked Roth in the eyes, staring straight at evil itself. “Me.”
Roth’s lips curved in a smile so chilling that AJ actually felt frozen to the spot. Behind him he could hear Brian’s gasp as the weave of spirit left him. He didn’t resist, though he wanted desperately to do so, when that magic came into him, binding around him. His tears continued to flow in rivers down his face. He heard Brian’s voice behind him, a guttural cry of denial. There was nothing his lover could do now. Any attack he tried, anything he would do, was too dangerous. With a thought, Roth could kill AJ. He had won.