Deliverance [malexmale]

Chapter Twenty-Seven

How did he do that? How did he know just what to say? And how the hell did he know things I hadn't even spoken about before? I wondered briefly if Arikos had the ability to read minds, but I'd also done the same thing with Atlan... And Atlan couldn't read minds. He was just painfully good at reading other people and used that ability to hurt and control others. Arikos used that ability for something else entirely.

"Don't worry," Arikos said after a while, giving my hands a squeeze before turning back to stare at the screen, "We'll find something that works with the budget. In the meantime, Akin and Hannibal said they'll hold onto Amenti. We should probably stop in to see her soon, actually. She's gonna start school in about a week and Akin said Amenti wanted you to take her." I raised an eyebrow.

"Me?" I asked. Arikos nodded, then smiled.

"She's scared. It's a big new world for her and she wants the one person who's kept her safe to be there with her when she takes her first steps into it."

"I don't know anything about school," I said. My father trained myself and my siblings. At the back of his hand and the blade of a sword. Strategies, culture, art, belief, all those other things we'd picked up on our own from traveling and running into different people. We didn't sit in a school full of other people and desks that we sat at for eight hours... Or rather five, in Amenti's case, considering she was starting her first year at school.

"It's alright," Arikos said, patting my hand, "She just needs someone to hold her hand. Once we drop her off, we can head out to look at the apartments. After that, Hades wanted to call a meeting to start making some plans." I nodded, though, my stomach churned with all of that news.

Amenti going to school. I didn't like the idea of her being around a bunch of strangers, unprotected. There were no military guards around the school, not even a fence for the playground from what Arikos had shown me. How was she supposed to stay safe if something happened? Despite Arikos's reassurances of drills they implemented in order to keep the students and faculty on top of things, the fact that I wouldn't be there to take Amenti away if anything happened terrified me.

Then the idea of moving in with her and Arikos also terrified me. What if I wasn't a good house mate? I had no idea how to cook or clean or fix the new appliances people had in this day and age. I also felt anxiety at the thought of sharing a room with Arikos. He'd stayed the night in my room at the palace last night, but he slept on the sofa and I on the bed. We'd never shared an actual bed, and judging from the apartments Arikos was looking at, he expected to share a bed.

Well, no shit. You didn't see two beds in Hannibal's room, did you?

No, but Akin wanted to share a bed with Hannibal. I mean, Arikos wanted to share a bed with me too, but Arikos had no idea how... Goddamn it, I was doing it again.

Arikos had no idea how disgusting it'd be to sleep next to me.

I'd never shared a bed with anyone before. Oh sure, I had fallen asleep in Atlan's bed, but he'd completely turned his back on me and faced the other way and moved as far to the other side to get away from me. Even while trying to play me for a fool, Atlan couldn't bring himself to stay close to me for very long.

And fuck, according to Akin's weird soap operas, people usually ended up having sex when sharing a bed and I didn't want to have sex, which circled back around to that lingering guilt of Arikos is doing everything for you, and you can't even let him fuck you? Everyone else had, what difference would it make if Arikos did? Besides, Arikos was the type of person who enjoyed doing those things. He liked sex, and it was really the only thing I could offer him. Even with the money the military was paying me, it wasn't enough to buy Arikos everything he could ever want.