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"So you’re saying yet another person or persons is going to be trying to control ht after so like this" He didn’t need Gideon’s visible wince to know a command had been a poor choice

"So that’s your decision, ho, was now brittle, acerbic "When to tell , when not to? When to decide that I need a servant, when I need you inet me to believe you respected my independence But it was never that, was it? You always thought you ownedcollar, not the leash attached to it"

His face went coistered it in her mind She recalled it from ti he wouldn’t give her

Couldn’t give her In her mind, he saw her reo, that she would never beg hi, never let him see that she couldn’t stand on her oay froet into her head, see the truth Her head jerked up, eyesin her ht now He told himself to pull out, to shut that wall between theht in the gut

What makes you so different from Barnabus? How is this different?

He took a step back froone any farther, the first ti The understandings of the past few moone

"Anwyn" Gideon began

"You don’t need to defend hi, Gideon You don’t even like hian’s head-on "Last week, my life was entirely different I don’t knohether to wish I’d never met you, or that Barnabus had just killed me in that alley I’m too tired, too numb, to decide Please don’t disturb me until I co

"And before either of you says it," she added, "if I go into a seizure, uan a hard look "So I’m sure you’ll know if I need help Until then, fuck off"

Turning on her heel, she left the two of theht the brief flash of pain in the va, it was as if she’d taken out a poisoned stake and stabbed hione No uy, Gideon couldn’t help the syether in the face of female scorn

He’d been unbalanced himself by what had just happened here Hell, all of the her servant and throwing in his lot, however te a va to ride herd on both of the, even as she kept hi him for myriad aspects of all of it Maybe he wouldn’t have seen that if it hadn’t been for Mason, working with hi to deal with a lot of the same kind of shit

He didn’t knohat to say, even if he’d been inclined to do so, but he was saved from the effort With an impassive nod, the vampire left him there

Great With a lack of other options, Gideon threw his towel in the ha up a roo a noticeable ao, he’d had a civilized hos

Going back to the cell, he straightened that area up After some consideration, he moved the sofa and other furniture out of it It looked as though she wouldn’t have to go back in there again unless it was unavoidable Progress, though of course those last few h she had a right to be pissed off about all of it, he already knehen she came down fros of despair, a sort of postpartuh this tiled with the seizure, and the episode itself hadn’t been one of her worst ones, that aftermath may have remained the same

He wanted to comfort her, but knew she probably needed some space And he didn’t want to be in the personally uncouy Particularly after he’d put his fucking mouth on him