SAYING HE would talk to Velia was far easier than actually doing it, especially when Flavian was still stunned by everything Ezekiel said, everything he wanted with Flavian. He stared out the window in his bedchamber, but the view, the colors of sky and trees and stone all blurred together until he wasn’t really seeing anything.
Ezekiel loved him. Ezekiel wanted a life with him.
But Ezekiel had to marry Velia.
And, though Flavian had been too scared to say it, Flavian loved Ezekiel. He just wasn’t certain he could trust that being Ezekiel’s lover, staying with Ezekiel, couldn't end well for either of them. Any of them, if he counted Velia, and he had to, despite doing a fair job of not thinking of her connection to Ezekiel most of the time when he and Ezekiel were together.
He had to t
