Chapter 128

ALEXANDROS Xavier slumps against me, his eyelids fluttering, and I pick him up and carry him to the bed. My eyes roam his perfectly toned body. I was a fool waiting so long for this. More so for making him think he was the problem when my desire for him made me keep him at arm’s length, albeit unconsciously. That my coldness toward him contributed to the way he has underestimated himself all these years does not escape me. The removal of our bond once again allowed me to truly see him for who he is—the same strikingly beautiful, addictively charismatic young man I first encountered so many years ago. The one who burned with shame because of his father’s cruelty to him. I took great pleasure in breaking every bone in that old man’s body before drinking him dry. But my desire for his son, which I kept buried for so long, came rushing back to me as soon as I saw him again yesterday. “Sir?” Xavier’s voice cracks as he blinks up at me, questioning whether what happened was real or imagined.