The Evil We Love (Tales from the Shadowhunter Academy, #5)

“I’m in love,” Michael whispered.

Robert burst into laughter, relief gushing through him. “Is that all? Don’t you think I figured that out, idiot? I told you, Eliza’s great—”

Then Michael said something else.

Something that Robert must have misheard.

“What?” he said, though he didn’t want to.

This time, Michael lifted his head, met Robert’s eyes, and spoke clearly. “I’m in love with you.”

Robert was on his feet before he’d even processed the words.

It seemed suddenly very important to have space between him and Michael. As much space as possible.

“You’re what?”

He hadn’t meant to shout.

“That’s not funny,” Robert added, trying to modulate his voice.

“It’s not a joke. I’m in—”

“Don’t you say that again. You will never say that again.”

Michael paled. “I know you probably . . . I know you don’t feel the same way, that you couldn’t . . .”

All at once, with a force that nearly swept him off his feet, Robert was flooded by a rush of memories: Michael’s hand on his shoulder. Michael’s arms around him in an embrace. Michael wrestling with him. Michael gently adjusting his grip on a sword. Michael lying in bed a few feet away from him, night after night. Michael stripping down, taking his hand, pulling him into Lake Lyn. Michael, chest bare, hair soaked, eyes shining, lying in the grass beside him.

Robert wanted to throw up.

“Nothing has to change,” Michael said, and Robert would have laughed, if it wouldn’t so surely have led to puking. “I’m still the same person. I’m not asking anything of you. I’m just being honest. I just needed you to know.”

This is what Robert knew: That Michael was the best friend he’d ever had, and probably the purest soul he’d ever know. That he should sit beside Michael, promise him that this was okay, that nothing needed to change, that the oath they’d sworn to each other was true, and forever. That there was nothing to fear in Michael’s—Robert’s stomach turned at the word—love. That Robert was arrow straight, that it was Maryse’s touch that made his body come alive, the memory of Maryse’s bare chest that made his pulse race—and that Michael’s confession didn’t call any of this into doubt. He knew he should say something reassuring to Michael, something like, “I can’t love you that way, but I will love you forever.”

But he also knew what people would think.

What they would think about Michael . . . what they would assume about Robert.

People would talk, they would gossip, they would suspect things. Parabatai couldn’t date each other, of course. And couldn’t . . . anything else. But Michael and Robert were so close; Michael and Robert were so in sync; surely people would want to know if Michael and Robert were the same.

Surely people would wonder.

He couldn’t take it. He’d worked too hard to become the man he was, the Shadowhunter he was. He couldn’t stand to have people looking at him like that again, like he was different.

And he couldn’t stand to have Michael looking at him like this.

Because what if he started wondering, too?

“You’ll never say that again,” Robert said coldly. “And if you insist on it, that will be the last thing you ever say to me. Do you understand me?”

Michael just gaped at him, eyes wide and uncomprehending.

“And you will never speak of it to anyone else, either. I won’t have people thinking that about us. About you.”

Michael murmured something unintelligible.

“What?” Robert said sharply.

“I said, what will they think?”

“They’ll think you’re disgusting,” Robert said.

“Like you do?”

A voice at the back of Robert’s mind said, Stop.

It said, This is your last chance.

But it said so very quietly.