Love is Always Write Anthology Volume 5

tugged on the rope, and Sebastian was lifted up, up and over. He tumbled into the strong arms that didn't even falter as Sebastian struggled. But in a second, he was nudged aside, and the rope went back down for Drake.
    Then Drake was there too, but there wasn't time to react. He couldn't bring up the words, the emotions, with this soldier between them.
    "Status?" Drake asked the soldier.
    The man cocked his head back, pointing to the conspicuous glossy black hovercraft behind him. "I have a vehicle waiting with the geocode disabled."
    "Thank you." Something flickered over Drake's face. "You could come with us?"
    The man's glance flickered to Sebastian, then back at Drake. There was the smallest crack in his impassive face, just a sliver, but the light that shone through was blinding. Sebastian recognized it easily because he felt it himself, that gut-wrenching mixture of awe and love. "I don't think so."
    "Rory—" Drake started.
    "I'll be fine. Just… take care of yourself."
    A smile whispered across Drake's lips, and Sebastian felt strangely uncomfortable, as if he'd intruded upon a private moment. Then it was over, and Drake and Sebastian continued past the man named Rory and into the waiting craft.
    Drake maneuvered them up high into the atmosphere, where the thick smog obscured even the high beams. They stuck to the skies as they cleared the cityspace.
    Sebastian pressed his fingers to the vents to soak up the warm air, but couldn't help turning to Drake "I don't believe that about you. That you didn't care."
    Drake frowned. "You should. I'm not safe for you."
    So that was what he thought of himself. It shouldn't have been surprising. Drake carried the weight of the world on him. "You didn't hurt me," he pointed out.
    But even as the words left his lips, the response hung in the air. Yet.
    There were no promises between them. Sebastian owed him his life, but he had nothing to offer as recompense. A paltry blowjob would not suffice, nor would Drake appreciate a martyr.
    Drake was so far above him in every sense.
    They rode the rest of the way in silence. Sebastian wondered if Drake regretted his actions. If not now, then maybe tomorrow. He'd just abandoned his career, his life for a street urchin. Sebastian only had himself to offer as recompense, and he was painfully aware of how little he was worth.
    CHAPTER 4
    The purple-black clouds began to dissipate, giving way to blue skies, and Sebastian knew they'd left the city. When the smog was nothing more than thick smoky tendrils swirling around the hovercraft, he looked back. The dark mass blemished the pale sky like a bruise.
    The craft tilted in descent. Drake controlled the helm with the same quiet intensity with which he had interrogated him, with the same graceful efficiency he had used to break Sebastian from the Ke'lan prison.
    A blanket of lush green puzzled him for a beat. Treetops. He had been to the countryside before, seen the blue of the sky, but he hadn't ever seen this much plant life in one place. And these trees were thick and clumpy, not the even grid of an oxygen sustainability farm.
    Startling blue gashed through the green blanket. Water.
    That seemed to be what Drake was waiting for, because he rode the river like a track until he brought them down in a small clearing near the bank. The hovercraft landed with a thud.
    The grim mask that Drake wore did not invite questions, did not encourage intimacy of any kind. Sebastian's stomach clenched, holding in the questions he wanted to ask. What was going to happen next? Did he get to stay with Drake?
    But Drake answered part of it anyway, with a nod toward the babbling river. "Go ahead and clean off. We've got a couple of hours to kill before we can head back."
    Still, Sebastian waited.
    Drake leafed through a supply pack, then looked up. "What's wrong?"
    "Head back where?"
    Drake sighed, though without apparent anger. "I've got a place in the city, outside Ke'lan gates. We'll be safe there, but we can't travel out in the open to get there. We'll wait until sundown and then walk." His eyes flicked over Sebastian's welts and bruises. "You should rest now."
    Sebastian made his way to the riverbank, determined not to limp. What had he expected, a declaration of love? Drake said kind words to him, words that spoke of respect. There was some physical attraction, too, but that was all.
    The water groped his skin, stabbing him with tiny icicles that made his breath catch. He sluiced it over his flayed