Page 54 of Ravaged Devotion

“I had a lot of panic attacks after you and Ryder discarded me.”

Rue winced. “That’s not…”

“You can’t even bring yourself to deny it.” He snorted, then leaned back against the windowsill. “Guess I really shouldn’t be surprised. You two have always been selfish. So, what happened? Ryder break up with you, so you ran away?”

“No.” How did he confess that the reason he’d left was because of Ryker instead? How was he supposed to put it into words without dying of embarrassment? “I thought…”

“You thought what, sweetheart?”

Rue shuddered and closed his eyes. It was impossible to resist when Ryker spoke to him like that, all hushed whispers, with that pretty endearment coming so gracefully off the tip of his tongue. It made it as though none of the bad stuff had ever happened. Made Rue want to forget all about the bullying and the event with the umbrella.

“I thought it was you, Ryk.” There. He’d said it. He’d done it and—

Ryker chuckled darkly, quirking a brow when Rue’s head snapped in his direction. “Do you really expect me to believe that?”

“It’s the truth.”

“That it was a case of mistaken identity?” His anger seemed to return with each passing second. “That you didn’t know who you were really dating?”

“We weren’t dating.”

“Uriel—”

“I don’t know why he said Ryder claims that we were, but we were not dating. Apparently, we slept together, once, but I thought it was you, and—”

Ryker stiffened. “What?”

“You don’t have to believe me. But I’ve never been interested in Ryder. Never.”

“When?” He didn’t seem to have heard him. “When did you sleep together?”

Rue frowned, not sure why that was pertinent information. “The night before he entered the game. I must have been really bad at it, to make him want to stay in a virtual world instead of come back and confront me again, huh?” He ran a hand through his hair, embarrassed all over again. “It was dark, and I was tipsy. When I found him in the east gardens, I mistook him for you.” The furrow between his brow deepened further as he thought back on that night. “I really thought he was you.”

Everything had felt like it was Ryker. The way he’d reacted when Rue had approached, the tension in his shoulders easing. The sound of the happy sigh he’d greeted him with. Even back then, Ryker had been known for his poor temper, but never with Rue.

They hadn’t spoken, not until they’d been in the midst of the act. Maybe that was the problem. Where he’d gone wrong.

“He kissed me,” Rue said guiltily, “and I didn’t resist. Because…”

“You thought it was me.”

“Yes.”

Ryker stared at him, then pointed out in an odd voice, “You do realize how you sound right now, right? How you’re acting? Like a guilty lover. Anyone who saw this now would think you were confessing to cheating on me, Rue, which isn’t the case, since you and I were never together.”

He flinched again at the blunt statement, but didn’t argue against it.

For some reason, that seemed to interest the Black Hart even more.

“That was the only time?” Ryker asked when he’d been quiet for too long.

“We kissed a couple of times prior,” Rue admitted. “Made out once.”

“Always in the east garden?”

“Yes, which is why I was convinced it was you. I thought we were…I thought we were becoming something. It’s stupid. I know.”

“Did you learn of this that day?” he surmised. “Ryder told you it was him, and you ran away because—”