Chapter 243: What are You? II
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He had already spent too much of his life being managed by people who thought love meant filtering truth. Elena. His father. Ben. Even now, all of them chose their silences with the confidence of people protecting something fragile.
He doesn’t want to be like them. He doesn’t want Lily to feel the same way when someone closes to hide the truth.
Lily was not asking for protection. She was asking for honesty.
And some part of him knew, if he denied her now, then this would not merely remain a hidden truth. It would become a crack.
He rubbed once at the center of his palm, a tiny nervous motion that belonged to an earlier version of himself. A smaller one.
"You saw too much at the auction," he said.
Lily blinked slowly. "Yes."
"The blood."
"Yes."
"The twins."
"Yes."
"The way Iron House men..." He stopped. The memory came back too clearly. Blood rising. Pressure in the room. His will moving through another person’s body and making it answer. "The way they reacted."
Lily’s eyes stayed fixed on him. "Yes."
Sekhmet’s jaw tightened.
"It is not a technique in the normal sense."
"I assumed that." She answered.
"It is not just chaos energy manipulation."
"I assumed that too."
He huffed a dry breath through his nose, almost humorless. "You are very difficult to reassure."
"I am trying to understand, not be reassured."
Another fair line. Another sharp one.
Sekhmet stood abruptly. Not because he meant to intimidate her. Because sitting had begun to feel like a trap.
He crossed the room once, then again, and stopped near the window. The curtains softened the light across his face. He could see his reflection faintly in the glass, layered over the pale day beyond.
He looked almost normal.
He wondered how long that illusion would survive the next few minutes.
Behind him Lily waited.
She did not rush him.
That made it worse.
He spoke without turning at first.
"Do you remember the first day you came to me after years inside the pergurtory..." He paused. "After everything started changing with my life."
"Yes."
"You asked me once why the air felt different around me."
Lily’s voice came from behind him, quiet. "I remember."
"I told you I did not know."
There was a pause.
"Was that a lie?" she asked.
Sekhmet’s throat moved once.
"No," he said. "Not completely."
He finally turned.
"At the time I did not know enough and I didn’t want you to be worried."
Lily remained still in her chair. She had not backed away. Had not made a distance where there was none before. Her eyes were wide, yes, but steady.
Sekhmet continued.
"I still do not know all of it. I know more now than I did then. Enough to tell you what matters. Not enough to explain every piece cleanly."
"Then tell me what you can."
His expression tightened again.
She saw it and asked the question more softly this time.
"Why are you afraid to say it?"
That almost undid him.
Because he had not wanted the fear visible.
He had wanted to sound calm. Controlled. Dangerous if necessary. Not like a man standing in a room afraid the person before him might stop seeing him as human once the right sentence crossed the air.
He answered honestly anyway.
"Because once I say it, you cannot unknow it."
Lily’s face changed then.
Not with fear.
With understanding.
And perhaps that frightened him more, because it meant she saw right through him now.
She stood. Slowly...
Not closing the whole distance, but enough that the room no longer felt divided into questioner and questioned.
"Then I will not pretend the answer does not matter," she said. "But I am still here. Start there."
Sekhmet stared at her. The system remained silent. No helpful bracket. No elegant prompt. No target lock for social terror.
This part was his alone.
"I am connected to the twins," he said finally.
Lily frowned slightly. "Connected how?"
The question looked simple from the outside. It was not.
He searched for language.
"Not like friendship," he said. "Not like command given to guards. Not even like ordinary contracts."
Lily waited.
"They answer me because something in them is tied to something in me. Their blood. Their life force. Their obedience."
Lily’s eyes widened a little more.
"You mean they are bound to you."
"Yes."
"How?"
Sekhmet looked down briefly.
Then up again.
"Through blood."
The room went still.
Lily’s voice was quieter now. "What does that mean? Are they related to the main Dawn house?"
"It means when I gave them my blood, it changed them."
"What you gave them blood... when?"
"A while ago."
"How much?"
"Enough."
That answer made her jaw tighten.
"Do not do that."
Sekhmet blinked. "What?"
"Do not turn into a wall right when the answer starts." Her voice did not rise, but it sharpened. "I asked for the truth, not pieces thrown at me like scraps. I am getting confused."
He looked at her, then away again.
Lily stepped closer. "How much?"
Sekhmet exhaled slowly. "Enough to alter the contract bond between us. Enough that they could respond to my will. Enough that their blood carries part of my authority now."
Lily was silent for a few seconds after that.
Then she asked the next thing carefully.
"Did you force them?"
The question hurt. Not because it was wrong to ask. Because he had known it might come.
"No," he said at once.
Lily held his eyes.
"No," he repeated, more firmly. "Not like that."
Her shoulders loosened by a degree.
Sekhmet continued before she could ask the next thing in the worst possible order.
"It is not just them. My power over blood is broader than that. The bond is one part. The blood itself..." He shook his head once. "The blood listens to me."
Lily whispered the words back almost to herself. "The blood listens to you."
"Yes."
"That is not normal chaos control."
"No."
"Then what is it?"