[Bren nuzzled at Essek's shoulder, pressing a kiss there, against skin damp with a sheen of sweat. He was slowly rising from the storm of instinct that had overtaken him, coming back into the capacity for coherent thought. And still all he could think of was Essek. His hand beneath Essek's turned to take the drow's, tangling their fingers together.]

I will always come back to you, life after life. But you are right... he tried to keep me from you.

[In this life, and, even if the part of him that was Caleb was still trapped and locked away, Bren suspected the same was true in that life before.]

He deserves something worse than death for that.