“Sebastian, he is the most beautiful baby in the entire world,” Eden growled. “Take that back right now or I’m going to throw you in prison.”
He tsked at her and wagged his finger. “Now, now, my Queen, don’t waste my time with idle threats. You destroyed the prisons. Remember?”
“Sebastian,” she hissed.
“It’s really a compliment,” he tried to explain. “It’s just that you’re so lovely. Clearly he favors his father’s side.”
“You’re on his father’s side!”
“But obviously, I favor my father’s side. There’s nothing to worry about. He’ll grow into that nose.” Sebastian cut a look at me. “I hope.”
I pressed my lips together to keep from bursting into laughter. Kiran hadn’t been so successful. He laughed at his cousin’s jokes as if it was perfectly fine that Sebastian thought his child was ugly.
“I’m only teasing, Eden. He’s very handsome. You’ll have your hands full once he’s grown. Possibly before then. Now you’ll get the pleasure of every mother in the Kingdom shoving their infant daughter his direction, hoping they develop some sort of infant bond so you can betroth them as soon as possible.”
Eden wrinkled her nose. “This is all new to me. Obviously. I have no idea how to raise a prince.”
Sebastian leaned forward and ruffled her tangled black hear. “I’ll help. I know all there is to know about raising princes. I was once one, you know.”
Kiran let out a scoffing sound from the back of his throat. “Don’t take his advice, Love. Just look at how he turned out. In fact, I wonder if we shouldn’t ask Bastian to leave now before any lasting damage is done.”
“I’m practically this child’s uncle!” Sebastian protested. “And that one’s too!”
Avalon stepped up to the bed and took Amari from Kiran. I stood and handed Mimi Gavriel. I stepped out of the way so Mimi could sit down.
“I’m actually this child’s uncle,” Avalon crooned sweetly to the little girl in his arms. “You don’t need Sebastian, little one, not when you have me.”
Eden and Kiran shared a terrified look. “We should rethink our circle of friends and family,” Kiran murmured to her. “These people were fine before the babies were born. But maybe we shouldn’t associate with the riffraff now.” He looked up at all of us, clustered close by. “Except for their birthdays, of course. You’ll still be expected to spoil them rotten.”
Eden laughed lightly and gave everyone an apologetic look. “We don’t really think you’re riffraff. You’ll be able to see the children whenever you’d like one day a year.”
We all burst into laughter, not expecting Eden’s humor after hours of labor and pain and suffering.
“They’re beautiful, E,” I told her. “You did a great job.”
Eden smiled and passed baby Gavriel from Mimi to Angelica. “I did, didn’t I?”
The room fell into comfortable conversation after that. In hushed tones we admired the new babies and spent as much time with Eden and Kiran as we could until they kicked us from the room so that they could get some sleep and feed the two little ones.
I left the Royal wing to find the room I usually stayed in here feeling happier than I had in a long time. But at the same time, I had this loneliness inside of me that seemed to open up like a great cavern in my soul. Or the mouth of a beast. It was hungry and desperate for something permanent. My heart ached from the intensity of my singleness and lack of baby-making prospects.
“Sera!” Sebastian caught up to me just as I reached my door.
I dropped my head back and I felt more sand losing from my massive hair. I realized then how dirty I was. Kudos to Eden for not being the neat-freak mom that scolded us all for coming straight from the desert. We had all scrubbed our hands and arms, but I needed a shower.
Pronto.
“I just want to go to sleep.”
“I would like to talk to you,” he pleaded softly. “It will only take a moment.”
I turned my head and regarded him carefully. His eyes were soft and beseeching. They searched mine, waiting for my answer with hope I didn’t want to believe was still there. His strong body towered over mine and his hand reached out for me as if he expected me to take it.
No.
No.
“I can’t talk to you tonight.”
“You can’t? Or won’t.”
My chest ached with the desires that had made themselves so clear upstairs with Eden and her new babies. I knew the answer. And I knew what would happen if he got me alone tonight.
I would fall back into whatever we had before and that was very bad news. He would never give me what Eden had. And I didn’t even want exactly that. But I wanted the idea of it. I wanted the concept.
I wanted a man that would look at me like I was his everything. I wanted a man that would fight for me.
Most of all, I wanted a man that would fight for me.
“Tonight, of all nights, I can’t talk to you.”
His jaw ticked as he bit back whatever it was he wanted to say, but knew he shouldn’t. I took that opportunity to slip into my room and shut the door quickly behind me. I locked the handle for some reason.
Not that it would really keep him out. And not that I felt like I needed to.
More like, I needed to keep myself inside.
I had wanted to break. So much. I wanted nothing more than to yank the door open and drag Sebastian into my room. I wanted to spend the night with him and forget everything I ached for, longed for and just let him ease the pain for a few hours.
I was lonely and I wanted arms around me. No matter who they belonged to.
But I couldn’t do it.
I couldn’t.
I had to respect myself. And I had to stay strong. Sebastian and I were over.
Forever.
I left the door in favor of a shower. Someone had dropped off my things earlier and so I stripped out of my filthy clothes and stepped beneath the scalding stream of water.
I spent as much time as I could scrubbing my hair and skin clean before I was too exhausted to stand. By the time I crawled into the massive bed and sunk down onto silky sheets and glorious pillows, I had washed away all of the regrets that involved Sebastian and banished the clinging desire to call him back in here.
I had moved on.
I could keep moving on.
And I could be happy for my friends without making stupid mistakes that would only break whatever was left of the heart that stopped being whole a year ago.
The morning would be easier, I promised myself.
And besides, right now, I was just too tired to care.
Chapter Fifteen
Sebastian
Who knows how long I stood outside her door waiting for her to come back to me. I stood there like a fool, hoping she would realize I wasn’t the same man that had let her leave a year ago. I hadn’t been thinking then. I hadn’t been prepared for her willingness to leave or for her determination to stay away.
We had been in plenty of disagreements before that final one. I had expected that one to end like all of the others. I had expected to scream at each other, to get pissed at each other and then to make-up just as aggressively.
I loved making-up.
It was one of my favorite physical activities.
But it wasn’t as though I expected to get that lucky tonight, or rather, lucky at all. I had started to see some of my own fault in our demise. And after all we’d been through lately, and the help Seraphina had so kindly given, I felt I owed her an apology.
I was disappointed she didn’t want to hear it. I decided there was no reason we couldn’t be friends. We’d been friends before we’d been in a relationship.
For the sake of the rest of our friends and the Kingdom, and out of respect for the feelings we once had for each other, we needed to try friendship on for size.
I just needed to get her to agree first. Luckily, I was very charming. She would see things my way in no time.
br />
I wandered down the hall to a room I’d declared mine after Sera and I stopped sharing sleeping accommodations. My things were laid out on the bed and there were fresh linens on the bed.
I washed the grit of the day and the filth of the desert off of my exhausted body and climbed into bed, still thinking of Sera and how it felt to be thrown away from her this afternoon.
There was something gnawing at the inside of my chest and it seemed to get worse the more I replayed those frightful moments in my head. I clenched my hand into a fist and tried to ignore the memory of her hand being torn from mine.
I closed my eyes and felt sand all over me and an emptiness of my side where Sera should be.
I finally used Magic to push those traumatic thoughts away and fall asleep. Thinking of nearly losing her today did the opposite of what I needed my brain to do in order rest. Magic turned out to be the best sleep aid though and soon, I had stopped thinking of Seraphina and merely started dreaming of her.
Well, I didn’t know if “dreaming” was the right word. More like having a horrific nightmare that I couldn’t wake up from. I was stuck in a spinning vortex of sand and Sera stood just on the other side, but she wasn’t safe. For some reason, I was the one that was safe, even in the midst of a cyclone. I reached out my hand, but she couldn’t reach me. I did everything I could to get to her even though she merely stood there, watching me. No matter how hard I fought she always remained out of reach. I was panicked and hysterical. And then, I was jolted awake by another explosion.
My eyes popped open and for a long minute I lay there wondering why I was awake and what had awakened me. Slowly my sleep-addled brain came to life and the distant sound of screaming penetrated my hazy brain.
Then the entire house seemed to explode. Well, not exactly. I was apparently far removed from wherever the explosion took place, but I still felt the residual effects. The bed rocked beneath me and plaster rained down from the ceiling.
I shot up to sitting and listened for a moment longer. A door down the hall opened and then slammed shut. I heard footsteps sprinting down the hall and then a male voice- Xander’s maybe?- shouted back down our secluded corridor, “We’re under attack!”
Just as he finished his warning, another explosion bombarded the building, this time much closer to me.
A vase shifted to the end of a priceless, antique vanity and tipped over the edge, shattering all over the floor. The sound of it shattering snapped me into action and I jumped to my feet. I yanked on jeans and shoved my feet into shoes while I stumbled around the room searching out a shirt.
I finally found one at the bottom of my suitcase and grabbed it as I sprinted from the room. I stopped at Sera’s door just as she pulled it open, looking adorably disheveled with her blonde hair in a wild ponytail and silk pajama pants twisted around her waist.
“What’s wrong?” she croaked. Her eyes stopped at my bare chest and her eyebrows scrunched in confusion. “Why are you naked?”
I would have laughed except another explosion pulsed through the building and we both fell to our arses. I landed awkwardly on her sprawled out legs and tried to untangle myself, but somehow ended up on top of her, my length covering her.
“What’s going on?” she whispered.
“We need to find out.”
I put my hands on her waist, feeling the longing of familiarity in our positioning. God, this woman could infuriate me beyond measure, but all it took was this. This touch. Her body. Her against me. And I was a lost man.
I helped her to her feet and then reached down for my shirt. We avoided eye contact as we moved over debris and broken glass from various antiques that had met there end.
“It has to be-”
“Put your shirt on,” she whispered fiercely at me.
“I will.”
“Now, Sebastian. Put it on now.”
I tried not to smile as I wrestled the t-shirt on. The smile quickly disappeared when we rounded the corner and came upon some of Terletov’s goons.
They probably would have had the upper hand had we not caught them by just as much surprise. They were in the middle of kicking a door open and searching the inside.
Seraphina and I immediately jumped into action. I took out the first goon quietly. I wrapped my arm around his neck and drove him to the ground. He let out a strangled cry for help, but his gun dislodged from his hand and clattered away.
I used my Magic against his as we fought to take each other out. Seraphina must have retrieved the gun because I heard it fire several times while I wrestled around on the floor.
The bastard managed to get a painful hit in my kidneys. I flinched and he landed another punch on my jaw. My head jerked back from the impact, but I blocked his next hit with my Magic. I bore down on him with as much energy as I could, strangling him with my energy.
He made gurgling sounds as he struggled to fight my superior hold. His Magic fought back, but while physically he might have been superior in strength, my Magic was by far the more admirable competitor.
I had just about knocked him out when I felt a searing pain slice over my ribs. I sucked in a breath and held it, hoping to stay the pain.
No luck.
My side lit up with fiery pain. I refused to release my grip on this idiot, but black dots danced in front of my vision as I struggled against the pain. I couldn’t think outside of the pain.
And because of the pain, I started to become extremely weak.
In fact, I felt more than extremely weak. I felt unbearably weak. Before I could sort out what happened, I was on the ground, my face smashed into the marble floor and the hot flow of blood soaking through my clothes.
“Sebastian!” Seraphina screamed.
I watched her out of one eye, from a sideways position, slide across the dust-coated floor in bare feet. She lunged for the man who’d stabbed me and shot him in the face with the deadly gun.
Not only did she destroy the man’s ugly face, she shot him with his own weapon. I hope the bastard died on the spot.
Because it seemed I was going to as well.
I pressed my hand against my side and it came away sticky and drenched with my own blood.
It also came away coated in my Magic.
He’d stabbed me with the killing kind of sword.
Damn.
I flopped to my back and stared into Sera’s cerulean eyes. “Sera-”
“Shut up,” she hissed furiously. “You’re not dying. Don’t even think you can get out of this so easily.”
“Get out of what?”
“Shut up, Sebastian!” She sounded so serious that I felt like I had no choice. One of us needed to figure out what to do. It sure as hell wasn’t me. So I might as well listen to the boss-lady. “Stand up,” she ordered.
Except for that.
“I can’t.” My voice was a pathetic groan that I was embarrassed of.
I had no intentions of dying this way. If I had to go, I wanted it to be in the heat of battle, I wanted it to be with a sword across my throat and not a second to ponder my departure from this world. I wanted it to be epic and memorable.
I wanted it to be so momentous that they turned the day into a holiday.
I did not want it to be whilst I rolled around on the parquet floor in my Manchester United t-shirt.
However, my wishes didn’t seem to line up with what was actually happening. And even though I wanted to stand up and obey the cruel tyrant shouting orders at me from her lovely mouth, I couldn’t.
No matter how much Magic I pushed into my bones and muscles, my body simply didn’t want to move.
“I’m going to get help,” Seraphina informed me. “You’re useless.”
I would have argued with her if that wasn’t true. Besides she sounded terrified. And if I had to die, I at least had the satisfaction that she cared enough to want me to live.
“Hurry,” I told her.
She looked down at me for a second longer. “If someone comes by, just play dead. They?
??ll probably believe you.”
Then she was gone.
Probably? They’ll probably believe me?
She could have at least given me a gun!
As it happened though, nobody ventured down this hallway. This wing we were staying in was pretty secluded from the rest of the palace. The Royals lived on the second floor and on opposite sides of the house. Seraphina and I stayed in what could be considered converted servant’s quarters.
The current regime had long ago done away with servants, in favor of paying their employees generously. They also allowed them to live off premises, except for the Titan Guard, but their quarters were underground.
Since I knew now that Terletov was behind the attack, I could safely assume that he was after the Royals.
I listened to the sound of boots stomping and guns firing, as I lay helpless and waiting. The world around me came in and out of focus and my hazy gray Magic danced in the air around me. I tried to grasp it. I tried to shove it back inside of me.
But it would not go.
Stubborn Magic.
Difficult Magic.
Magic like a woman I knew.
I must have lost consciousness completely because the next thing I knew my entire body ached from head to toe. It felt like I’d been slammed in the back with a semi and my head screamed from a pain I was confident would never go away.
“You didn’t have to drop him!” a familiar voice shrieked loudly.
“I didn’t mean to.”
“Let me see him,” a different voice said. “We don’t have any time. I need to do this quickly.”
I started to black out again, but I felt better about it. My body started to warm and buzz pleasantly. A sense of peace settled over me and I couldn’t help but want to smile.
I had no idea if I actually smiled because soon I was drifting in a different world, only I knew, instinctively, that it was a world I was supposed to be in, a world that I wanted to be in.
The next time I woke up was to shouting.
Lots of whispered-shouting.
And I didn’t wake slowly.
I jerked awake in the middle of cramped bodies in a very dark place. It took a while for my Magic to adjust. Every part of me felt sluggish and slow. My side especially felt very tender.