Chapter 9 #2
Sebastian’s grip on the rag tightens, not enough to tear the fabric, but enough that the tendons along the back of his hand stand out sharply beneath his skin.
His jaw shifts, clenching once, then again, a pulse of tension beating in the hollow of his cheek.
He works around the scars on my back carefully, far more carefully than I expect from someone with his reputation.
The rag glides along the skin surrounding each cut, never dragging over the wounds themselves, his touch steady and unflinching even as the muscles of his arm tighten beneath my fingers.
“Trevor is a dull-minded fool who wanted to bed you,” he mutters, the words clipped and low, as if the taste of them irritates him. “Half this academy wants you on their roster. It’s insufferable how many times I’ve heard your name in the last twenty-four hours.”
My breath stutters slightly at how easily he says it, not as a compliment, not even as a tease, but as an irritated fact he’s been forced to carry.
He moves to the next cut on my opposite side, his brows drawn in concentration.
The warmth of his hand bleeds through the rag, and every time he brushes too close to the bruised edge of a wound, the muscles in his forearm flex beneath my grip.
“Well,” I say slowly, trying to ignore the pull in my stomach, “last time I checked, you were the only one who threw bedding in my face.”
Sebastian lets out a breath, something between a scoff and a quiet exhale of self-disdain. His head dips for half a second.
“That was a stupid thing for me to say,” he admits, the words reluctant but sincere. “I was trying to figure you out.”
When he finally lifts his gaze to mine, something shifts, some curtain between us drawing back for a moment. His eyes search mine, not with predatory interest this time, but with a strange, unsettled curiosity.
I latch onto it because it’s either that or acknowledge the heat unfurling under my skin where his hand rests.
“Why were you in Anvaris?” I ask softly. “Do you really wear your Sunday best out before a school day?”
His eyes flicker downward, avoiding the question for a breath too long. Then his attention returns to the cuts, as though the safety of my skin offers him shelter from my curiosity.
“I had breakfast plans with my uncle and sister,” he says.
The word sister catches in my mind. Sebastian, for all his carefully crafted arrogance, does not strike me as someone with softness in his life. The idea that he has a sibling at all feels… incongruous.
Before I can press him further, he shifts gears.
“Your turn,” he says, swapping the rag for a small container of ointment.
He unscrews the lid and dips his long, slender fingers inside.
When his fingertips touch my skin, they glide slowly toward the worst of the cuts, moving just beneath the hem of my blouse.
The ointment stings first, then warms. His touch is careful, too careful, and a part of me I should not listen to aches at how close his fingers come to sliding deeper along my ribs.
“When that man…” He stops, jaw tightening. “When he was going to hurt you, I heard you struggling.” His voice drops lower, almost a growl. “But when he turned, I saw you. Your eyes. They weren’t...normal. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
The room tilts slightly as his words settle over me. I hold his gaze, feeling the pressure of recognition pressing in on both sides. His hand rests on my waist now, not applying anything, not pretending to work. Just holding me there, as though he thinks I’ll run from the truth if he lets go.
I swallow slowly. “I don’t fully understand it,” I admit.
My voice trembles, not from pain, but from the vulnerability scraping raw edges inside me.
“All I know is Liam and I were berated and beaten for years because our parents feared what I could do. It cost us our childhood. It cost us everything until Locke found us.”
Sebastian’s gaze flicks down, taking in more of me now, the scars, the tattoo curling up my spine, the marks that tell a story I’ve never let anyone read.
His fingers drift over the edges of the old scars, tracing the jagged borders with a tenderness so unexpected it sends a shiver racing up my back.
He doesn’t comment on them, but I can feel the conclusion forming behind his eyes, the quiet, dangerous understanding.
“My turn,” I whisper.
I slide down from the table, wincing when the movement stretches the tender skin, but the ache is already fading under the ointment. Sebastian rises as well, straightening to his full height, which places him far too close, the warm scent of him curling against me like smoke and winter spice.
Without breaking eye contact, I take his bloodied hand in both of mine.
His knuckles are torn and swollen, stained with someone else’s violence.
I pull the rag from his pocket, soaking it in the same sharp solution he used on me.
Then I begin cleaning the blood from his skin, brushing along each split with careful, deliberate pressure.
The reaction is immediate.
His jaw tightens, his breath sharpens, and he leans back against a nearby pillar as though grounding himself.
Quiet grunts slip from him. The sound rolls through me with embarrassing ease, heating my cheeks.
Every time I dab a tender area, he inhales as if he’s trying to keep something inside from breaking free.
“Why were you in Anvaris?” I ask again, unwilling to let him dodge the question a second time.
Sebastian tilts his head slightly, the motion slow enough that the dark waves of his hair slip forward and shadow part of his face.
He doesn’t push them away. He doesn’t need to.
The obscured half of his expression somehow makes the moment feel more private, more fragile, as if something between us is shifting without either of us fully acknowledging it.
“I skipped breakfast,” he finally says, his voice a little rougher than before, though it’s impossible to tell if that’s emotion or exhaustion. “Didn’t feel like spending my morning being reminded of all the ways I come up short. My uncle excels at that particular talent.”
There’s no bitterness in his tone. No humor. Just resignation, quiet and practiced. The kind that comes from years of hearing the same message repeated by the same mouth.
He exhales slowly, his shoulders lowering as if he’s set down a weight he didn’t realize he’d been carrying. “I thought I’d go to the pub instead. Drink until the day blurred a bit. Clear my head.”
I move carefully to the next cut on his hand, letting the ointment spread beneath my fingertips.
The warmth of it seeps into his skin, and he stiffens, almost imperceptibly, before grounding himself.
He watches my movements with a guarded focus, but nothing about him feels predatory now.
If anything, he seems… unsure of how close he should allow himself to be.
“Then I heard you,” he adds, almost reluctantly. “Your laugh. And Theo’s. I opened the door and saw the three of you. I knew Theo sent a raven, but I didn’t think you’d… actually show up.”
His gaze flickers briefly to my face, then away again, as if he’s not ready to let me see whatever is beneath the surface.
“I noticed Trevor getting… closer to you,” he says. The hesitation in his voice is strange, as if he’s choosing each word with unusual care. “He’s reserved most days. So I suppose it caught me off guard.”
He doesn’t say it bothered him.
He doesn’t say he cared.
He leaves the sentiment suspended, half-formed, like a thread he refuses to pull.
Instead he looks at the far wall, collecting his thoughts before allowing them to touch the air.
“I stepped back outside. Needed a moment to myself.”
He offers nothing more.
Nothing less.
A truth, but not the whole truth.
And for some reason, that makes it feel heavier.
I rub the last of the ointment into the base of his thumb, feeling the tension still coiled in his hand.
The rest of my body aches from everything that happened, but tending to him offers a strange, grounding steadiness.
His breath stutters just slightly when my fingers graze a tender spot, but he stays still, jaw tightening as if he refuses to grant the moment any more meaning than it already holds.
“I ran out because…” I struggle, inhaling once, then again. “Trevor mentioned you. And Theo made some comment about everyone already having… lost it. A normal comment for someone our age.”
Sebastian doesn’t speak, but his attention sharpens.
“And then they asked if I had,” I continue. “As if it’s something you can answer easily. As if I could explain to two people I barely know that I can hardly stomach being touched. That my parents kept Liam and me locked up, terrified of what we were, trying to beat the ‘misfortune’ out of us.”
The words leave me raw.
I look away.
“I got angry,” I admit. “At them. At myself. At everything. When that old man grabbed me… I let it all boil over.”
Quiet settles between us, the kind of quiet that feels too heavy to disturb. I almost expect him to scoff, to make some cutting remark, to use the confession as ammunition later.
But he doesn’t.
Instead, his eyes soften at the edges. Not pity, not even sympathy. Just… understanding. A flicker of something unspoken, restrained, pulled back before it can grow into anything measurable.
He lifts a hand toward my chin, but stops short, letting his fingertips just brush the line of my jaw without fully tilting my face. The touch is so light I almost mistake it for a phantom sensation. He holds it there for a moment, as if uncertain whether he has the right to touch me at all.
“Whoever took your childhood from you,” he murmurs, “should have been stopped.”
It isn’t romantic.
It isn’t seductive.
It’s simply honest, stripped of all pretense.