Chapter 10 - Harper
HARPER
Liam reaches us with a force that feels like a storm breaking against stone, his expression contorted with an anger far deeper than simple confusion.
Trevor must have whispered something poisonous into his ear during the short time we’d been gone, because the fury simmering behind Liam’s eyes is nothing like the worried frustration he normally wears when chastising me.
I can practically feel the heat of it radiating off him as he approaches, shoulders tight, jaw locked, as if he has already sentenced me for a crime he hasn’t even heard the explanation for.
Theo stands at his side, equally thrown off, though his emotions splinter in a different direction, concern, disbelief, and a touch of panic mingling all at once as he tries to navigate where to place the blame.
“You didn’t think,” Liam says, glancing rapidly between me and Sebastian as though trying to decipher the truth from our faces, “that maybe you should tell your brother you were leaving him behind in Anvaris to go do God knows what with him?”
I open my mouth, but Liam scoffs loudly, a harsh sound that cuts off any attempt I might have made to calm the situation. His chest rises and falls in sharp, clipped breaths, his hands curled into fists at his sides.
Liam pushes, his voice strained. “Trevor said he went outside to look for you, after our conversation, to apologize, and found you gone. I didn’t believe him when he said Sebastian was forcing himself onto you until just now-”
Theo’s entire body tenses at the word forcing, a flicker of horror passing through him. His brows knit tightly, his head tilting slightly like he can feel the discord twisting in the air long before anyone speaks again.
Sebastian reacts first, his voice cold enough to scrape bone.
“I didn’t touch your sister like that,” he says, stepping closer, though not toward Liam, toward the accusation itself, as if trying to physically shield me from it.
“Last time I checked, I was the one there when she needed help. Not you.”
The words strike something dangerous in Liam.
He closes the distance between them in an instant and seizes Sebastian by the forearm, his fingers tightening with a threat he doesn’t voice but makes painfully clear.
“You think I’m going to stand here and let you add her to your list of women you’ve vandalized? ”
It hits Sebastian like a blade.
Not because it’s true, but because everyone here knows what Trevor’s lies will turn into if not stopped.
Theo steps in, his voice finally sharp with authority, cutting through the escalating chaos before it can boil over. “Both of you,” he says, no louder than before but somehow commanding the entire room, “silence yourselves for two seconds and let her talk.”
The order lands heavily.
Liam releases Sebastian with a reluctant tension, his hand falling away but not relaxing. Sebastian’s jaw flexes once, twice, the muscle beneath his skin working hard to keep something in check. They both step back, slightly, enough to acknowledge that the next words spoken must come from me.
I inhale slowly, the breath feeling like sand scraping my throat.
“Some drunk tried touching me outside the pub,” I begin, my voice steady only because it has to be.
“He hurt me. I didn’t want to lose control and do something foolish, but he almost made me.
” My chest tightens at the half-truth twisting inside the full truth.
“Sebastian came by after reading Theo’s raven.
He pulled the man off me. We both got hurt in the process. That’s why he brought me back.”
The room grows unbearably quiet as I look Liam directly in the eyes.
“Nothing is happening between us.”
Theo seems to soften.
Liam simply stares.
“And Sebastian only saw that man?” he asks, voice quieter now, but laced with a suspicion so sharp it slices through me.
My pulse thunders. The memory of my glowing reflection inside that man’s terror-struck eyes ripples through my stomach. If Sebastian saw even the faintest glimmer of it-
Lie.
I have to lie.
“Just the man,” I say, forcing the words through clenched teeth, praying they land convincingly enough to bury the truth.
Sebastian scoffs softly, not at me, but at Liam, before shoving him backward with a controlled burst of anger that sends Liam stumbling. “I told you,” he snaps, his voice cracking with something closer to frustration than fury, “there’s nothing going on between her and me.”
Then he turns, abruptly, almost violently, toward me. His eyes are darker than before, not cold but guarded, as though he’s pulling every feeling he allowed to slip through the cracks earlier back behind an iron wall.
“Consider this an IOU, Whitlock,” he says, each word sharp enough to bruise. “Don’t come crying to me next time you need something.”
The sentence lodges deep in my chest, a weight that sinks with a sting I didn’t prepare for. He’s punishing himself just as much as he’s punishing me, I can see it now in the flicker of emotion he hides too quickly, but that doesn’t soften the blow.
Without waiting for a response, he turns on his heel and storms past Theo, muttering something under his breath that sounds like a curse against Trevor, against himself, I can’t tell.
Theo offers me a small, pained expression of apology before following him, his shoulders tensed, his steps hesitant.
Suddenly, the room feels far too large with just Liam and me inside it.
He looks at me with a disappointment so sharp it feels almost personal, as if I chose to betray him by being hurt, as if I sought out the chaos that dragged us all into this mess. His silence is heavier than his accusations.
“In case you were wondering,” I finally say, letting the bitterness that’s been clawing at me seep into my voice, “I’m fine. But I suppose it’s difficult to have sympathy when you’re too busy standing on a pedestal all the time.”
The words land between us like a shattering glass pane.
I don’t stay long enough to see how deeply they cut.
I push past him, the cold corridor swallowing me as I go, the weight of everything tightening in my chest until breathing feels like a task I’ve forgotten how to do. The shadows of the hospital wing stretch long against the walls, dark and quiet and filled with echoes of things I don’t understand.
For the first time since arriving at Vireldan, I don’t look back, not at Liam, not at the doorway, not at the place where Sebastian stood.
I simply walk away.