Chapter 39 Harper
HARPER
The water stings as it flows down my back, each droplet cutting through raw skin like it knows where the worst of the damage is.
I sit low in the tub, shoulders hunched, knees drawn in, but there’s no hiding from the burn.
I don’t remember when I got here, when I stripped down, when the water stopped running red, but the bath is the first thing that’s touched me today without meaning to hurt.
And gods, that’s enough to make me want to cry all over again.
I press my palm to the surface, dipping it beneath the heat before I lather soap into my skin.
It foams quickly, and when I drag it across my chest, my ribs, my thighs, I bite down hard on my lip to keep the sound in.
It crawls into every cut, every scrape, every split-open bruise.
A punishment I didn't ask for, but one I’ve learned to sit still for.
The moment the pain crests, I throw my head back against the porcelain rim of the tub with a dull crack, eyes squeezing shut as tears break free.
They slip down the sides of my face, blend into the bathwater, disappear like everything else.
My heart aches with every shallow breath.
There’s a pressure in my chest that won’t release, like grief caught between my ribs with nowhere to go.
Then, three soft knocks at the door.
I freeze, the sound dragging me from the dark spiral I’d let take root.
The door creaks open slowly, and I don’t even try to hide the way I shrink into the water, the way I flinch from the sound of the hinge. I don’t care who sees me like this. Not anymore.
“Harper,” Sebastian’s voice is low, uncertain, kind in a way that makes my chest ache worse. “Can I help you with anything?”
He doesn’t step inside right away. I can tell he’s hovering, standing just beyond the frame, unsure if I want to be seen. But the truth is, the last thing I want is to be alone.
“No, Seb. I’m fine,” I rasp, though my voice is ruined from crying, from screaming into my own hands. It’s a lie. It always is.
I hear the shift in his body, the way he hesitates again.
But then I catch the soft rustle of fabric falling, his shirt hitting the floor, the low thud of a belt, the whisper of fabric being dragged down legs.
He steps into the room slowly, the steam curling around him like it’s welcoming him in.
He’s stripped down to nothing but his underwear, and the sight of him, barefoot, quiet, chest rising with uncertain breath, makes my throat tighten in a different way.
He doesn’t ask again.
He moves toward the tub, kneels beside it, his hands bracing on the edge as his hair falls into his face. It clings to his skin in damp strands before he pushes it back with one hand, and then that same hand reaches for me.
When his fingers touch my arm, I don’t pull away. I can’t. He’s warm, and I didn’t realize how cold I’d gone.
He slips into the water beside me, slow and careful, as if the water might bite him too.
There’s not enough space for distance. His thigh brushes mine, the bare skin of his chest close enough that I feel his breath on my cheek.
And when he settles, his eyes drag over me, not lustful, not horrified. Wrecked.
His hand finds my side.
I suck in a sharp breath, not from pain, but from how delicately he’s touching me.
Like I might splinter under his palm. His fingers trace each bruise, every mark now visible beneath the rising water.
He pauses when his thumb ghosts over the darkest one, the jagged edge of a wound barely held together by his past efforts.
His jaw tightens.
“Did he leave those bruises on you?” His voice is tight.
I shake my head, but I don’t offer more. I could tell him. About my father. About the way Ares lets things happen. About how it doesn’t matter anymore. I’ve learned to survive worse.
“It doesn’t matter, Seb-” I start, the words brittle, hollow.
But before I can finish, I reach for him. I curl my fingers around the back of his neck and pull him closer until our foreheads nearly touch, until his breath is mine, and our mouths hover just shy of a kiss. My other hand finds the curve of his jaw, and he doesn’t pull away.
He lets me hold him there.
The silence between us grows heavy with everything we’re not saying. My bruised body, his clenched fists, the hot water we sit in like a shared confession. The way he looks at me now, like it’s killing him to see me like this, and killing him more that he wants me anyway.
I tilt my face up just slightly, our lips barely apart now, and I can feel him fighting the pull. His breath hitches. His hand presses lightly to my thigh beneath the water, and it’s not sexual, it’s grounding. But it burns all the same.
If I moved an inch, we’d be kissing.
If I asked, he’d fall apart with me right here.
But I don’t ask.
And neither does he.
Not yet
“I just… I’m happy you’re safe,” I murmur, the words barely leaving my lips before I press them into his.
Sebastian meets the kiss with a low sound in his throat, one hand sliding up to the back of my head, fingers curling into my hair, firm but gentle.
His mouth moves against mine with more hunger than he usually allows himself, like he’s been waiting for this, for me, to finally let him in.
And for a moment, I do. I let myself fall into the warmth of it.
His touch. His breath. His mouth coaxing mine open.
“We’re safe now,” he says against my lips, voice thick and urgent. “You’re safe when you’re with me.”
The words ripple through me, his conviction pressing deeper than it should. And I want to believe it. I want to pretend that being here, with him, in this quiet room where the world feels distant and my pain can be blurred by his hands, is enough.
But the flicker of guilt is already there, quiet and coiling low in my gut.
Not all of us are safe right now.
Still, I kiss him harder, like I can quiet it.
Like I can make my body forget what my heart won’t.
His hand slides lower, fingertips skimming along the skin of my stomach, drawing warmth to the surface in his wake.
I suck in a soft breath as he finds his way higher, palms cupping my breasts with delicate reverence.
His mouth leaves mine to trace down the curve of my neck, the press of his lips maddeningly slow, grazing just enough to make me shiver.
It should feel good. It does feel good.
But the deeper into it we fall, the more the noise in my head rises.
Because somewhere else, Ares's cold fearful stare exists.
The more Sebastian touches me, the more I feel myself split open, not in desire, but in confusion. My chest rises too fast. I can’t seem to catch my breath. My limbs tremble with tension, no longer from pleasure, but from pressure.
And Sebastian feels it.
He lifts his head, concern sharpening in his features. His eyes meet mine, soft and searching, and I can see his confusion already forming, curling behind the tender shape of his mouth.
“Harper?” he says gently. His hand still rests against my waist, his thumb stroking the skin there as though trying to calm something he doesn’t understand yet.
I’m breathing too fast. Too shallow. My nails dig into his shoulders like I’m trying to hold onto something solid, but I’m not even sure what I’m asking him to stay for.
“I can’t,” I choke out. “I can’t do this right now, Seb. I’m sorry. I-I shouldn’t have pushed you into it.”
The words come out in a rush, brittle and uneven, and as soon as they’re free, shame settles deep in my bones. I lower my eyes, afraid to see disappointment on his face.
But it never comes.
His hand withdraws slowly from beneath my body, not rushed, not bitter, just gentle. He shifts slightly, not pulling away from me, but not pressing closer either. When he speaks again, his voice is quiet, steady.
“You didn’t push me, Harper. I wanted to. I still do.” He exhales, his forehead dipping down to mine. “But that doesn’t mean we have to.”
He doesn’t ask what’s wrong. He doesn’t say Ares’s name. But it hangs there between us all the same, unspoken but felt.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper again, but this time the tears sting in the back of my throat.
“You don’t have to be.” He pulls me into his chest, letting my face press into the crook of his neck, his arms wrapping around me like shelter. “Not for this. Not with me.”
“I-I should have asked you if you were okay.”
Sebastian’s voice is low, oddly flat as he offers his hand and helps me out of the tub.
His fingers are careful against my skin, avoiding every bruise with practiced ease, but I can feel the tension coiled beneath them, just barely restrained.
He doesn’t meet my eyes. He just holds the towel open and wraps it around me, like a soldier tending to a wound he doesn’t know how to name.
“Everyone is at risk now,” I murmur, voice hoarse. “No one is safe.”
The words sit between us like fog. They don’t land. Don’t soothe.
Sebastian’s hair is still wild from the water, clinging to his forehead in damp curls, and when he moves again, it shakes loose.
He cinches the towel tighter around my shoulders, the motion quick, sharp.
He doesn’t speak for a moment, but I can feel something shifting inside him.
Some pressure building just beneath the surface.
“All of us knew the risk,” he says finally, “when we ran into those woods. Ares included.”
He pauses, his tone changing slightly, something colder, more pointed curling around the edges. “That’s who you’re worried about. Right?”
I turn my face away from him, unwilling to let him see how right he is. “I’m not worried about just him,” I start, truth already fraying at the edges, “I’m worried about all of you-”
He doesn’t let me finish.
“I should’ve killed him the second he finished pulling Liam out of the fire. Every time he shows up, someone dies. That’s what he brings.”
The words are hot, too hot, and they hit me wrong. Not because he’s wrong. But because he wants to be right.
Sebastian’s grief has always taken the shape of anger, and now it curls through the room like smoke, unwelcome and consuming.
Frustration stirs in my gut. He wants to win this moment. He wants me to admit I was wrong to defend Ares. That I’m foolish for trusting him.
“You’re right,” I say instead, my voice soft, steady, carefully hollow. I lie through my teeth to settle the fire, even as it burns deeper into me. “You’re right.”
He turns then, arms crossed over his chest, his expression skeptical, as though the calm in my voice doesn’t quite match the chaos he knows is still living behind my eyes. His brows lift, silently demanding more. He always sees through me, but tonight, I need him to believe the mask.
“People die when Ares is around,” I continue. “That much I know. I don’t trust him...if that’s what you’re worried about.”
Another lie. A bigger one.
I keep going. “I need him to get to my father. Nothing else. What happens to him after… that’s not my concern.”
There’s a flicker of satisfaction in Sebastian’s face then. The kind of cruel, quiet triumph people find when they believe they’ve won something that shouldn’t be a battle in the first place. He nods, almost to himself, and then, just like that, the fire fades.
He sighs, long and deep, the breath leaving him like something untwisting.
He steps forward again and pulls me against him without hesitation, his arms folding around my shoulders, his chin pressing lightly to the top of my head. I feel the tension in him ease as he exhales into my hair.
“Everyone has stakes in ending your father, Harper,” he says softly, though the grip he holds me with contradicts the gentleness in his voice. “You’re not carrying it alone.”
His arms grow tighter, as if he’s afraid letting go now would break whatever calm we’ve found.
I tilt my head up, resting it against the base of his throat. My voice barely makes it out. “Can you hold me?”
Sebastian doesn’t answer at first. He just brushes his lips against the side of my forehead, reaching for the pile of clothes he laid out before I even knew I’d need them. They smell like him, worn soft from time and comfort.
“Of course I can,” he murmurs, and begins helping me dress.
There’s something reverent in the way his fingers move, pulling the sleeves up my arms, smoothing the fabric over my ribs like he’s rebuilding me piece by piece.
Once I’m clothed, he tugs on his own shirt, not bothering to dry his hair.
His hands are already back on my waist, guiding me toward the bed like he’s afraid I’ll collapse without him.
I don’t resist.
I let him lower us into the sheets, let him wrap his arms around me and pull me close until I’m tucked beneath his chin, my cheek pressed to the solid warmth of his chest. His heartbeat is steady.
Familiar. And I match my breathing to his, slowly, until the noise in my head dulls enough to feel like silence.
His hand glides gently through my hair, the pads of his fingers slow and rhythmic.
His lips press featherlight kisses to my forehead, to my temple, a soft litany of comfort without words.
I feel myself drifting, exhaustion curling through me in waves.
His hand brushes my jaw, then slides to my lips, thumb stroking across them with a tenderness that makes my eyes sting.
When he speaks again, it’s barely audible.
“Never leave me, Harper.”
The words fall like a plea, quiet and raw and so unlike him that my heart stumbles. But I’m too tired to understand why he said it. Too tired to question what it means.
All I know is that his arms are around me.
And for tonight, that has to be enough.