Chapter 25
Chapter Twenty-Five
T he door creaked open.
Maalikai stirred beside me, sleep still soft in his eyes. But I was already wide awake—because I’d felt the shift in the air. When I looked toward the door, I saw why.
Sebastian.
He stood there like a shadow come to life, forged in fury, jaw set in stone. His chest heaved beneath his armor, his eyes—once golden—now glowed with a molten edge, amber bleeding to red.
They locked on me. Then slid to Maalikai beside me. Our tangled limbs. Maalikai’s shirt twisted around my thighs. The sweat cooling on my skin.
His jaw locked.
“Maalikai,” he said, voice like a blade unsheathed. “Get. Out.”
Maalikai sat up slowly, rubbing the sleep from his face, like he was purposefully trying to infuriate him.
“Sebastian—”
“Now.” The word was laced in something dark. But it only made Maalikai smile—that vicious one that held the promise of pain.
“No.”
“She’s not yours,” Sebastian snapped.
“She’s not yours either,” Maalikai shot back, voice pulled over dying embers and embued with their heat.
He rose to his full height–dark features carved in shadow, all sharp edges and silent threat.
“She’s not yours,” Sebastian growled again, this time with murderous intent.
He didn't wait for Maalikai to respond. In a flash, Sebastian was across the room–fist already flying. But Maalikai caught it mid-swing, the other gripping his throat squeezing like he enjoyed inflicting pain .
Sebastian didn’t flinch. Barely moved. Just smiled. Dangerous. Murderous. Even from my spot on the bed, I could see the red sheen in his irises and knew he was only a breath away from losing all control.
As easy as breathing, he ripped Maalikai’s hand from his throat. With inhuman strength, he squeezed Maalikai’s fist, the crunching sound reverberated through the room in a sickening crack.
I was on my feet in an instant, covering the distance between them.
“Maalikai, are you okay?”
“I’m fine.”
His arm hung limp at his side, undoubtedly broken. But it was his eyes that conveyed my worst fear; discovery.
He knew Sebastian was different . He knew that the blood that pumped through his veins was something else. Maybe he didn’t know exactly what he was. But he knew enough to falter. To reassess his chances of winning. Which in all honesty, was non-existent.
Maalikai didn’t panic.
He smiled.
That same wicked, taunting smirk I’d seen so many times before. Only this time, it wasn’t flirtation. It was a dare.
Sebastian’s grip tightened. His eyes now full crimson.
“Maalikai!” I reached for him.
As if to prove a point, Sebastian slammed him against the wall, the sound cracking through the air.
But it was Maalikai’s eyes that chilled me.
Not pain. Not fear.
A predator’s recognition.
Maalikai’s eyes locked on Sebastian, and the world tilted.
It wasn’t just a look.
It was a shift—sharp, sudden, and seismic. Like something ancient had just woken up behind his gaze.
Not recognition— revelation .
The kind that changes everything without a single word.
His posture went still. Not the kind of stillness that came with calm, but the kind that came before a storm—coiled, breathless, waiting. His jaw tensed. His fingers flexed once at his sides, like they ached for a weapon, or maybe just something solid to hold onto.
In that moment I knew without question–he’d pieced it together. Worked out exactly what Sebastian was. Knew it with a conviction sharp enough to condemn him, if he choose to use it.
Sebastian wasn’t just a golden boy with a sharp tongue. He was something else. Something darker. Something lethal. Like a beast of forgotten legends, carved from midnight itself, stalking through silence and shadow with a quiet hunger.
Something passed between them in that moment—something I didn’t understand.
But Maalikai’s expression, usually carved from ice, flickered. Wariness. Shock. Maybe even... respect?
Then it was gone, shuttered in a blink, but it left the air charged—like the seconds before a lightning strike.
And Sebastian? He didn’t flinch.
He just met Maalikai’s stare with one of his own—steady, unbothered, like whatever Maalikai had seen... he’d expected him to see it eventually. And I was left between them, watching two storms size each other up.
“I know what you are.” Maalikai said, voice low.
“I think you’re in desperate need of a healer,” Sebastian drawled, voice dipped in something toxic–not just poisoness, but eviscerating. “Why don’t you be good little boy and crawl to Aribelle.” His voice wasn’t just cruel. It was calculated. Cold. Precise.
It wasn’t the voice of the boy I knew. It was the voice of a stranger. A stark, shattering contrast to the boy I loved.
“Let him go.” Sebastian faltered at the sound of my voice, yet his eyes refused to yield.
I took a step forward, claiming his gaze so he had to look at me. Really look at me. One heartbeat stuttered by, then another. His eyes darkened but he caved, tossing Maalikai aside like discarded rubbish.
I stepped forward, instinctively placing myself between them, trying to shield Sebastian’s body with mine.
At this point I wasn’t even sure who I was protecting.
“Maalikai, leave.”
His gaze snapped to mine–fierce, wounded. “What?”
“He’s not your concern.”
“He’s not yours either,” Maalikai growled.
My gaze faltered, before caressing his storm-cloud gray eyes. “He will always be my concern.”
Maalikai’s face broke. Just for a second. Just enough to ruin me.
“You’re choosing him?” The quiet, broken, tenor in his voice was my undoing. I chose to ignore it, because if I didn’t, I knew it would unravel me completely.
“No. I’m choosing both of you to survive the night.” My voice trembled. But my eyes did not. “So yes. You will leave.”
“Princess—”
I couldn't. I was already breaking, already fighting so hard to save both. “Maalikai, please.” My voice broke on the words.
Maalikai didn’t fight. He just glanced over my shoulder—at Sebastian. A question in his eyes.
“What if he hurts you?”
My heart twisted, aching with he cruel truth–he was still protecting me, even as I forced him from my side. “He would never hurt me.”
“ Emylia …”
I didn’t let him finish. I guided him to the door, my eyes betraying how much this hurt me. “I’m not choosing him,” I repeated, though even I heard the uncertainty in my voice.
His jaw flexed. His broken arm hung limply at his side. And still… he looked at me like I was his undoing–the one that shattered whatever pieces he had left. Like I’d carved the pain into him myself. Slow. Deliberate. Unforgivable.
“You’re not choosing him,” he said quietly. “You’re just not choosing me either.”
I couldn’t answer.
I didn’t know how.
He didn't fight. He just looked at Sebastian, eyes burning with something I didn’t want to name. Then he turned to leave. But before the door shut behind him, he glanced over his shoulder–held Sebastian’s gaze, one last time, letting it linger like an unspoken threat.
“Just remember whose name she was screaming… before you tried to lay claim to something she’d given freely. To me.”
Then he was gone.
The door clicked shut with a finality that shook me to my core. Heart pounding, I turned–tears spilling down my cheeks.
Silence hung like something shattered. The echo of Maalikai’s last words still claimed the air between us, clashing with the storm still brewing in Sebastian’s eyes. And I stood in the wreckage of both, caught between two ruins I’d set ablaze with my own damn hands–smoke still curling from the flint I’d struck.
Sebastian turned his back to me, fists clenched, shoulders rising and falling like he was fighting a silent war, and losing.
“Bastian—”
He didn’t move.
I stepped forward, carefully. “Please… let me explain.”
He laughed once. But it was hollow. Shattered. “I think I got the picture.”
“No, you don’t,” I said, stepping closer. “It wasn’t like that. Not—” I stopped.
What was I even saying?
It was like that.
“You didn’t sleep with him?” His voice was quiet. Dangerous.
“No. But we…” My throat burned. There was no way I could finish that sentence. “I didn’t mean to hurt you.”
He finally turned—and it destroyed me.
Because he didn’t look angry. He looked broken.
“But you did,” he said softly.
I couldn’t breathe. I stood there, trembling.
A killer. A monster. A girl caught between two storms.
And still—he stepped forward. Brushed a thumb along my jaw like my soul hadn’t been stained with blood and guilt and ash.
“But I still want to be the one you fall apart with.” I bit my lip, but it didn’t stop the sob from escaping. “I still see you,” he whispered. “Even like this.”
He dropped his head to mine, his forehead resting against me, like he was trying to absorb all the pieces of me before I shattered again. “You don’t have to explain,” he murmured. “I don’t want to hear it right now.”
“But—”
He rose to his full height, towering over me, the golden strands of his hair brushing the impossible length of his lashes. “I just needed to be the one who stayed.”
My heart cracked wide open.
Not from the fight. Not from the aftermath.
But from the way he looked at me—as if I was still worth holding.
I collapsed into him without a word. And he caught me without question. No demands. No conditions. Just arms that wrapped around every broken piece like they were still whole.
He didn’t try to fix me. He just let me break. And that—Gods—that undid me more than anything else ever could.
His breath stirred against my hair, steady, quiet, like the last thread keeping me tethered to a world already falling apart. And when I finally looked up at him—really looked—his eyes weren’t furious anymore.
They were wrecked.
Soft honey, tinged with ruin.
Then, without a word, he kissed me.
No pretense.
No hesitation.
It wasn’t just a kiss—it was heartbreak, stripped raw and trembling, a promise he didn’t dare say out loud. It was everything. It was too much. It was the kind of kiss that said I still want you—even if it destroys me.
When I kissed him back, it wasn’t clarity I found. It was him—flesh and flame and everything I could still feel when the rest of me had gone numb.
Fierce.
Familiar.
Forgiving.
Wrapped in silence and secrets and everything we didn't say because we knew it would break us. I melted into it like I was made for him. He held me like I was breakable, but kissed me like he knew I could shatter him too.
Eventually, when the world grew too quiet, he gathered me into his arms, lifting me like I was something fragile–something worth holding on to. Then he carried me to the bed, and climbed in beside me, pulling me close, like I was the only thing that could quiet the storm inside him.
His heart was a steady beat against my cheek, his hand tangled in my hair, wrapping around my heart and claiming every molecule in my body until he had completely claimed all of me.
Neither of us said anything. Neither of us needed to.
As darkness climbed closer to dusk I let myself fall asleep next to the boy I’d always known.
The boy who’d held my heart in silence.
The boy I might still choose.
Even if I didn’t know how I could ever choose between them.