Chapter 24
Sebastian studies me with concern. “That was a lot. How are you doing?”
My fingers play with the hem of my hoodie, tugging at a loose thread. “Do you always plan murders over breakfast, or was it a special occasion for my benefit?”
Sebastian winces, the reaction subtle but unmistakable.
“We’ve been discussing the situation since I found out about your stalker.
Gabriel and Ezra drove up to the manor today for this meeting.
Adding you and Saint was an unexpected variable, and we should have put this off until I could prepare you. ”
“Prepare me?” The thread snaps between my fingers. “For what exactly? Finding out my Alpha’s family discusses killing people the same way I plan what movie to watch on Friday night?”
His hand passes over his face, rubbing at the tension between his eyebrows. “It’s not that simple.”
“It seemed pretty simple from where I was sitting.” The words come out sharper than I intend.
Sebastian raises his hands slowly, as if soothing a spooked animal. “Micah, I don’t expect you to be comfortable with this overnight. Or ever, really. But what my family does…” He pauses, searching for words. “We protect our own. By any means necessary.”
“And now I’m one of ‘your own’?” My hand rises to the Mark on my neck, the skin still sensitive beneath my fingertips.
“Yes.” The single word is a declaration and a promise rolled into one. “That’s what the Mark means to them.”
My chest stings. “And to you?”
“I want you to be, but I never meant to force it. I should have…” He hangs his head.
“I’ve fucked this up, Micah, and I’m so sorry for that.
If I’d been a better Alpha, if I’d been able to stop myself from Marking you…
I left to put distance between us, to give you a chance to let the Mark fade.
I was going to handle Travis while you recovered.
We can still change tactics. You don’t have to be involved. ”
He reaches out to cup my elbow, and I find myself unable to resist when he tugs me forward. “But leaving stopped being an option when you walked through our front door. I’m sorry it happened this way, and I will do everything in my power to make it up to you.”
That should freak me out, but instead, it eases the tension from my shoulders.
Whatever my doubts about whether I can fit in here, Sebastian is firm about keeping me as his mate.
And he’s not demanding I embrace their world right away.
The understanding in his expression offers a lifeline in waters too deep for comfort.
At my silence, Sebastian releases me and turns toward the door. “You need time to process. I’ll have someone show you to—”
“What happens if I become a liability?” The question bursts from me.
Sebastian freezes mid-step, his back to me. “What?”
“Or Saint?” I push past the fear trying to choke me. “What happens if we know too much? If we threaten your family’s security? Do we disappear like the enemies you neutralize?”
Sebastian turns back, his expression shifting from surprise to wounded. “Is that what you think of me? Do you believe I’d hurt you? Or allow my family to?”
“I’m not sure what to think anymore.” My hands tremble, and I shove them into my pockets. “Two hours ago, I thought I knew you. Now, I’m not sure.”
Sebastian crosses the room in three long strides and drops to his knees before me, his broad hands coming to rest on my thighs.
“Listen to me, Micah.” His palms warm me through the denim of my jeans. “No one in this house will ever harm you or Saint. Not while I draw breath.”
“But your family—”
“My family understands boundaries.” He squeezes my legs, grounding me to the moment. “We may operate outside conventional morality, but we have a code. And that code includes protecting those who belong to us.”
The word ‘belong’ still catches in my chest, a hook I can’t dislodge. “And if your family changes their minds someday? If I become an inconvenience?”
Sebastian’s face hardens, determination carving lines around his mouth.
“Then they would have to go through me first.” His hands slide up to cradle mine, pulling them from my pockets to hold between us.
“I’ve spent my life in service to my family name, protecting and advancing it. Living by its rules.”
His thumb traces circles on my palm. “But I’m not bound to it above all else.”
Doubt must still show in my expression because Sebastian continues. “I realize our relationship began as transactional, but our evening conversations took away my loneliness. You made me believe I was cared for and seen. You gave me confidence in myself I hadn’t known in years.”
Heat rises to my face at the memory of our early conversations, the careful way we circled each other online, the gradual building of trust where I let the clock run out, where I felt comfortable enough to ask him to talk to me until I fell asleep.
He wasn’t the only one who benefited from our relationship, nor the only one who felt less alone.
“If I ever have to choose between my family’s power and you,” Sebastian says, each word deliberate, “I’ll choose you.”
My breath catches at his raw sincerity, and I search his face for any hint of deception, but find only unflinching certainty.
“I believe you.” My fingers find Sebastian’s hair before I realize I’ve moved, the short strands both coarse and soft, just like the man before me.
His eyes close at my touch, tension melting from his body as I trace the contours of his scalp.
“You scared me,” I whisper, my palm coming to rest on his cheek, thumb brushing the raised edge of a scar. “Not with your family’s power, but by how much of yourself you’ve kept hidden.”
Sebastian turns his face into my touch, his breath a warm caress on my wrist. Then he rises from his kneeling position in one fluid motion. “Some truths are easier to show than tell.”
The air between us shifts, charged with an electric awareness. His hands find my waist, light enough to allow me to step away if I want. But I don’t. Despite everything I’ve learned today, or perhaps because of it, I need the connection.
I lift my face to his, and Sebastian reads the invitation in my eyes.
His head dips, and when our lips meet, the kiss is nothing like our previous, desperate encounters.
No fever of Heat driving us together, no panic of reconciliation after days apart.
This is a slow, deliberate reaffirmation that we choose each other.
His mouth moves over mine with careful restraint, tasting rather than devouring.
My hands slide up his chest to loop around his neck, anchoring myself to him as the world steadies beneath my feet.
The subtle flavor of coffee still lingers on his tongue, familiar amid the strangeness of everything else.
I melt into him, my body conforming to his solid warmth. His heartbeat pulses beneath my palm where it rests over his shirt, the rhythm strong and certain.
When we separate, Sebastian rests his forehead on mine, our breath mingling in the small space between us.
“My real fear isn’t what your family might do to others,” I confess, the words escaping on an exhale. “It’s the fear that I don’t fit in here. I knew you came from money, but being here has shoved home how far out of my depth I am.”
Sebastian’s hands slide to frame my face, his callused thumbs resting at the corners of my mouth.
“I won’t deny that money makes things easier, but the Rockfords aren’t a monolith, Micah.
We share blood and resources, but each of us navigates our reality differently.
Ezra has a gallery he lives above, Leo works in data entry, and Phoenix volunteers at the Omega Youth Center.
For me, the security room I showed you yesterday was my entire world until I met you. ”
His words sink in, offering possibilities I hadn’t considered. The Rockfords might present a united front to the world, but within their ranks, diversity exists. Ways to belong without surrendering individuality. Ways to accept protection without becoming a mirror of those who provide it.
“There’s more you need to understand,” Sebastian continues, stepping back to take my hand. “About my family, our past, and why we fight the way we do.” His fingers interlace with mine, the gesture more intimate than our kiss. “Come with me?”
“Yes."
Sebastian leads me from the war room, away from glowing monitors and Travis’s pixelated face. The door closes behind us, sealing away the morning’s uglier revelations.
The manor unfolds around us, corridors branching through the house.
We pass gilt-framed portraits of stern-faced ancestors, their eyes following our progress.
Antique furniture gleams with the dull luster of frequent polishing, each piece worth more than everything I own.
Crystal chandeliers cast rainbows on walls covered in silk damask, the colors dancing as we move beneath them.
We climb a curved staircase, the wood beneath our feet polished by generations of footsteps before ours.
Sunlight streams through tall windows at the landing, warming the air and casting long shadows across the plush carpet runner.
Sebastian pauses at a set of French doors, glass panels revealing a stone balcony beyond.
He turns the brass handles, pushing the doors open, and the late morning air hits me with an unexpected chill. Before us, the Rockford estate unfolds like its own miniature kingdom, with manicured gardens giving way to wilder woodland, a private lake gleaming copper in the fading light.
Beyond the property’s boundaries, the city rises in the distance. So close, but so distant from this world I stand in now.