28. Chapter 28
28
Chapter 28
Violet
When my eyesight came back, Calum and Nathara were lying in my bed under a blanket, both panting.
Calum’s eyes were filled with sorrow as he stared at me.
“Do you get it now, Violet?” Nathara asked as she sat up. “You are nothing.”
I glanced between the two of them and nodded, feeling numb.
“Never forget what you saw. Next time, as his wife, I won’t be so kind with you,” she said.
I couldn’t look at Calum again before I turned around left. I know we weren’t home, and he had no authority here, but how could he allow that to happen?
I had to get far away from there and find some way to take my mind off of what just happened. The reality of it hurt too much.
I slammed shut the door to my room and leaned against it with my back. I didn’t even want to go back into my room after they left. What had become my safe haven had now been destroyed.
Holding my eyes shut, I tried to picture the swimming hole Sebastian was telling me about moments before. Far away from the nightmare I was living.
“Let’s go.”
My eyes shot open to see Sebastian standing in front of me. I knew he could transfer, but he was just at his spot, swimming, and now he was standing in front of me, completely dressed and completely dry.
“Go where?” I asked, standing up straight. I really didn’t care. He could take me to a fiery pit right now, and I would willingly go because anywhere sounded better than where I was right now.
He grinned as he looped his arm around my waist.
The next moment we were standing in front of a body of water the size of a small pond, but nothing like anything I’d seen in the Mountain Realm. It was the brightest blue and looked like it glowed.
“Your wish is my command,” Sebastian said as he winked at me.
“Your . . . your secret spot.”
“ Our secret spot now,” he said as he grinned before pulling his white shirt over his head.
I watched as he walked towards the water, his muscles in his back flexing with every step he took.
Before I realized what he was doing, he pulled his pants down and stepped out of them. I quickly glanced away when I caught a glimpse of his bare butt.
Of course, he swims naked.
“Sorry, love. I didn’t have time to grab you a swimsuit.”
My cheeks reddened, and I realized that I hadn’t put my walls back up after letting him in. I closed my eyes and quickly put them back up. I looked back at him to see he was wading in the water.
Any other time I would have objected and started walking back to the castle, even though I had no idea where we were or how far away we were, but I needed a distraction.
“Turn around,” I said.
“Even if I turn around, I can still see you through my shadows, you know,” he said, winking at me.
“Well tell your shadows to turn around too!” I demanded as I crossed my arms and glared at him.
He let out a laugh before he turned to face the other direction.
I let my dress fall to the ground, pulled off my undergarments and quickly got in before he had the chance to turn around.
“What is this?” I asked as he turned to face me.
“It’s a starlight lagoon. There are a few in the Night Realm, and they used to serve a purpose more than they do now. Centuries ago, when darkness covered the realm, faeries would bottle up the water and use it to see. Now that there is light in the sky, they don’t serve a purpose, so they usually go untouched. Except for the occasional swim, of course.”
I looked at the sky to see it covered in stars. I had gotten used to it since my time here, but it was odd to think about considering the Night Realm was known for total blackness. No sun, no moon, no stars. At least, that’s what I had read in my books, but I was sure most of the books in our library were out of date when it came to information about other realms.
I looked down from the sky to see Sebastian’s eyes locked on me. Those blue eyes.
I was swimming in the most vibrant blue I had ever seen, what most would call the most beautiful blue, but nothing compared to his eyes.
The light from the water reflected on his eyes and made me feel like he was staring straight into my soul.
We swam in a circle just staring at each other, never faltering in our gaze.
I wasn’t sure who would break the silence first until he asked me something I never thought he would say. “Why haven’t you asked me to end the engagement?”
“What?” I asked. I wasn’t sure why he would bring up something that would remind me of the torture I just went through, or why he would have even thought about something like that in the first place.
“You know I have the ability to end this and send you and Calum home and yet you haven’t asked me to,” he explained.
I had thought about it quite often actually. That there was a chance that Sebastian would end the engagement for me because for some reason he had a sweet spot for me. But every time I thought about asking, I couldn’t do it. Because if he did end it, I would lose my freedom and the moments like this that I had with him. And I wasn’t ready to let go of that just yet.
“I didn’t think you would do that for me,” I lied.
“If you can tell me that you know without a doubt that you want to spend eternity with him, and you believe no one could ever make you happier than him, then just say it and I’ll end the engagement. But if there is even an ounce of doubt in you or a small part that feels anything for me , then I will fight until the last second to make you see what I see and feel what I feel.”
His response had left me speechless. All of this time I had downplayed the looks, his actions, and his endless flirting as nothing more than a fascination. That I was something new for him to toy with to let the time pass by, but his confession turned that into so much more. He had feelings for me, and I, well, I was falling for him. Even if I had denied myself that confession for so long.
“Sebastian,” I said, even though I feared the next words to come out of my mouth.
“Say it,” he said with such hunger in his eyes as he swam closer to me. Like he knew what I was thinking but needed me to admit it to him. To make it real.
“I—” I tried to say something. Anything. But I couldn’t.
He leaned in so there was little room between our lips.
“Tell me to stop. Tell me this isn’t what you want. And I’ll stop.”
I should’ve said stop, I should’ve gotten out the pool and run back to the castle, wherever it was, and finally put an end to this game we had been playing.
But I didn’t want to.
He took my silence and my glance down to his lips as an invitation. He kissed me softly before pulling away to gauge my reaction, but before he could say anything, I grabbed him and our lips came crashing together.
The touch of his lips left me aching for more, and I didn’t want to waste a second of missing his touch. One small kiss had set my body on fire.
He reached down and grabbed my legs to wrap them around his waist. The cool touch of his body on mine reminded me that we were both naked with nothing between our bodies. I pushed my hands into his hair as he kept one hand on my thigh and brought up the other to hold the back of my neck.
There was so much passion in his kiss, like he had been wanting to do this for so long. It escalated quicker than I could wrap my head around it.
His hand on my thigh started inching farther up, and I began to ache between my legs. I brought one hand down onto his chest, feeling the tight muscles underneath. My body was begging my mind to let go.
To give in to him.
I knew if we went any further that there would be no stopping. No turning back.
I didn’t want to stop. I wanted it all.
But I had to stop.
“Stop,” I whispered.
“What?” he said as he pulled his lips from mine and locked eyes with me.
“I-I can’t do this to Calum,” I said as I unwrapped my legs and swam away to get some distance between us.
His eyes darkened at the sound of his name. “You’re still worried about Calum? After all he’s done to you? After you had to be in the room while he fucked his fiancée?”
“He did that to protect me,” I mumbled.
“Oh, so that’s what he’s doing at his very moment? Round two to protect you?”
I scrunched my eyebrows at what he had said. How could he say something so cruel to me? Was it true?
It couldn’t be.
Calum wouldn’t do that to me.
He had such hunger in his eyes for me that it seemed like my rejection made him want to say anything to hurt me.
Like I had just hurt him.
“Fuck you, Sebastian,” I said as I pushed past him and made my way to the shore to find my clothes.
I felt the tears well in my eyes as I got out of the water and walked to where I had dropped my dress.
“Wait, I’m sorry,” Sebastian said from the water. “I didn’t me—”
The next moment he was in between me and my clothes. He had transferred and managed to get completely dressed and dry in the time it took me to get out of the water.
“Do you know there is a glamour on your back?”
His question and look of concern on his face, such a change from the look he was giving me moments ago, had caught me off guard so much that I had forgotten how mad I should’ve been at him.
“What are you talking about?” I asked.
He spun me around and placed his cool hand on my back. I turned my head as far as I could to see his shadows covering my back. A faint pulling sensation brought tingles to my back. They were removing the spell that I had no idea someone had put there.
The shadows retreated back into Sebastian’s hand just as he said, “What the fuck.”
“What? What’s wrong?”
I turned back around to see his dusty-blue eyes were completely black, and the sky was darker than it was moments ago. The starlight was gone.
“There . . . there are scars all over your back,” he said as he seemed to stare through me.
“Scars? How are there scars on my back?” I asked.
“Did Calum do this to you?” Shadows began radiating from Sebastian.
“No! Of course not!”
“Then who did this to you?” he asked as the shadows continued to spread farther from him.
“I . . .” I realized then that I had no idea when it even happened. “I don’t remember.”
“If you don’t tell me who did this, I will kill everyone in the fucking Mountain Realm so I will know they are dead,” he yelled, anger seething in his words, and I knew he wasn’t bluffing.
“I don’t know who did this. I don’t even remember it happening.”
Sebastian grabbed my head with both of his hands and said, “Drop your walls.”
I let him in without a second thought and waited as he searched my mind for the thing I couldn’t remember.
“There’s a spell in your mind. It’s altering your memories.”
“Well, get rid of it!” I said.
“It’s going to hurt.”
“I don’t care. I have to know what happened.” I wrapped my arms around my body, realizing that I was still naked. I felt so vulnerable in this moment.
Sebastian was still in my mind, and he heard what I was thinking. He placed his hand on my shoulder and suddenly my dress was back on, and I was completely dry.
He closed his eyes and took several deep breaths. When he opened his eyes, they were back to blue, not the usual dusty blue, but a dark blue and the stars were back in the sky. He knew I was scared, and he was trying to keep his composure.
He placed his hands back on my head and looked into my eyes. “I’m sorry, love.”
“Wh—” I heard the loudest shrill inside my mind and a sharp stabbing pain radiated through my head. It was like he was standing in my mind and with a dagger was tearing through the spell that was blocking the memory of what happened to me.
I screamed out in pain as the stabbing continued, but the pain of that was nothing compared to the pain of the truth.
I remembered what really happened.
Removing the spell took me back to the weeks after Calum left the Mountain Realm.