Chapter 2
Here we are again, facing each other as the air around us vibrates with unspoken things.
Explanations.
Questions.
Accusations.
Apologies.
“I’m sorry,” I choke out, clutching my chest. “You must be so angry.”
“I’m not angry with you.”
“You don’t need to sugarcoat it for my sake.”
“I mean it. I’m pissed, but not at you.”
“If not me, then who? Oliver?”
He shakes his head. “I’m pissed because everything’s changed.”
“Nothing’s changed. Not for me. You’re here…you’re alive.”
“And it’s not just Liam anymore, is it?”
Silence constricts the air, heavy with the kind of disquiet that forces honesty, because those words carry a weight I’m not ready to bear.
“I’m sorry,” I repeat, though the apology rings hollow.
In the next instant, he crosses the room to kneel at my feet, and I can’t bring myself to face him when he’s this close—not with those sea-blue eyes cataloging every jagged piece of me.
“What are you apologizing for, Novalee?”
The absence of “princess” or “baby” shoots through my veins, chilling me from the inside out. I just got him back, and for him to see me with Oliver like that, not even ten minutes into a reunion I’d accepted was impossible…
“I’m sorry you had to see that.” I swallow down the bitter rise of bile. “I regret every second of it.”
He thumbs away a tear from my cheekbone. “There’s no need for regrets.”
“Regrets are all I have.”
The last several weeks play through my mind in reverse, each moment flashing with vivid clarity.
Oliver standing in my doorway, a nightly silhouette, our connection built on shared tragedy and need.
Liam taking me in his bed, his claim on my body the linchpin that broke me down so he could put me together again.
The cliff.
A sob breaks free. “You were gone!”
“I know.” He folds his hands around mine. “Whatever happened while I was gone is not your fault. You have to know that.”
“I tried to jump.”
He stiffens, and several suffocating beats pass as his complexion turns to ash. “What do you mean, you tried to jump?”
“Off the cliff. If Liam hadn’t pulled me back, I wouldn’t be here right now.”
“Novalee—” His voice cracks on my name, and I can do nothing but watch as he struggles to speak. “I’m…God, I’m so fucking sorry.”
“For what? Coming back to me? Look what you came back to.” I search his eyes, bracing for judgment, but only find tears of grief escaping.
He wipes them away. “I came back for you.”
“Sebastian…” I place my palm over his heart, staggered by the miracle in front of me. “How are you here?”
“It wasn’t easy. I would have gotten to you sooner if I could.”
“Why couldn’t you?” Our eyes hold as I thread my fingers through his dark hair.
“It wasn’t safe.” With a sigh, he leans into my touch, and his strands slip through my fingers like silk. “Getting to you was risky, but I had to see you.”
“What happened on that plane?”
“We were sabotaged.”
My heart drops, the implications icing my blood. “Someone tried to kill you.”
“They almost succeeded. If Tatum and I hadn’t bailed out at the last second…”
“Who did this?”
“That’s what we’re trying to figure out. Until we know for sure, it’s better that we stay dead. No one can know.”
A shudder racks me to the bone. So many times, I begged the universe to bring him back, despite knowing it was impossible. But now he’s here…
And we still can’t be together.
“I can’t go back without you.” I prepare myself for the objection I know is coming.
“You have to.”
“You can’t walk back into my life and leave me again.” More tears sting before I can brush them away.
“Novalee—”
“No!” My voice rises. “Take me with you.”
“I can’t.”
“Sebastian, please—”
“Baby, I can’t.”
“Why?” I think of the cliff, the memorial, the nights spent edging toward oblivion just to feel something other than his absence.
Hysteria has me in a death grip.
“I’m not going back without you!”
He slaps a palm over my mouth. “The guard will hear you.”
I force myself still, though my lungs burn with the effort. Slowly, he drops his hand, and I hold his gaze, searching for a crack in his resolve.
I find none.
“If you don’t go home with Oliver, we’ll spend the rest of our lives running. The Brotherhood won’t stop until they find us. Liam won’t stop.”
“I don’t care.”
“Listen to me.” He takes me by the shoulders. “Before the crash, Ivermann was desperate.”
Just the mention of Axel sends a bolt of fear through me, as if my body still stores the night he almost…
I swallow hard, and the memory disappears. “What does that monster have to do with this?”
“He made claims that go to the top of the Brotherhood, people I’ve known my whole life. They might be compromised, Novalee.”
“What are you talking about? Who?”
“I can’t say yet. We’re close to getting answers, but I need time. I need you to trust me.”
“Of course I trust you, but how can I walk into that tower and pretend you’re still…gone?”
“Because you have to.”
“What if I can’t?”
“I know it won’t be easy, but can you honestly say you never want to see your brother or Elise again?” He pulls me in until our foreheads meet. “Because that’s the cost of running.”
I can’t object to his reasoning when, deep down, I know he’s right. Disappearing now would devastate Elise, especially with the pregnancy making her so vulnerable.
“And what about…?” Sebastian falters, hesitation strangling his question. “What about Liam?”
From across the ocean, the chancellor still stands between us whether I want him to or not.
“You’re all that matters. I choose you.”
“I know that, but I won’t let you live in hiding, giving up your career, your family, even Liam Castle.” His tone holds no jealousy, only a resigned understanding that cuts deeper than accusation.
“Give me a chance to fix this. If shit goes sideways, I promise I’ll come back for you, and we’ll run until we can’t run anymore.”
“How long?” I ask, defeated.
“I don’t know, but I swear, I’ll come back for you. I always will.”
The vow solidifies, but as much as I want to believe in its power, I know all too well how fate and the Brotherhood—and everything in between—tend to intervene. For weeks, I existed in a world without him, my mind ensnared in a reality where his touch was just a memory.
But now he’s here, pulling at me like gravity. A needy exhale slips from my lips, and his attention snags there before lowering to the curve of my throat. Immediately, the air shifts, becomes thick with the type of electrical charge that precedes a lightning strike.
His eyes return to mine.
I forget how to inhale.
He forgets to exhale.
“Sebastian—”
And just like that, his mouth crushes mine. Whatever I might have said melts into a moan as our tongues slide together, slick and desperate. Gripping me by the nape, he deepens the kiss, mastering the angle and depth, locking me in for what feels like an eternity before we come up for air.
“I missed you so fucking much,” he whispers, breaths ragged against my lips.
“I more than missed you.” I trail a finger along his scruffy jawline. “Part of me died with you.”
“I’m sorry I put you through that. I’ll spend the rest of my life making up for it.”
“It’s not your fault.”
“Doesn’t matter. I’m going to make up for it anyway.” His thumb skims the blanket’s edge, tracing the swell of my breast down to my navel. He parts the fabric, and it slips from my shoulders to the bed.
With an inviting arch of my spine, I lean back and plant my hands on the mattress. In the chilly room, my nipples tighten into hard buds, a visual temptation that calls to his mouth and fingers.
“Baby,” he groans, taking both peaks between his fingers. Pressure builds, ripping a breathless cry from me.
I part my legs, nerve endings lit, blood rushing hot, and the pinch increases to the edge of pleasure, threatening to tip into the sweetest kind of pain.
“God, princess…” His mouth drifts down my throat, the scruff on his jaw scraping over flushed skin. “I live for the taste of you.” As he sucks my nipple between his teeth, biting hard enough to make my pussy clench, a whimper escapes me.
He lets out a low groan that thrums against my ribcage, and molten electricity jolts down my spine, heightening the sensation tenfold.
But it’s still not enough.
“I need more.” With a gasp, I push his hand between my legs.
And like a slingshot released, he wrenches away.
“We can’t do this,” he chokes out. “We have to stop.”
“No.” I catch him by the collar. “We have the whole night.”
“Time isn’t the problem. I don’t think I can control myself.”
“Then don’t. If I have to go back to that place without you, I don’t want to wait until our wedding night.”
“That’s crazy talk.” He shakes his head. “If you don’t bleed—”
“Blood can be faked.” I press a palm to his cheek, gripped by the fear that we might never get this chance again. “Our first time should be ours alone.”
Holding himself rigid, he hovers inches away, indecision carving into his features.
“Tell me you don’t want this,” I challenge, reaching for the front of his pants and stroking him through the snug fit of fine wool.
A ragged sound tears from his throat. “You know I do.”
“Then don’t make me beg. Take what’s yours.”
I hold my breath and wait.
I’ve been waiting all my life for this moment.
Sebastian surges to his feet and steps back, his expression a wall of stone, and I know he’s going to say it’s a reckless and insane idea.
My heart plummets, taking hope with it.
Until he sheds his jacket.
My eyes widen as he turns down the bed, every gesture carrying a ceremonial weight.
“If we do this,” he says, voice thick, “we can’t leave any blood behind.”
He arranges the pillows, smooths the sheets, then spreads his jacket across the center—a dark shield against the purest of white.
Facing me again, he jerks his bow tie loose before working the buttons, collar to navel, slipping them free, one by one. As he peels the shirt from his body, soft light bathes his skin, highlighting coiled muscles and a fresh scar slashing across his ribcage.
I run my fingers over the mottled skin. “What happened?”
“Got it after we bailed from the plane.”
“How?”
“Got thrown against the rocks when we washed ashore.”
My hand lowers to his belt buckle, even as my head’s conjuring images of the rough sea tossing him around. I hate that he had to go through that. “How bad was it?”
“Princess…you’re making it hard to think, let alone speak.”
“You don’t have to do either.” I shove his pants down, and as his cock springs free, I’m already hollowing out my mouth.
“Baby, wait—”
My tongue kills his protest, just like I meant for it to. Taking my time on the head, I gently suck, little more than a tease as I scrape my scarlet nails along the smooth ridges of his shaft.
He hisses in a breath, then lets it out in a curse.
Salt and need flood my senses. I drag my tongue over him one more time before inching down, my lips stretching to take in his girth.
“Fuck, Novalee—”
Spurred on by the gravel in his voice and the warm ache between my legs, I work him even deeper, toward the back of my throat, and gag, knowing exactly what that does to him.
Nothing holds me back—not fear, not uncertainty.
Just the drive to swallow him down.
I moan around his cock, my breaths coming shallow through my nose while his thrusts increase in force, same as the epithets he can’t bite back. With a grunt, he fists my hair, holding me in place.
Holding himself deep.
“You’ve got me so damn close.”
I peek up to find his head tilted back, neck straining, teeth clenched.
“Goddamn it.” He releases my hair and pulls free of my throat.
I blink up at him, my mouth agape, jarred by his quick withdrawal. “Why did you stop?”
“The elixir. It’s affecting your decisions.”
“I know what I want,” I say, fighting the tremor in my voice. “I’ve always known, so don’t use the elixir as an excuse.”
“It’s not an excuse.” He wipes at my damp lips, his thumb silencing any further objection as his breathing evens out. “It’s fucking risky.”
Driven by urgency, I rise to my feet and cradle his face, frustrated to tears.
Because he doesn’t understand, and I’m not sure how to put into words how much this means to me.
But I have to try.
“The night I tried to jump, I begged Liam to take my virginity.”
He searches my expression, as if trying to decode the impossible. “Why would you do that?”
“It felt like a burden. I thought you died protecting my virtue, so I resented it.” I slide my hands over his shoulders, trembling under the weight of the mistake I almost made that night. “I’m grateful Liam said no, because you’re here now, miraculously in front of me, and we deserve this.”
“The Brotherhood won’t see it that way.”
“Maybe it’s time they started seeing things differently.” I lift my chin, defiant and resolved. “A group of men made these ridiculous laws centuries ago. I refuse to let superstition rule me longer than it already has.”
“God, baby. You amaze me. Your conviction…your bravery.”
“I’m not brave, and conviction has nothing to do with it. We almost lost each other.” I curl my fingers around the hard length of him. “I want to be with you. Please don’t deny me this.”
In one swift motion, he scoops me up and lowers me onto the dark spread of his jacket.