Chapter 17
Seventeen
Isabella
I stumbled backward with the hard way we faded into his home. I caught myself on the counter and looked up to see Sebastian stalking toward me. My stomach tightened with anticipation and already, the darkness started up again and hummed as he grew near.
It was getting a little out of control at this point. I couldn’t figure out why the darkness wanted more of his touch when it just gave everything to him instead of taking. At this rate, the darkness would give away my very soul for more of him.
I swayed—both literally and figuratively—for the man before me.
When he looked at me with those eyes, I felt like I was being stabbed.
With that mouth, I’d spend the rest of my life wanting to taste his lips again when this was all over.
And with his body, I’d wish I could forever use it over and over until the darkness burned away.
I knew that’d never happen. There was no escaping my darkness.
Good thing it liked the same Reaper I liked.
I opened my channel and studied his energy. It was still a huge storm inside him, but I could also see that the two energies within him that didn’t belong were burning quickly, but not fast enough.
Just when I thought he was going to devour me whole, his brothers faded behind him. August injected Sebastian in the neck with some sort of syringe and he sagged forward. I reached out for him, but Barron pulled him back.
“You didn’t have to do that,” I told them.
“You said he absorbed my sin,” this was the first time Barron was talking to me directly. “I’ve lived with this sin my entire life, even a little can take you over the edge too far.” The truth and pain in his eyes held my tongue.
August helped Barron carry Sebastian to the bedroom. Minutes later, they returned to the kitchen where I still gripped the counter with white knuckles. Truthfully, I had wanted Sebastian to come for me. I didn’t mind the first time it happened, and I didn’t mind it the second.
And I didn’t miss the haunting mood that hit my stomach—unsettling me and rattling the darkness into restlessness—now that he was unconscious.
Did it want Sebastian? Or was it because there was so much power for the taking with three entities in the room with me? Or was it much worse? Did Julius come for me?
August studied me curiously before rubbing his forehead and sighing. “I hate it when he’s right,” he muttered, and there I was again not having a clue what he was talking about. “Seems Harvest has something to do with this after all. Not only that, he seems to want you and all of us.”
Oh, that.
“Do you know what he’s doing?” Barron asked. He had a giant scowl on his face as he stared at me. Considering he was a raging skeleton earlier, I assumed his curse was the sin of wrath, so I wasn’t going to take it too personal that he looked as if he wanted to squash me like a fly.
“He’s obsessed with his creator,” I told them.
“The Devil?” August asked.
I nodded as Barron crossed his arms over his chest. “Yeah, from what I can remember, he always talked about overthrowing him.”
“Fucking hell,” August groaned. “Why is the Underworld full of power hungry fools?”
“Says the sleazy businessman,” Barron cast his brother a dark look.
“Like I’d want to spend my time doing whatever it is the Devil does.” August arched an eyebrow toward his brother. “Besides, the Devil may be king down here, but I own most of the businesses. I can have anything I want, whoever I want. Why would I want his dark crown?”
Barron’s jaw rolled with tension. “Are you sure that moment won’t ever come? That you won’t ever want it?”
Something passed between their glares, something left unsaid yet understood—an unspoken fear, possibly?
Whatever it was, it was over before I had a chance to decipher their intensity.
August broke it with a chuckle that was slightly odd and forced, like it wasn’t really a laugh after all.
“I’m not there, Barron…” August murmured, proving I was missing a part of the story.
Facing me, August asked, “Do you need us to stay here with you until Sebastian wakes up?” I shook my head, and he sighed in relief.
“Thank fuck, I got demons with debts owed, and valuables and women due as payment.” August placed his hand on Barron’s shoulder.
“You can let Payne know when you see him.”
August faded, and without a word, Barron faded a second later leaving me alone with a sleeping Reaper in another room that I wished was awake.
I pushed off the counter when I felt something move across my neck. I turned quickly and looked around. There was nothing, but I had a feeling of dread. Was the air changing? Did it feel colder?
The darkness stirred, coming to life in my chest before overtaking my body.
He’s here.
I stepped through the kitchen, holding my breath and counting hopes. I hoped there would come a day when I no longer feared Julius. I hoped for nights where I dreamed of sunshine instead of darkness. I hoped for the kiss of someone I loved, and the taste of him on my lips.
His deceptive voice found me. “I need you to touch them.” Julius was here, but he wasn’t. I realized it was more like he was inside me once more, underneath my skin.
The fear of losing myself kept me afloat inside my own mind. The darkness caved to the brilliance of his deceit, and it was the darkness and him that tried to pull me under them both. Then my mind strayed back to...
Hope.
I knew there was such a thing. He stood over six-feet-tall, rippling with power. He moved with purpose, protruding muscles, and a body so perfectly sculpted it made one want to cry along with a smile that took me under and lifted me up.
Real.
This feeling was real.
What Julius pushed me into, the sick trance he held me under was all fake. He wasn’t here.
“It’s pointless to run to him, he can’t keep you away from me for much longer.”
His words inside my head only made me run harder through the hallway. The fact that Julius seemed almost desperate to keep me away from Sebastian meant something.
I threw open the door. His brothers left him on top of the covers. He looked peaceful, but I climbed over him in a rush and ruined that rather quickly.
Dark laughter filled my head. “He only makes me go away for a little while.”
I gripped his cheeks and touched his neck. Some kind of empowerment came over me as Sebastian came to life at my touch, rising quickly. I grabbed his shoulder and looked into his energies and as I did, I saw that greed and wrath still swirled inside him just as he ripped my shirt down the middle.
In his wake, Julius’s voice died inside my head and my darkness purred a new song for this man instead.
In a moment of clarity, I wished Sebastian wasn’t under the influence of his brother’s sins.
I wanted a moment where it was just me and him instead of his wrangling the force of three curses.
Within the confines of Sebastian’s new rough touch—spurred by wrath and greed—that I discovered something else.
Sebastian said I was his energizer, but he was every bit the haven I so desperately needed.
I gasped as Sebastian’s head dipped between my breasts. Using one hand, he unhooked my bra while the other squeezed a boob. His teeth met the nipple of my other. “He was inside my mind,” I panted, overcome with lust and vulnerability. “He doesn’t like you touching me.”
His head lifted from my nipple, and his lust-filled eyes transformed into rage at the mention of Julius. “He can get inside you like that?”
I flushed with mortification. “This is the first time, or at least I don’t remember if he did when I was with him.
” There was so much I probably didn’t remember and most nights I begged for all the memories to leave me instead of it coming back like they did.
My hand moved to cup his cheek, but I hesitated.
“For some reason, he wants your sins. You shouldn’t keep me here.
How else will he take them if not by me? ”
“How else would you escape the hold he has over you if you leave and no longer have me to touch?” Sebastian asked, holding my gaze.
I swallowed and looked down, trying to wedge our bodies apart.
Suddenly, the reason I came running in this room to touch him, became the reason I wanted to push him away.
“That is not a good cause for any of this,” I did a sweep over his body with my heated stare, “and it’s not a good purpose for me to stay. ”
His jaw hardened, his eyes flickering from blue to black. “It is. It’s just not the one you want it to be, nor is it why you ever stayed here to begin with.”
The truth heated my skin. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
He grabbed my wrists and pulled me in when he saw I was trying to climb off his lap. I peeked into his energies again and saw the last bit of wrath and greed’s sins die out. “Why is it so hard to accept you’re just as drawn to me as I am to you?”
“Let go of me.” My flight response kicked into overdrive at his question.
He let go, only to cup my fingers in his hands, bringing them up to his cheek.
“Your touch might put the fire in my veins,” he moved his free hand to my chest, “but it’s your soul which has been tainted by darkness that fights a fight no one should be able to win within itself that calls to me, Isabella.
I yearn to see more of your spirit, which is so much like mine.
We fight a battle within ourself every day that we aren’t expected to win. ”
My eyes were misty with unshed tears. I didn’t dare blink, nor did I trust myself to say anything. It was like he created a dam inside my heart with his words and his eyes as they looked into mine. His everything called to me in a terrifying way.
In my silence, he whispered. “The last bit of their sins have left me.”
I finally blinked and nodded, looking into his energies to see for myself. “I know. I don’t see their energies inside you.”
He let out a ragged breath. “If you know, then what am I waiting for?”