Chapter 14
Sebastian stared at the beast of a man. He was taller than him by several inches, his hair dark and cut around his slightly pointed ears. His eyes were as dark as blood, peering into his soul as if he owned his entire being. He was wearing a suit of the deepest purple, so much so that it looked black in the right lighting. Sebastian could just tell this creature was dangerous. He felt stricken with fear, but compelled to hold eye contact. He assumed Gideon was taking advantage of his powers against him.
“Don’t be rude, my Leona flower. Aren’t you going to introduce me to your new… toy?”
Leona instinctively moved closer to Sebastian, standing slightly in front of him. “What the hell are you doing here?” she hissed.
“Well, Whitney had to come back for a party and Damien was so upset at her early departure. I wanted to see what sort of event was so important that it tugged her away from her mate. Dame has been pouting for the last six hours. He’ll be pleased to know that this was well worth the escape,” Gideon said smugly, his eyes moving to scan over the room. “Is this where you live now?”
“No,” Leona said. She didn’t want him anywhere near this home, these people. Sebastian. “You need to leave, Gideon. Right now.”
The man smirked and finally turned his attention to Sebastian. “Gideon Valdis.”
“I know who you are,” Sebastian ground out, his hand laced tightly with Leona’s. “And you were not invited.”
Gideon full-on bellowed at him, his hand moving over his chest. His pale fingers were topped with long, pointed nails. He was a vampire in every sense of the word. “Leona, sweetheart, this is so adorable. A human bodyguard. A bit of an oxymoron, but I’ll play along,” he said, then shifted his attention to Sebastian. He stepped close to him and in a flash, brought his hand up millimeters from his face.
Sebastian did not flinch.
Gideon raised an eyebrow and scoffed, before grabbing him. He nearly hoisted him up off the ground. “Still want to protect her now, human?”
“With my dying breath,” Sebastian ground out, glaring at him all the same. “I told you to leave. It would be in your best interest to do as I say.”
The tall vampire focused on Sebastian, holding his gaze as he regarded him carefully. Hungrily. Sebastian saw something flash in those red eyes of his. He almost wanted to say it was recognition, but that wouldn’t make any sense. Surely if Gideon already knew who he was, he wouldn’t be putting on a show like this, and he wouldn’t be allowing him to live any longer. Honestly, Sebastian was rather confused as to why he was letting him live at all. Though, Leona had said he liked to play with his food. Now he understood.
Gideon let go of him and grinned. “Leona, where do you find these men? This is the first one that actually has some nerve, I’ll give him that. Or perhaps he’s too stupid to understand what’s going on.”
“Gideon,” Piper said from behind him. “Leave Sebastian and Leona alone. If you came here to cause trouble, then you need to go. Nobody has bothered you. You’re the one who showed up unannounced,” she said firmly.
Gideon turned his head to look at her, then slowly released Sebastian. “Fine, fine… I was just having a little fun,” he laughed, putting his hands up. “Nobody can take a joke around here anymore. But if Leona wants to play with her food a little longer, that’s fine. I’m a patient man,” he said, eyeing Leona intensely. “You and I are going to need to have a talk though. It seems you’ve forgotten our understanding with each other. You should know better than to try and hide.”
Sebastian stood in front of Leona and squared up to him. “You don’t speak for her anymore. Say something else, I beg you.”
“You really are stupid, aren’t you?” Gideon cooed.
“Let’s find out,” he said, holding eye contact. “I will not ask you to leave again.”
“I could kill you here and now, boy. You wouldn’t even know what happened.”
“Here I stand. Give it your best shot.”
Gideon let out an amused breath and he looked over Sebastian’s shoulder to Leona. “I think I like him. Good choice.” He nudged Sebastian back with one finger, the strength causing the mortal man to stumble back into Leona. The woman steadied him and held him close against her chest.
“Enjoy your meal, flower,” Gideon said, his gaze locked on Leona like a lion stalking its prey. “I’ll come back for you later.”
In a moment, the space where he stood was empty. Whitney stood, horrified, from beside Piper. She hadn’t given any sort of information away to Damien, merely told him she had to go. He had accused her of cheating, to which she merely scoffed at and left. She should have known better than to think he would let it go. Why had she been so stupid? She had garnered Gideon’s attention through her idiotic boyfriend’s tantrum and now… now she was potentially the reason Leona got dragged back to England and Sebastian ended up a bloodied puddle on the floor.
“Clear the party,” Piper said. Charlotte, Victor, and Whitney were nearby, having watched the entire encounter unfold. “We need to talk now.”
“Turn us!” Victor said as they gathered in the kitchen of the manor. “There’s no time to waste. That prick is back and knows where we are. You need help. An army.”
“Nobody’s making an army,” Leona said, her head resting against her hand. She yearned for something as simple as a migraine at that moment. “Gideon is my problem. I knew I should have never come here.”
“Stop it,” Sebastian said. “Gideon is all of our problems now. You came here and that’s how it is. We need to figure out how to either hide you or fight him.”
“Perhaps Victor has a point, Leona,” Piper said. Whitney had been quiet thus far, the guilt of being what led Gideon to their gates eating her alive. “You and I both know that Gideon will stop at nothing until he has you under his thumb again. Sebastian might have squeaked by tonight sheerly by amusing him, but that will get old quickly. He needs protection, or else he’s going to suffer a fate far worse than death.”
“No,” Sebastian said whilst standing up. “I’m not going to be the reason you murder my friends.”
“It’s not up to you, Seb—” Charlotte started, but stopped when Sebastian lost his temper.
“NO!” he boomed, silencing the room. He seemed to gather himself and he took a deep breath, his chest heaving slightly. “No,” he said in a quieter voice. “I will not be the reason you die.”
“I can’t do this again. I don’t want to be here. I don’t want to talk about this,” Leona said, growing upset. The thought of losing Sebastian to something other than natural causes decades from now was too much to bear. She knew better than to run from Gideon. He would kill Sebastian purely to spite her and torture her, no matter if she ran into his arms freely at this very moment. It was too late for apologies. She would rather endure a hundred centuries in Gideon’s castle than sign Sebastian’s death warrant.
However, it looked like she already had.
“He has to have a weakness,” Sebastian said. “He has to.”
“He doesn’t,” Whitney said from the corner of the room.
“There’s a reason he’s been alive for millennia. Nobody has stood a chance. Damien is the only one who has ever come close. And…”
“And what?” Sebastian asked.
Whitney regarded him thoughtfully. “Nothing. I’m trying to say it’s pointless.”
“I don’t buy that,” he snapped. “At all. This is insanity,” he said. His heart had been racing at a dangerous level ever since that monster had snuck into their doors. He was scared. “How do you kill one of your kind? A normal vampire.”
“Fire is the most effective option. Destroying beyond recognition or reincarnation. From the few times I’ve done it, I’ve ripped the extremities off and burned everything I could until it was nothing but ash. It’s similar if we stay out in the sun for too long,” Whitney responded.
“Okay, so why don’t you just go rip him apart and throw him in a giant fire?” Sebastian asked whilst throwing his hands up.
“That’s easier said than done,” Piper scoffed. “You think it’s easy to kill a vampire? Especially him? We can’t just go up to him and rip an arm or two off. He has to be incapacitated first for us to even come close. Nobody’s gotten that far. Obviously.”
“I want to go home,” Leona said quietly. Sebastian came back to earth and looked at Leona. He’d never seen her this way before. She seemed so small.
“He doesn’t know where I live. Come with me,” Sebastian said.
Piper looked uneasy at that suggestion. “Regardless of her location, he can find her if he really wants to. Leona, you need to at least come with us so you can have some sort of protection. Perhaps we can call Damien and Theodore… see if they can distract him for a few more years. Enough for us to develop a plan.”
“All hell is going to break loose,” Whitney said with a frown. “The whole reason we’re in this situation is because of Damien anyway. He will not fight with us or against us. He will disappear like he always does when we need him most. Then he’ll turn up when the dust has settled. And Theo won’t fight Damien, so…”
“She’s coming home with me,” Sebastian said. “You can discuss your method of attack without us.”
Grabbing Leona’s hand, he led her out of the room and into the street. He would not let harm befall her.