Chapter 18
Staying away from them was difficult for him, but Leona kept him company. Piper and Whitney were too busy training their newborns. Leona was also staying around Sebastian for protection. He didn’t need to be left to be flanked by Gideon. Then again, he might not even come back until Sebastian had grey hair. He never operated on a timeline.
Leona watched Sebastian edit some pictures from his latest photoshoot. She had all but moved in with him, never wanting to be apart. She enjoyed learning things about his life: his work, his art, what he liked to do for fun. He had shown her some of his favorite restaurants and bars, and she had explained what those places used to be a hundred years ago.
“You have a great eye,” Leona complimented with a smile from the bed.
Sebastian glanced over his shoulder from his desk. “Thank you.” He turned back to his computer. It had been hard to act normal when he knew his friends were immortal by this point. It had been nearly two weeks since he’d seen them. Leona assured him that this was for the best, and that they needed to adjust to their new thirst around humans. She would never put him in danger, and he knew his friends wouldn’t want to hurt him. Or at least, the version he knew wouldn’t. He didn’t know how different they would be now.
Leona stood up swiftly from the bed and snagged her cup from the nightstand, before perching up onto his desk next to the computer. “Why don’t we stay in and do something fun tonight?” she suggested, sucking a dark liquid up through her straw.
Sebastian eyed her drink, then shifted his gaze up to hers. “What were you thinking?”
“Oh, I don’t know… something to take your mind off everything. A distraction,” she sighed, her lips and teeth glistening crimson. “Perhaps one that involves little to no clothing.”
Sebastian smirked and shook his head. “I’m flattered that I’ve reduced you to a one-track mind.”
She shot him a smile and leaned forward, tilting her head to look at his photos. “I’ll give you another hour of editing, I’ll finish my drink, and then we’ll decide what you want for dinner. I’m quite the cook.”
“Baby,” Sebastian said, his eyes glued to the screen. “You and I both know you’re shit at cooking.”
“I feel like I’ve mastered spaghetti at this point.”
“‘Master’ isn’t necessarily the word I would use.”
Leona called him a crude name and hopped off the desk. She loved the back and forth between them. It was easy, even when they were teasing each other. She knew he was enduring a lot of inner turmoil at the moment, and she hated that there was nothing she could do to take it away. It was one of the few instances where she truly didn’t know how he felt. Mourning her own life was one thing, but her family had been taken from her in other ways. They lived their lives the way they were supposed to, albeit with unnecessarily added trauma of losing a daughter and sister. They never had to watch her become a demon.
He swiveled in his chair and patted his thighs, Leona immediately straddling him. They were eye-level now, a position he adored. Her eyes were some of the most enthralling things he was happy to become lost in. She constantly assured him she had never used her powers to lure him into her arms, but with the way she looked at him, she didn’t have to.
“I love you,” she whispered.
A smile. He always smiled at those three words. And he always said them back, no matter what.
“And I love your little smile when I tell you that,” she added. “It fills me with warmth.”
“A smile reserved only for you,” he said.
Leona leaned back in his embrace. “Were you serious that first night about nobody ever saying ‘I love you’ to you before? Surely your mum…?”
“No,” he said, shaking his head. “She just wasn’t affectionate like that. Dad certainly never said it to me.”
“Victor? Charlotte?”
He shook his head again. “No. But I felt their love in countless other ways. They didn’t have to say it. I just didn’t realize how much it meant until I heard you say it. That’s why I asked you to say it over and over. I never wanted to forget hearing it on your lips,” he said. “You said you loved me the moment you laid eyes on me, but… when did you really realize you loved me? That it wasn’t just lust?”
She smiled and pressed the gentlest of kisses to his forehead. Her hands stroked through his hair. She loved his hair. She could spend all day playing with it. “There were a few moments bundled into one. The way you made me laugh on our first phone call, the way you looked at me as if I were the sun itself when we met by the river, and when you told me you wouldn’t let anyone touch me ever again. You were protective, but it wasn’t overbearing. It didn’t feel controlling or threatening. It just felt like I was loved.”
“You were loved. You are loved.”
“When did you realize you loved me?”
“When we went to the ball. Seeing the way your face lit up when I picked you up in a horse-drawn carriage. Seeing how you came to life at how the manor was decorated. You just seemed so happy. I felt like I was looking at Leona in seventeen-hundred. Not twenty-fourteen. Maybe it was the lighting, maybe it was my imagination, but I could have sworn I saw color tinging your cheeks. Your smile reached your eyes for once, and that’s something I’ve been trying desperately to do ever since we met.”
Leona felt her heart twist. How cruel the world was to give her such a wonderful, kind man, who would eventually be taken from her, one way or another.
“I have waited centuries for someone like you. For you,” Leona said quietly.
“I’m just a blip in your timeline of eternity, Leona. When I’m nothing more than dust, you’ll forget about me in time. I’m sure of it.”
“How could you say that?” she asked, frowning at him. “You are the reason I breathe, Sebastian. Protecting you, loving you, it is the only thing that gives me purpose. Perhaps that sounds dramatic, but it is true. What good is eternal life if it’s spent in misery? I would rather have sixty happy, blissful years spent showing you the love you crave so desperately, than go another million without laying eyes on you again. You are worth every turmoil I’ve endured. A life with you is not a blip. My life has not been a life until I met you. Our souls will be intertwined together in every universe, in every era, in every sense. Mine has yearned for you long before you ever graced this planet. It yearns no longer,” she exclaimed. “I described myself as soulless for a long time. You have shown me that that is not the case. It was merely lost, searching for you in a dark abyss of despair. The moment I laid eyes on you, it was like I could finally interpret the map to my salvation that had been taunting me for so long. When our bodies are gone, our love will remain.”
Sebastian nodded, his throat tight. Words would not adequately convey what he wanted to say, so he communicated with a searing kiss. Muffled moans were exchanged between them as they frantically grabbed for each other, their kiss deepening as every second ticked by.
The way her hands held him, possessed him, was enough to send him over the edge. He leaned forward in the chair, dipping her back, if only just to get a little less distance between them. He tilted his head back as she planted a hot trail of kisses down his cheek to his neck. He could feel her teeth teasing his skin. Slowly, he redirected her head so they were kissing yet again. Leona would never harm him intentionally, but he understood how things could get out of hand in the heat of the moment. It was her instinct.
“I have something for you,” he whispered when he broke apart from her for air.
“Mmm, yes you do,” she giggled smugly, rocking her hips against him.
“An actual gift,” he said with a small laugh. He reached over and unlocked the top drawer of his desk. He pulled out a small, slender box. Leona rested back against his knees and peered down at the package curiously. He opened it up, revealing a shimmering ruby pendant attached to a gold chain. She gasped softly, and Sebastian pulled it out. As it dangled and glinted in the light, the pendant’s contents shifted. A liquid. “This is my blood,” he explained. “It is mixed with a substance that will ensure it doesn’t dry out. You said you preferred gold,” he murmured. “I cannot give you that piece of me. But I thought this would be a good compromise. I want to commit to you, but… not in that way.
Will this be too tempting for you?”
“No,” Leona said, carefully turning the pendant over in her hands. This man was so thoughtful. She had always respected his decision not to be turned, despite the thought of losing him killing her. She had already been selfish enough in falling in love with him. “It’s perfect, Seb. Will you put it on me?” she asked, getting up from his lap. Turning, her eyes fluttered closed as his nimble fingers quickly fastened the jewelry around her neck. The second that pendant touched her chest, she felt even closer to him. She could feel his life right there with her.
“I know it will not create a bond that exists sometimes between humans and vampires in those parasitic relationships, but…”
“Our bond is stronger than anything blood could buy,” Leona interrupted, turning to him. She looped her arms around his neck and pulled him down for a soft and slow kiss. “You are my everything.”
“And you’re mine.”