6. Sebastion
SEBASTION
LA brUJA
“You were supposed to be here six days ago, Sebastion.” My mother’s harsh voice bites along the line, her disappointment hitting me more forcefully than any man’s fists ever have.
“For our home to function at its best, for our security to remain fortified, it’s important that we all perform our roles. We’re stronger together.”
“I know.” I walk the border of Nova and Lincoln’s home much the same way I would if I were where my mother wants me to be.
I study the road, one direction leading into town, and the other, eventually taking drivers to the highway that bustles with traffic.
I consider the trees Lincoln prefers in the summer, when the branches are thick and lush with life, a cover for him and Nova to hide behind.
Personally, I prefer winter’s barrenness. I prefer to see if my enemy is just on the other side.
“Sebastion?” My mother exhales an unhappy sigh. “When will you be back?”
“I don’t know.” I turn toward the house and ponder its ability to appear as though no one is home.
Despite the cars parked out front. Despite the trio going about their day inside.
“I’m still working. I intended to bring the final code keeper back with me, but she has a visitor right now, and I’m unwilling to bring them with us. It’s not safe.”
“So eliminate the code keeper, dump the visitor, and end this charade. It’s time for you to come home, baby.”
Baby.
I exhale a silent laugh and allow myself a single moment of dropping my gaze. Dropping my guard. I’m thirty years old, twice her size, older than she was when she brought me into this world, and still… she calls me baby when she’s feeling a certain way.
“Sebastion?”
“I’m not eliminating her. She’s a good girl, and she deserves better than the shit life threw at her. Ry trusted her with his code, which means I’m gonna trust her not to screw us over.”
“You’d bet our lives on her keeping her trap shut?”
Probably. Maybe.
Frankly, Nova Nichols has no reason to want to share what she knows, and more importantly, she has just one fifth of a code that leads to my family’s three-decades-hidden location. The other four have been destroyed and will never see the light of day.
“Yes.” Finally, I acknowledge the question my mom so desperately needs answered. “I’m betting our lives on it. She’s not a problem for us, and because she’s not, I won’t eliminate her. Her only crime is existing.”
“So leave her behind!”
Arabella Aster is the strongest woman I know. The bravest. The fiercest. And sometimes… the coldest. To survive what she has, she’s had to find a way to turn off that switch inside her that controls her humanity. Not always. Not even often. But every now and again…
“Leave her with Castro. Leave them with their visitor. You come home.”
“I can’t yet.”
“Why the hell not?”
“Because the visitor, Castro’s sister, is shoulder-deep in trouble she doesn’t know how to handle.”
“So? That’s not your problem.”
I cast one last look at the road, empty but for snow sludge and ice slicks, then I come back around and start across the yard. “I feel like maybe her trouble is our trouble.”
In an instant, my mother’s bad mood steps aside and makes room for the fierceness her soldiers know her for. “Explain.”
“There’s a detail about her past that very few knew. Richard knew.” Instead of going to the front door, I head along the side of the house and make my way toward the backyard. “Richard assured me he had told no one else.”
“He assured you,” she sneers. “Call me a cynic, Sebastion, but I wonder if the reason you’re not racing home is that your secrets have been exposed, too.”
“Mom—”
“I got us out,” she snarls viciously. “I died to escape that man. I made a whole new life for us, and in repayment for my sacrifices, you went back!”
I slow my steps and hover where I am rather than exposing myself to anyone who might be on the back porch. “You did what you had to do to protect the family.”
“Sebast—”
“I, too, did what I had to do to protect the family. Different methods. Same end goal.”
“I don’t agree with what you did!”
Well, it’s done now, and that old prick is dead.
But those are not the words I offer my mother.
Instead, I give her the same line I’ve given each time this topic has come up since Richard’s demise.
“I’m sorry. I hope to earn your forgiveness back someday, and, most importantly, your trust. I did what I thought was right. ”
“I was so mad when I heard,” she groans, pained with fear. But pained, also, because I’m not right there for her to see. To touch. To hug.
All Arabella Aster ever wanted, ever needed, was for her family to be safe.
“I was so scared.”
“I know, Mom. I’ll be back soon, I promise.”
“How soon?”
When Scarlett Castro’s enemy is dead… or Scarlett herself is dead.
“As soon as I can. I’m looking into this stuff, since the information about Castro’s sister is information only a few knew.
The fact that Richard was one of them makes this our business.
Either he yapped, but didn’t share that with me.
Or he didn’t, which means there’s someone out there who may be closer to us than we realized.
You sacrificed your entire life to make our home safe.
To make sure it was hidden. It’s my duty to ensure there are no breadcrumbs for this fucker to follow back to you. ”
She exhales a weary sigh. “You’ll be careful?”
“Of course. And I’ll stay in contact. Give Uncle Bas my best.”
“I will.” Her voice softens. It smooths into a melodic intonation she so rarely gets to enjoy. “He’s having a good day today. Spending most of it in the woods.”
I push away from the side of the house and continue toward the back. “That makes me happy. And Dad?”
“Spending every free minute he has right beside him. Hurry home, baby. Your return would make your uncle very, very happy.”
“Oh, good. Emotional manipulation.” Chuckling, I come around the back of the house only to stop at the sight of Scarlett standing in the middle of the yard, her head tipped to the sky, her long hair cascading over her back while she watches a family of birds play in the air.
“Sebastion?” Mom’s voice pulses in my ear. “You there?”
“Yeah. But I’ve gotta go.” I drag the phone down and kill our call, then slipping the device into my back pocket, I wander closer to Her Royal Highness, Princess Scarlett Castro, future queen of the something-something court, where the peasants beg for a scrap of her attention, and she…
sits much too high on her pedestal to even see them.
I keep my pace slow, my steps light on the crunching snow.
I risk a peek back at the house to see if Lincoln already has me in his scope—nope—then I bring my focus to Scarlett’s tight body wrapped in jeans that cup her ass in the most delectable way, and an oversized sweater that hangs off one shoulder and exposes the limb to the cold.
Exploiting her blind side and coming to a stop on her left, I peer up at the sky and watch birds peck and chase each other. They dip and dive and taunt one another. They hold her rapt attention.
“What are you doing?”
“Argh!” She jumps with a yelped cry and slams a hand to her perfect C-cup chest. “It’s terrible manners to sneak up on a person like that. What the hell is the matter with you?”
“I guess no one ever stopped to teach me manners.” I enjoy a snapping Scarlett Castro a million times more than a weeping Scarlett Castro, so I fold my arms and grin at her furious glare. “Same as no one taught you that staring up at the sky is how you end up with bird shit in your mouth.”
“I’d rather risk bird shit if it means witnessing something pretty, than be you, whose tongue must always taste of feces.”
Curious, I lift my brow in question.
“Ya know, since you always have such unpleasant things to say.” Derision drips from every word she speaks.
“If it’s not unkind, it’s crass. If it’s not crass, it’s straight-up inexcusable.
” She looks me up and down, much the same way I study her.
Except she doesn’t like what she sees. “Don’t approach me when I’m alone ever again. ”
“Oh, well…” I turn as she stomps away and watch her ass move. “Sure thing, Princess. Sorry to bother you.”
“And stop calling me princess! I’d say I have a name and that you should use it—” She stops with her hand on the porch railing, her eyes pithy and unkind. “—But you have no reason to speak to me at all. Therefore, no name is needed.”
“Sorry, Princess.” I flash a tormenting smile and enjoy her huffing stride up the porch steps. “This was fun. We should do it again sometime.”
“Unlikely.” She grabs the back door and storms inside.
Two days after our interlude in the yard, I wander into the living room to find Scarlett sitting on the floor, dozens of markers spread across the coffee table, and her hand moving impossibly fast over the graffitied pages of her notebook.
Curious, I scan the quiet living room, the television on but muted, and the fireplace crackling in time with the scratch of her pen.
No Lincoln. No Nova.
In reality, they’re probably hidden in their room, fucking their way through the monotony of playing host to a woman who does nothing, says nothing, and shares nothing that might help the situation she’s found herself in.
Some of us are inclined to destroy those who threaten us.
Scarlett Castro, it seems, prefers to scowl and draw silly little lines.
Pity. She’s beautiful enough to watch for a week. A month. Perhaps even a year, if the sex is good. But beyond that, the tedium of nothingness would make even the best lay too high a price to pay.
But those are the crude, unpleasant things she doesn’t want me to say out loud.
Quiet laughter bubbles along my throat as I consider how she’d respond to my thoughts, the sound startling her until she shoots straight and glares over her shoulder in that way she’s so good at. She pierces me with a pair of baby blues and sends two delicious dimples popping in her cheeks.
They’re not just for when she smiles.
“Relax, Princess. It’s just me.”
Sneering, she robs me of the attention I kinda want and forces her focus back to what she was doing. Scribbling. “I was here first. I suggest you find somewhere else to spend your time.”
“Nah.” I dig my hands into my pockets and wander into the room, around the three-seater couch, and stop close enough that if she wanted to lean on my legs, she could.
She won’t. But she could.
“I’d rather pull up stumps in here for a bit.
” I scan her drawings and search for her secrets in the chaos, but unless she’s drawing a thirty-seven-layered treasure map and buried her gold at the bottom of a deadly spiral, I’m not sure there are any secrets to glean.
Lowering onto the couch behind her, I sit close enough to smell the strawberries in her shampoo.
“Figured out who’s fucking with you yet? ”
“Yep.” She slaps her book shut and sweeps her markers into a case. “You. You’re fucking with me.”
“Because I walked into the room?”
“Because you walked in and sat down, even when I said I wanted to be alone!” With jerky movements and her ass momentarily perfectly placed to be bitten, she surges to her feet, snatches up her pen case, and hits me with a glare.
“You’re just another guy who refuses to listen when a woman tells him to go away.
” She scoops her notebook up and hugs her supplies to her chest. “I’m not trying to make an enemy out of you, but my skin crawls when you and I are in the same room.
You’re the reason for half of the scars on Nova’s face.
And my brother works hard every single day not to shoot you dead. ”
“Ouch,” I lay my hand on my chest. “You wound me, Princess.”
“Not fatally. But I’ll keep trying.”
“All because I sat down?”
“All because I’ve had my fill of egotistical men who don’t understand the word no.”
“Ohhhh, I see.” Settling back against the cushions, I drop my legs wide and grin when my knee inadvertently taps hers.
“You hate all men. Your ex fucked you up, so now you’re gonna make us all pay the price.
” I click my tongue. “Tsk, Princess. That would be like me hating all women because I caught my girlfriend sucking another dude’s dick way back when we were sixteen. Silly me.”
“Seems you do hate all women. Your reputation precedes you, remember? And my brother always brings receipts when I have questions.”
“Lincoln snitched on me?” I twist in my seat and shoot a playful glance toward the empty hall. “Geez. Wait.” I swing my focus back to Princess Sex-On-Legs. “You asked about me? You think I’m sexy, don’t you?”
She stares down at me like I’m nothing more than dog shit smeared on the floor. “I’m living through a personal crisis right now, and I’m forced to sleep across the hall from a random dude whose mere presence makes my spine tingle.” She tilts her head to the side. “Not a good tingle.”
“That’s what they all say… till they know better.”
“I asked about you, I read the dossier, and now we both know where the other stands.”
I drop my gaze to her sinful legs and the strong thighs that fill out her jeans, then I study her core for a long, torturous beat. Finally, I continue up her torso and meet her furious eyes. “Your logic is faulty. Only one of us is standing.”
“Mmhm. And now I’m walking.” She spins on her heels, her long hair swishing with her bad mood, then she stalks out of the living room and leaves behind the scent of whatever face cream she slathers on before bed and…
well… not much else. Just the ghost of who she was before I came along and ruined her day.