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. Hiseverythingcalled to me in a terrifying way.
In my silence, he whispered. “The last bit of their sins have left me.”
