Sebastian noticed.
Of course he noticed.
Not just the skin, not just the shape of me, but the ink, something most people will never see. He looked at it not with disgust or mockery, but with a kind of slow, quiet intrigue that unsettles me more than his usual taunts. For someone like him, someone who thrives on fracturing others’ composure, having access to this much of me must feel like a gift he didn’t earn but intends to pocket anyway.
He finally stops rummaging long enough to tug a small brown bottle from the cabinet. He holds aclean rag between his teeth and a jar of ointment in his hand. When he steps toward me, his movements are controlled but not gentle.
He sits beside me, lowering himself into one of the healers’ rolling chairs. The way he settles into it, leaning forward until the distance between our bodies is narrowed to only a whisper of space, makes my pulse thrum with a rhythm both anxious and embarrassingly aware.
I sit on the edge of the medical bed, palms pressed behind me for support, trying to appear steadier than I feel. The mattress dips slightly under my weight, the sheets cool against the backs of my legs. Sebastian drops the rag into his lap, uncorking the bottle. The scent that wafts out, alcohol and herbs, burns faintly in my nostrils.
His silence stretches.
Finally, I crack beneath it.
“Are you going to speak to me at all,” I ask quietly, “or are you planning to keep pretending I’m not sitting right here?”
His eyes lift at that, dark and unreadable, and for several seconds he simply studies me, searching my face as if weighing which part of me is most likely to shatter if he says the wrong thing. But whatever answer he might have considered, he buries.
“I need you to lift your shirt,” he says, keeping his voice even. “I have to clean the cuts.”
It is not the response I want, but it is the one he insists on giving.
I don’t argue.
I gather the torn edge of my blouse and lift it enough to reveal the long, jagged claw marks raked along my side. They redden as the cold air hits them. Some slice dangerously close to the tattoo curling up my ribs. Sebastian’s eyes flick down, lingering on the marks, on the skin beneath them, on the faint ripple of muscle along my waist where I try not to flinch.
“That fat bastard really clung on like you were his prey,” he murmurs.
His jaw tightens as if he can still feel the impact of his fists against the man’s face.
“Isn’t that how it always goes?” I say, the words bitter as I bite my lip to brace myself.
The moment the soaked rag touches my skin, pain blooms in a ruthless sting. Heat surges up my ribs, pulsing like fire licking along the cuts. My hand reacts before I can think, shooting out, gripping Sebastian’s forearm with a strength born from shock. His muscles tense beneath my fingers, solid and warm. I squeeze harder than I mean to, trying to mask the thin thread of sound that curls up my throat.
He does not pull away.
He does not chastise me.
He merely looks at my hand wrapped around him, breath catching in a way that is noticeable only because everything else in the room has fallen silent.
“You think all men see you as prey?” he asks quietly.
A hollow laugh escapes me. “Don’t you?” I murmur. “Trevor called it your scorecard, didn’t he?”
His eyes flick up to mine slowly, too slowly, darkening in a way that sends a shiver through my ribs sharper than the sting of the ointment.
Sebastian’s grip on the rag tightens, not enough to tear the fabric, but enough that the tendons along the back of his hand stand out sharply beneath his skin. His jaw shifts, clenching once, then again, a pulse of tension beating in the hollow of his cheek. He works around the scars on my back carefully, far more carefully than I expect from someone with his reputation. The rag glides along the skin surrounding each cut, never dragging over the woundsthemselves, his touch steady and unflinching even as the muscles of his arm tighten beneath my fingers.
“Trevor is a dull-minded fool who wanted to bed you,” he mutters, the words clipped and low, as if the taste of them irritates him. “Half this academy wants you on their roster. It’s insufferable how many times I’ve heard your name in the last twenty-four hours.”
My breath stutters slightly at how easily he says it, not as a compliment, not even as a tease, but as an irritated fact he’s been forced to carry. He moves to the next cut on my opposite side, his brows drawn in concentration. The warmth of his hand bleeds through the rag, and every time he brushes too close to the bruised edge of a wound, the muscles in his forearm flex beneath my grip.
“Well,” I say slowly, trying to ignore the pull in my stomach, “last time I checked, you were the only one who threw bedding in my face.”
Sebastian lets out a breath, something between a scoff and a quiet exhale of self-disdain. His head dips for half a second.
“That was a stupid thing for me to say,” he admits, the words reluctant but sincere. “I was trying to figure you out.”
