Everyone backs off. Everyone except for Sebastian, who cuts through the crowd, aiming for a male healer. Without warning, he fists the back of the guy’s shirt, fingers curling into the fabric with brutal force. His forearms tense, veins bulging as he begins to yank him backward and nearly throws him toward me. The healer yelps, stumbling forward.
‘Your skills are required elsewhere,’ Sebastian growls, voice like gravel.
‘What the hell are youdoing?’ I hiss at him. ‘Aiden is dying – he needs help!’
‘I don’t care about Aiden, I care aboutyou.’ He grabs the healer again, this time by the arm, steering his attention back on me. ‘Don’t look at them,’ Sebastian snarls, stepping closer, looming over the much smaller man with a terrifying dominance. ‘Look ather.’
Sebastian’s eyes flick to mine, which widen as his words sink into my skin.
Look at her.
I care about you.
Everyone around me seems to fade for a beat. Does he realise what he just said? Can he hear the way my heart just stopped in the confines of my chest?
The healer hesitates, only for a second, before he shuffles away from Sebastian, whose gaze doesn’t stray from mine as I remind myself how to breathe properly. Why did he say that? Why does it look like he meant every word?
I avert my gaze and focus on the healer who walks around me to assess my back. His warm fingers pull at fabric and prod at tender skin, making me wince. But not long afterward, I feel the tingling of his magic start to ebb and weave through my body, as if knitting my skin back together.
At one point I glance over my shoulder to see him holding a large oval opal in one hand, his mouth moving quickly as if he’s channelling from the stone. His lips form words I never got the privilege of learning, even after watching my mother for hours.
Sebastian stands over us, arms crossed and jaw tight. He doesn’t say anything, but watches intently, completely ignoring the chaos behind him. I feel guilty as I look over at Aiden. My wounds aren’t even comparable to his, so why the hell is Sebastian making such a big deal?
Since when did he start to care?
THIRTY-SEVEN
‘What are you doing in there?’ Sebastian asks from the other side of my bathroom door. ‘It’s been fifteen minutes,’ he so kindly points out. Sigh.
‘Go away! I’ll be out in a minute,’ I grumble as I try and fail to pull off the last adhesive bandage over the biggest of the scars down my back. It’s right in the middle – where my arms can’t reach – and each time I twist and turn, there’s a dull ache that pinches where I’m still tender.
After I was healed to Sebastian’s satisfaction, and Aiden was carried to the infirmary after he was stabilised, I sought out Tilly and Xavier. I needed someone to talk to – I needed my friends.
Tilly helped apply a common household salve to stop the incessant itching after my skin had been stitched back together by magic. Then she applied the adhesive bandages, which I know from experience I must remove to let my skin breathe before bed. Which is what I’m attempting to do now, if only I could bloodyreachthe last of the stupid things.
My fingers wiggle behind my back, stretching for the corner, but I’m left panting and sweating. I could leave it for tomorrow, when I can get Lillian or Tilly to help me, but I’ve slept with these on before and the rash that broke out over my skin was not worth it.
With an exhausted grumble, I tip my head back and groan. I’m going to have to askhimfor help, even though I’d rather not face him if I canhelp it. I’m still reeling from his strange confession that could have just been the heat of the moment … or not.
I’m not certain, but I do know that he is apparently sleeping in my room tonight. Not Lillian, or Jed.Him.
There’s a hurricane of emotions building inside me already. But I stuff them down, putting them into my little steel box of hidden thoughts and feelings, grab the towel hanging from the door and cover my bare chest. My hand shakes as my fingers curl around the doorknob and slowly pull the door open.
‘Finally!’ He throws his hands up. ‘What were you doing in—’ his words cut off when he notices me standing in the dim lighting with a towel covering my front. ‘Where are your clothes?’
I still have pants on, but my shirt and bra are in the corner of the bathroom by the sink.
‘I need your help,’ I tell him, inwardly cringing. ‘I can’t reach the last bandage.’ I explain by moving to the side so he can see the discarded bandages in a messy pile on the basin.
Sebastian’s lips purse for a long moment, as if he’s debating something inside that mysterious head of his. Finally, he nods, using his finger to make a twirling motion. ‘Turn around.’
With a mixture of reluctance and relief to get this bandage off my body, I do as he says, stepping back into the light of the bathroom. I face the sink; my eyes immediately find my reflection in the small mirror and watch as he comes up behind me. A muscle feathers in his jaw as his eyes roam my back … and down. My brows hitch. Is he … ?
‘Do you want me to go fast, or slow?’ he asks, voice deeper than usual, his fingers like silk brushing over my back. His eyes flick up to meet mine in the mirror, green on grey. My breath hitches.
‘Fast,’ I reply on a soft exhale, which comes out far more sultry than intended.Shit.I feel my chest starting to flush with heat.
Sebastian’s throat bobs, and time seems to stand still as we stare at each other; a million silent words seem to pass between us within ourshared reflection. They fill the room, they swallow every morsel of air, they stroke along the most sensitive areas of my skin, licking down my back and bare arms, raising goosebumps in their wake.
