“It’s fine. It’s nothing. Really.”
“Ciana.” He said her name firmly but gently. He couldn’t stop himself. How was he to make this right for her if she wouldn’t talk to him?
Ciana sniffled again. “If I tell you,” she said, “you have to promise you won’t do anything. It was my fault, truly.”
He pinned her with a stare, and she sighed.
“Nik…” She swallowed. “The king…he kissed me.”
Sebastian’s vision blackened around the edges. He forced deep, dragging inhales through his lungs, his fingers tightening in her hair and on her skin.
It was that same rage he’d felt that night in the desert. The night when Lucas Blaise had stomped through the brushy sands, hoping to take a little more light from this girl who was bursting at the seams with it.
It was a rage he was unfamiliar with but was learning to enjoy. Especially in defense of her.
He didn’t care if Niktael was a king. Sebastian would fucking kill him for doing this to her.
A small, warm hand pressed against his chest.
“Sebastian,” Ciana whispered. “Please. Don’t look like that. Listen to me. It wasn’t his fault.”
“Ofcourse,it was his fault,” he growled. “He never should have touched you. Especially when you didn’t want him to.”
She shook her head. “He had no reason to know I didn’t want him to. It was the entire reason I came here, remember?” She gave him a sad smile. “He didn’t overstep. It was all me. I thought I could do this, but…I can’t. I’m too broken for it.”
A bucket of ice crashed through Sebastian’s veins. His anger cooled, an earnest sadness sweeping in to take its place. He loosened his grip on the back of her head, running his hand over her curls.
He nearly released a groan when she pressed her head into his palm.
“You’re not broken, Ciana.”
Tears again swam in her eyes. “I couldn’t do it. He touched me, and I freaked out. He’s nothing like Lucas, but the memories…” She bit her lip, fighting off her sob.
“Listen to me, Cee.” Sebastian gripped her chin, holding her still so she couldn’t break their stare. “You are allowed to have limits. What happened to you is something no person shouldever have to endure, no matter who they are. It was something that would have destroyed anyone else. But yousurvived. You escaped. And that makes you, Ciana Visseau, one of the strongest people I have ever met.”
Her tears had stopped, those eyes going wide again. “You’re just saying that to make me feel better.”
Sebastian huffed a chuckle. “I might be. But that doesn’t mean it’s not true. Or that I don’t mean it.”
They remained like that for a heavy moment—her chin gripped between his fingers, her small frame draped across his lap, his palm splayed around the full curve of her hip. Their breath mingled in the air between them. A feeling crawled up Sebastian’s spine, a new awareness as the tension shifted, his heart beating faster against his ribs.
Ciana swallowed, and Sebastian couldn’t help the way his focus narrowed to the dart of her tongue across her lips.
“It wasn’t just the memories,” she said quietly. Sebastian held his breath. “They weren’t the only reason I ran.” Her eyelids fluttered, nostrils flaring.
“I also ran because I realized I didn’t feel safe with the king. He’s done nothing to me, but there is only one person who ever truly puts me at ease. There’s only one person whose presence calms me. Who doesn’t make me nervous or scared or anxious. Who keeps my nightmares at bay instead of inviting them in.”
Sebastian still didn’t dare breathe. A vice clamped around his chest. Every place where they touched was burning, melting, shifting.
“I realized that there was only one person I could ever imagine replacing all those twisted memories with something good. And no matter what I do, no matter how hard I try or how much I play my part, it will never be the king.”
The world around Sebastian spun. “Ciana?—”
“I know the timing is terrible.” A sad smile tilted the corners of her full lips. “But I’m tired of fighting. It will always and only be you, Sebastian.”
Those words.
His chest cracked, but he had absolutely no intentions of piecing it back together.
