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The door clicked shut, and Sebastian stared over at me, turning to leave himself.
I inhaled sharply, the words I wanted to say since he’d entered playing on my lips. “Why bother entertaining Velda after everything she’s done to you?”
“She’s an important person at court.”
“So? Tell her to fuck off. I can’t believe someone like you would allow her to come close to your home.”
Power burned behind his eyes, begging to be unleashed. “Let me assure you,” he stated, standing, “if I could kill her without threatening everything I’ve built, she would already be dead.”
“Why do you care? You’re willing to give it all up to be mortal again.” A spark of guilt erupted in my stomach, but I reminded myself that I didn’t owe him anything. “Where is it you plan on going once you get what you want?”
He caressed his chin with two fingers, sitting back on the chair next to my bed. “I haven’t thought much about it.”
“Why?”
“Because until now, I never thought it was possible. I didn’t dare to dream.”
A ghost of a smile crossed my lips. “So the big bad Sebastian does have dreams.”
“We all do, even the villains.” A daring glint darkened the blue in his eyes. “We had a big family growing up. We lived on a farm.”
I could not see the well-groomed, tattooed court favorite growing up mucking out stables. “So you’d want to go back to farming?”
He shot me an incredulous look, then laughed. “No, but I would like to continue to be a royal advisor or work in politics. It’s the only thing I’ll miss about being here, apart from Erianna and Zach, although they will come and see me. They’ve assured me so.”
My chest tightened. “Why do you want to become mortal? I mean, you have it all here.”
“I miss the rush of fighting for life every day. Immortality makes everything seem a little meaningless. What’s there to achieve if I can live forever?”
“I suppose if you ever wanted children, you couldn’t.”
He shrugged. “I’ve not thought much about it.”
“Although you can always find a sorceress,” I joked, but an awkward silence befell us both.
“Marriage and children have never been something I’ve desired, but I would like to travel,” he said as a light-heartedness sculpted his expression.
There were nineteen kingdoms in our world and many islands inhabited by tribes and small communities. He wasn’t the only one who’d wanted to see it all.
“Astor used to want to travel too,” I replied. “I suppose in a way, he did.”
“Yeah, well fuck him.”
I sat on the end of my bed, crossing my legs. “He was kind once.”
He rubbed a finger over the black markings running up the side of his neck from his arms, like thick thorns. “Sounds like you’ve been wearing rose-tinted glasses.”
“How so?” My face flooded with heat. “He really was a good boyfriend.”
“People don’t just change like that.” He snapped his fingers. “Let me ask you something. If you were dying, would you give up everyone you cared about to save yourself?”
A lump formed in my throat. “Of course not.”
“I understand people do crazy, desperate things out of fear, but his selfishness didn’t just appear overnight. I can see he loves you, or at the very least, he believes he does, but not enough. Maybe you’re one of the few things he holds onto, and I count on that so he doesn’t reveal who you are to the order. But even you weren’t enough to stop him from becoming like us. Whether you want to admit it or not, your relationship with him couldn’t have been perfect. You’re, what, nineteen?”
“Yes.”
“Isn’t it possible that you don’t really know what love is?”
