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I hadn’t meant to interrupt him, but if anything, it seemed to amuse him. “Yes, sunshine. We were wealthy aristocrats in fifteenth century France. Having a castle was de rigueur.”
I smiled up at him. “Tell me more.”
So he did. He walked me around the seemingly empty field and rebuilt the castle with his words. From the kitchen with its massive fireplaces, to the ballroom where his parents liked to entertain the villagers.
Then we came to an innocuous place, to the far right of the plot. I knew without Sebastian speaking that this was where it had happened. Whatever awful, horrific thing he’d survived, this was where it took place.
Sebastian stared at the ground at his feet like he could still see whatever he was running from. An impulse grabbed me, and I went with it.
“Hey.” I twisted so I was in front of him. “Look at me.”
It took him a second to drag his haunted eyes to mine. When he did, I cupped his cheeks. “I’m here, Sebastian. Whatever’s going through your mind right now, remember that I’m here and that I love you.”
The devastation in his eyes lightened a touch, replaced by a hope so earnest it had me wanting to weep. “You do?”
“I do,” I said fiercely. “So very much, Sebastian. Whatever you’re remembering, I want you to focus on the fact that I’m here, and I’m going to be here no matter what. I love you, and I always will. Whatever you’re going through, we’re going to get through it together, and walk out the other side. Got it?”
He gave me a ghost of a smile. “Got it, sunshine.”
He took another minute before he spoke again.
“It started when I met Laurent.”
I would have loved to say I didn’t feel any jealousy as I heard Sebastian describe the man who came before me. How he’d made Sebastian fall in love with him. How Sebastian had planned to make him his mate.
But I did. I couldn’t help myself.
“The night I was going to give him my ring and ask him to be my mate, he betrayed me.”
Even the wind seemed to go still.
Sebastian closed his eyes, swaying on the spot slightly. “He lured me away from the house, telling me he had a headache. I went with him. Why would I not? I trusted him.”
A tear tracked down his cheek. “I was foolish. So naive and blinded by love that I didn’t see what was happening right beneath my nose.”
Oh, my poor Sebastian.
“We were in a cabin, far away in the woods, when I heard the first screams and snarls. I knew instantly that we were under attack by wolf shifters. We weren’t on good terms with the neighbouring clan, but I’d never dreamed they’d be so brazen as to attack us in our home. I told Laurent to hide in a cupboard before running as fast as I could back to the house.”
He looked up, his eyes on something in the distance that was no longer there. “I saw the bodies of the servants first. A maid. The cook. I was furious that humans we’d vowed to protect had paid with their lives just for being in our service.” A sob choked out of him as he continued. “Then I entered the dining room, and my whole world stopped.”
He strode across the grass, towing me along with him, like he couldn’t bear to let me go, even for a second. “I saw my father—what was left of him, anyway. I recognised his tunic as the one he’d been wearing at dinner.”
Horror gripped me so suddenly that I felt dizzy. I didn’t let it show, needing to be strong for Sebastian in this moment.
He spun us slowly, a shaking finger pointing to another spot. “That’s where my mother lay, her body curled around Amelie’s. A few feet away was Magnus, where he’d fallen trying to protect them.”
“Oh, Sebastian,” I rasped, squeezing my eyes shut tight to stop the tears. “You suffered so much.”
“I’m not done yet,” he said shakily. “Not all of them were dead. Geralt was still alive, just, and fighting off three wolves.”
His voice flattened, like he was donning familiar armour to get him through this next part. “I dispatched all three of them quickly. Like any of my family should’ve been able to do. I was so confused. Even caught off guard, even outnumbered, there was no logical explanation as to why they were able to…to murder them so easily.”
He broke away from me, kneeling in the grass to brush his hands over the dirt. “This is where I held Geralt as he died. He made me promise him something, a promise I knew immediately I’d end up breaking.”
“What was it?”
He looked up at me bleakly, such raw honesty and pain on his face that it crushed my heart. “He didn’t want what happened to break my heart. He made me promise not to let this haunt me.”
