Chapter 177
Sebastian
"Lirael—"
"No." She pushed back far enough to look me in the eye, and I was startled to see tears gathering at the corners of her eyes, silvery in the dim light. "I don't accept your stupid sea burial request, and I don't accept your resignation to this fate. You're going to survive, Sebastian. You're going to live. And when this is all over, when I've synthesized the treatment and it works, you're going to take me to see the ocean—not to scatter your ashes, but to actually enjoy it like a normal person. Do you understand?"
The ferocity in her voice, the absolute conviction that she could somehow save me from a curse that had claimed every Alpha in my bloodline, should have been laughable. Should have been the kind of naive optimism that I'd spent years learning to crush in others before it could be used against them.
Instead I found myself believing her, or at least wanting to believe her badly enough that the distinction didn't matter.
"All right." I pressed a kiss to her forehead, tasting salt and determination. "Then I'll try to stay alive. For you."
"Not for me. For us." She settled back against my chest, her head tucking perfectly under my chin. "Because I have plans, Sebastian Blackwood, and they all require you to be alive and relatively sane. So don't you dare die on me."
"Wouldn't dream of it," I murmured, pulling the covers up over both of us and letting my eyes drift closed, suddenly more exhausted than I'd been in months. The weight of her against me, the steady rhythm of her breathing, the simple fact of her presence—it all combined to create a sense of peace I hadn't felt since before Derek died. "Sleep well, little elf."
"You too."
I should have followed her into sleep—God knew I needed it, with the full moon approaching and my control growing more tenuous by the day. But instead I lay awake in the darkness, listening to her breathe and trying not to think about all the ways this could end badly, all the reasons why letting myself care about someone was the worst possible decision I could make.
But it was too late for regrets now. Too late to unclaim what I'd already marked as mine, too late to undo the fundamental shift that had occurred the moment I'd pulled her from that cliff and decided she was worth keeping.
For better or worse, Lirael was mine. And I was discovering, with a mixture of terror and something dangerously close to hope, that I might be hers as well.
Fuck.
---
I woke to fever dreams and my own voice calling a name I couldn't quite remember, my body burning from the inside out as if someone had replaced my blood with molten silver. The sheets were soaked with sweat, tangled around my legs in a way that felt suffocating, and I tried to kick them off but couldn't manage the coordination, my limbs heavy and unresponsive in a way that triggered immediate alarm.
Something was wrong. Something was very fucking wrong, and I couldn't—
Cool hands touched my forehead, and I latched onto that sensation like a drowning man grabbing a lifeline, my fingers closing around a wrist that felt impossibly delicate in my grip.
"Sebastian." Lirael's voice cut through the fever haze, worried but steady, an anchor in the chaos. "Wake up. You're burning up."
I forced my eyes open—took three tries and even then my vision swam alarmingly, colors bleeding into each other in ways that suggested my perception was fundamentally compromised. She was leaning over me, face pale in the pre-dawn light filtering through the curtains, and I tried to tell her I was fine, that this was normal, that Alphas sometimes ran hot when the moon was close.
But the words wouldn't come, my tongue thick and clumsy in my mouth, and all I could manage was her name, rough and desperate: "Lirael."
"I'm here." Her hand moved from my forehead to cup my cheek, and the touch was so soothing, so perfectly right, that I felt some of the panic recede. "I'm right here. I'm going to get you some water and a cold compress, okay? I'll be right back."
"No." The word came out stronger than expected, and my hand tightened on her wrist before I could stop myself, holding her in place with a grip that was probably too hard but I couldn't seem to moderate. The thought of her leaving, even for a minute, sent a spike of irrational panic through my chest. "Don't leave. Stay."
"Sebastian, you're running a fever of at least 103." But she didn't pull away, didn't try to escape my hold. "I need to get something to bring your temperature down before you—"
"Stay." I could hear the Alpha command bleeding into my voice now, the authority that demanded obedience even when I had no right to demand anything. "Please. Just... stay."
For a moment I thought she would refuse, would insist on practical solutions and medical intervention like any sensible person would. But then something in her expression softened, and she carefully extracted her wrist from my grip only to settle beside me on the bed, her fingers carding through my sweat-soaked hair in a gesture that was so tender it made my chest ache.
"All right." She reached for the water glass on the nightstand with her free hand, bringing it to my lips with careful precision. "Drink this first, and then I'll stay. But if your fever gets any worse, I'm calling Marcus whether you like it or not."
I drank obediently, the cool water soothing my raw throat, and then let my head fall back against the pillows as she set the glass aside and returned to that gentle stroking of my hair, her touch grounding me in a way nothing else could. The wolf settled fractionally under her ministrations, recognizing her presence, her scent, the simple fact of her being close enough to touch.
"Better?" she asked, and I managed a small nod, already feeling the fever starting to break under her touch, my body responding to her in ways that should probably have alarmed me but didn't.
"Much better." My eyes drifted closed again, exhaustion pulling me back toward sleep. "Thank you."
"Sleep." She commanded softly, and I felt her shift position, settling more comfortably beside me without breaking contact. "I'll be here when you wake up."
And she was. When consciousness returned hours later with the sun fully risen and my fever finally broken, she was still there—sitting beside me with one hand resting lightly on my chest, her eyes closed but her posture suggesting she hadn't truly slept, had instead spent the night keeping vigil over a man who'd probably terrified her with his vulnerability.
She'd stayed. Despite everything—despite the danger I represented, despite the very real possibility that I could lose control and hurt her, despite having every reason to run—she'd stayed.
The realization settled something in me that I hadn't even known was unsettled, some fundamental piece clicking into place with an almost audible snap. And in that moment, watching her sleep beside me with her hand over my heart, I made a decision that was probably foolish and definitely dangerous but felt more right than anything I'd done in years.
If I only had limited time left—if the entropy was going to take me regardless of what she managed to synthesize—then I was going to make damn sure that her memories of me weren't all darkness and control and the twisted dynamics of captivity.
I was going to give her something good. Something worth remembering.