Chapter 108
Sebastian
The girl's hand trembled inches from mine, caught between surrender and defiance. Behind us, Marcus's radio crackled—more guards converging, Father's voice demanding updates, the trap tightening around us both.
She won't do it. Three years in that hellhole taught her never to trust a cage.
But Elwin's whimper made the decision for her. I watched something break in those silver eyes, watched her fingers reach toward mine with the slow inevitability of the condemned approaching the gallows. For one crystalline second I saw exactly what this moment would cost her—every scrap of pride, every fragment of the defiance that made her fascinating, crushed beneath a choice that wasn't really a choice at all.
And I couldn't do it.
Fuck.
I released her hand and stepped back. Confusion flooded her face, her fingers hanging in the air where mine had been.
"Changed my mind," I said.
"What?" Her whisper was disbelieving. "But you said—"
"I know what I said." I moved past her to crouch beside the boy. The burns on his hands were severe, third-degree at least. I'd seen worse—had inflicted worse—but something about the way she looked at him, protective and fierce even in her own terror, made my next words easier. "But this isn't how I want you."
I stood, reaching into her jacket. She tried to pull away, but I caught her wrist, my fingers finding the hidden pocket at her waistband. The silver needle was exactly where I'd expected—cool metal, deadly payload, the same weapon she'd been carrying since Black Reef Island.
"No—" She lunged for it, but I was faster, holding the syringe up to the moonlight. The liquid inside gleamed dark green, almost black.
"Lunar venom," I said, watching her face go pale. "Extracted from moon elf tears. Forty-eight hours until cardiac failure without the antidote." I turned the needle slowly. "You were going to use this on me, weren't you? Or on Father. Maybe both."
"Sebastian, don't—" Her voice cracked, real fear in her eyes now. Not fear of me, but fear of what I was about to do.
Good. Let her be afraid. Let her understand exactly what this cost.
I grabbed her hand, forcing her fingers around the syringe. She struggled, but I held firm, positioning the needle against my own carotid artery. The metal was cold against my skin, my pulse throbbing beneath it.
"This is me letting you go," I said, meeting her eyes. "This is me giving you the choice I should have given you from the start. No cages. No ultimatums." I pressed her thumb against the plunger. "This time, you get to choose. You get to decide if the monster who's been hunting you deserves to live or die."
"You're insane." Barely audible. "You're fucking insane."
"Probably." I smiled, tasting blood where I'd bitten my own lip. "But here's what happens next. I'm going to inject this poison. You're going to run—take the boy, use the underwater passage I deliberately left unguarded, disappear. And I'm going to tell Father that an escaped elf assassin attacked me with a toxin that only she knows how to cure."
Understanding dawned, followed by fresh horror. "He'll hunt me. He'll turn the entire city inside out."
"He'll try." The guards were getting closer, flashlight beams cutting through the garden. "But he won't kill you. Not when his heir's life depends on you staying alive. You'll have time—not much, but some. Time to hide. Time to figure out if you actually want to save the man who's been hunting you."
"And if I don't come back?" Hollow. "If I just... let you die?"
"Then I die." Simple. Final. "And you'll spend the rest of your life wondering if you're actually any better than the people who caged you." I leaned closer. "But we both know you'll come back. Because despite everything, there's something between us that you can't quite kill. Isn't there?"
She opened her mouth to argue, but I didn't give her the chance. I pressed down on her thumb, driving the plunger home. The needle punched through skin into the artery beneath. The poison burned going in, cold fire spreading through my bloodstream.
Christ. This is actually going to hurt.
I released her hand, letting the empty syringe fall. My vision blurred at the edges, my heartbeat stuttering into an irregular rhythm. The venom worked fast—faster than I'd anticipated—and I had maybe two minutes before I collapsed entirely.
"You're insane," Lirael whispered again, something like grief in her voice. "Why would you—"
"Because I want you to choose me." The words came out slurred, my tongue already going numb. "Not because you have to. Not because I've cornered you. But because you want to." I grabbed her shoulders, holding myself upright through sheer will. "This is your exception, little one. This is me betting everything that you're not quite as good at hating me as you pretend to be."
The guards were close now—Marcus's voice shouting orders, multiple flashlight beams converging. I had seconds before this whole gambit fell apart.
I shoved the empty syringe into Lirael's hand. "Evidence," I managed, my voice barely a rasp. "Show them... if they don't believe..."
Then I did something I'd been wanting to do since that cliff—I pulled her close and bit down on the curve of her neck, not hard enough to break skin but hard enough to leave a mark. She gasped, frozen, and I whispered against her throat, "Next time I catch you... next time you come to me... it'll be because you chose it. Because you wanted it. And I'll accept nothing less."
I shoved her toward the pool. She hit the water with a splash that echoed across the garden. I saw her surface once, silver eyes wide with shock and fury and something that might have been grief, before she dove deep and disappeared.
Good. Run, little elf. Run fast and far.
My legs gave out. I collapsed against the pool's edge, the poison dragging me down. It was spreading through my cardiovascular system now, slowing my heart, constricting my airways. It hurt—god, it hurt—but beneath the pain was something almost like satisfaction.
I'd given her freedom. Real freedom, purchased with my own blood and the very real possibility of my death.
Marcus reached me first, his face going white when he saw the needle still protruding from my neck. "Sir! My god, what—"
"Assassin," I managed. "Elf... with poison... only she knows... the cure..." I coughed, tasting blood. "Tell Father... can't kill her... need her alive..."
More guards arrived, voices overlapping in panic. Someone pulled the needle from my neck. Someone else was calling for a medical team. I let my eyes close, let the darkness take me.
Forty-eight hours, little one. Forty-eight hours to decide if the monster deserves to live.
The last thing I felt before unconsciousness claimed me was the ghost of her pulse beneath my fingers, the memory of her scent, and the absolute certainty that she would come back.
She had to.
Because if she didn't, this gambit would kill us both.