“I can make you see anything that I can imagine. I imagine something, and I implant it in your mind, as though it were a product of your own thought process. Of course you know now that they are my thoughts. I showed you what I did on the phone, because I was imagining it.” His admission came without shame. It was no secret between them that he wanted her, that she aroused him. Even then he felt the pull, the desire.
“I am not a psychic, per se," he explained. "It was the closest thing I had to compare it to.” Sebastian remained beside the hearth, hands clasped behind his back and a neutral amount of territory between them. The room seemed to crackle with tension as he flirted with the idea of telling her the truth.
“There are other things I can do. It is one small part of a bigger picture, the whole of which I am not at liberty to disclose… yet.”
It was the last part that made her frown. Until then, she had only seemed intrigued. He didn’t need to be psychic to know that her tension ratcheted up a notch.
“What other things?” She blurted the question, gesturing with her hands. “What bigger picture? Why can’t you tell me now? I can’t think of what else it could be, Sebastian, if it’s not psychic related. Help me out.”
Sebastian almost smiled. Almost. It had been a long time since he’d met head-to-head with the tenacity of a mortal woman. He felt like they were standing on a precipice together, he and Laurel. He could tell her, and lose her. He could refuse to, and still lose her. It had all become so convoluted and Sebastian felt like he was digging an ever-widening hole with every word that came out of his mouth.
To a man used to being in utter control, the sheer lack of it at the moment was disconcerting. He could not control her, nor could he predict her response. It was one of the things about her that quickened him. She was like a fresh spring breeze in through the window of his eternal prison. Foolish.
“I do not keep it from you because it is my wish to,” he said. “On the contrary, I want you to know me. I feel, at present, that it is less dangerous for you if you do not know.” Despite his inner turmoil, Sebastian’s features remained passive. “Can you not be content with what I have shared?”
“Is it like people whose minds can bend spoons? I don’t see how that could be dangerous for me to know. It’s not like I’d tell anyone.” She paused, and when she spoke again, her eyes were searching, serious. Her hands twisted in her lap, the skin white over her knuckles. “What if I showed you things that were almost impossible to believe about me and told you I couldn’t tell you all of it because it would be less dangerous. Wouldn’t you want to know? To try and help? To fix it? What if you were in my shoes?”
“I have never pressed you to tell me things before you were ready," he said, reminding her. He could sense her nervousness rising, hear the sense of subtle desperation coloring her voice.
“I want to be content with it. I do. But all I will do is think and wonder and worry. The not knowing is difficult.”
“You are not ready.” Sebastian wasn't harsh with her, but his words stopped her mid-rise, and he watched as she sank back down to the sofa. “Laurel, there is an entire world of things that take place beyond mortal comprehension, ghosts, aliens, time travel …”
“Ghosts? Time travel? Time travel absolutely does not exist." She stared at him with growing incredulity.
“People dismiss what they cannot believe.” He was trying to peel back the veil over her eyes a little at a time, to minimize the shock of his reality, but he knew she had a lifetime of denial to overcome. Following her with his gaze when she stood up and started pacing, he wondered if she felt as anxious and disturbed as she looked. He read it in every line of her body, in every flicker of her expression.
“When you believe, ask me again, Laurel. Until then, let us simply go on as we have been.”
She frowned. “Okay.”
Her acceptance was too quick. That, at least, he knew to be a bad sign in the politics of man-woman interactions. Turning away from the fireplace, Sebastian crossed the room to stand behind her. He rested his hands on her shoulders. When she leaned back into him, his tension started to ease.
“This is very difficult for me, Sebastian.”
“I know. Forgive me.”
“But you said to come to you again when I believed, so …” she paused, and then continued. “I’m going to get some answers. Tonight. And if, if, I come back believing, we can try this again.”
“Laurel, I meant over time. --- just what are you intending to do to find these answers?” Wariness made his shoulders tight and his stomach clench.
“I’m going to go out and check around. I’ll be discreet, but I can’t just let it sit.”
Sebastian’s hands tightened on her shoulders. He used them to turn her, ducking his head in low and close so he was sure he had her absolute attention. His voice was dangerously soft.
“…the bloody hell you will.” He only used that word under duress, and every time he did within Sara's hearing, she was fond of saying his British was showing.
“There are worse things than ghosts to meet in the dark. Come, I will have the chef prepare you dinner,” he said, as though the matter were settled. Sebastian fully expected it would be. He was a man used to being obeyed, and for all his polish that archaic sensibility never quite left him. It translated as overbearing at times, but Sebastian made no apologies.
Immediately he could see her defiance. Her chin came up, and there were slivers of heat in her eyes.
“This is ridiculous. I want answers and there is nothing wrong with asking around.”
“It is ridiculous. What exactly do you see yourself doing, Laurel? Approaching strangers on the street in the middle of the night?”
It was the rare situation that could prompt Sebastian into an emotional response that stripped back the layers of his calm control. This was one of those situations. He was obliged to release her arms lest he leave bruises from his tight grip. With a sharp turn, he stalked away from her, trying to collect his composure.
They would never rest in her mind, these half-truths he told her. The questions would haunt her every time she looked at him now, each time he touched her. Sebastian didn’t need to be told that, but the realization in such clear terms was stark. He bristled with tension as he paced.
Just as abruptly as he had turned away from her, he turned back, bearing down on her with two long strides. He said nothing, but there was the reflection of distant torment in his eyes as he dragged her into his arms, making her suck in a surprised breath.
It was a departure from his usual embraces, which had been, until now, protective, reassuring, sheltering. This was need. Inexplicable and raw. He dropped his dark head against her neck, holding her tight. Like a man trying to grasp something he feared was slipping away. She murmured a concerned sound and whispered her fingertips over his shoulder until he stepped back.
His stride was a stalking thing when he rounded the sofa to stand behind it, putting distance between them. A barrier. The naked emotion that had been in his eyes was replaced now with an enigmatic expression; a cool, unreadable mask.
As though she knew what was coming, he heard her draw in a breath and hold it.
“Humans call us vampires.”
Chapter Eight
Humans call us vampires.
Laurel stared at Sebastian while the whole world came to a grinding halt around her. Time stood still. Nothing moved. Nothing breathed. It would have been easy to believe they were the only ones left on the face of the earth, that there wasn't anything beyond the walls of the room, beyond the tension that stretched taut between them.
Sweat popped out on her brow.
For several moments, she couldn't even think. And then, with an inexplicable rush, the information unfurled, rioting around her mind. Sebastian was a vampire. The only emotion Laurel didn't have among the many that plagued her was denial. She didn't doubt for a second that he was exactly that-- a vampire. Sebastian had been too honest about everything
else. The way he'd cared about her, helped her, watched after her, told her that this was the biggest secret he'd kept. Which didn't make it any easier to swallow.
"I…I need a minute," she said. She needed several minutes. Maybe a whole week.
They stared at each other across the room. Before Laurel knew what happened, Sebastian was suddenly right there in front of her, moving too quick for the human eye to follow. She gasped in surprise, but not fear.
Sebastian picked her up like he was wont to, cradling her against his chest. The mantle of intensity he wore was thick enough to cut. He stepped into a shadow in the corner of the room, plunging Laurel into confusing disorientation. She suffered a moment of vertigo before focusing on his face and then the large chamber he stepped into. In one shadow and out another, moving between spaces with ease. This was not like any other room she'd seen.
Arms around his neck, she looked at the bed, the dresser, the array of personal effects on the nightstand. This was Sebastian's private domain, a place that felt more lived in than the one upstairs. The lack of windows didn't detract from the comfortable atmosphere. When he set her on her feet, she steadied her balance by holding his arms and finally let her hands fall away.
He stepped toward a small table and poured himself a tumbler of scotch.
"This is where you come during the day," she said, as the pieces started falling into place.
"Yes, this is where I sleep," he replied. He didn't close the distance but stayed on the other side of the room.
Laurel raised a shaky hand to push back a wayward strand of hair. Several things started making sense; how he always managed to avoid being out in the daylight hours, the way he tracked her to the ballroom the night at Mystique.
Monsters did exist, and she was dating one of them.
"What does all this mean?" she asked, speaking past a knot in her throat. A strange, encroaching numbness tempered her immediate reactions.
"It means I am not mortal. I do not age. It means I can do things a human can't," he said, pausing to drag a hand back through his hair. "We drink blood to survive."
"What do you mean, exactly, when you say you're not mortal?" Laurel had to take it one step at a time. Because of the shock, it took longer to process certain details.
"What I mean is that we do not die by traditional methods. Like mortals. We are not susceptible to disease, or age. We are unchanging through the years, barring injury. Immortal, some might say, but it is not a term I like," he replied. "We can be killed. It is, though, exceedingly hard to do. Our bodies are no longer functional as you– as mortal bodies are. Our hearts no longer beat. We do not need to breathe, or eat food. We do not reproduce in the human way."
"No, that's not true. I've heard your heart beating, Sebastian. When we lie together. I've felt it. People who do not breathe do not live." There was something about this particular part of it all that upset her more than the rest. He sounded…dead. She was too stunned to recall if vampires of fiction and myth were living or not.
He set the tumbler down and sat in the chair, facing her. "I made it beat, made myself warm. I breathed, but I do not require air to live. As a man, I died a long time ago."
"You are not dead, Sebastian," she said, quiet and even. Shaken to her core, she fought off panic and dizziness.
"You wanted to know who I am, and what I was, and I am telling you. Though it violates the laws of my kind, I am telling you," he replied. He leaned back in the chair, looking far from comfortable.
"I didn't expect…this. I thought maybe you'd say you-- well I don't know what I thought. “ Agitated, she started pacing a small circle on her side of the room, one hand rubbing her forehead. "I wanted to know, needed to know. You've known all this time. You knew, and you let me believe you were--" Alive. Laurel couldn't finish the sentence. "You let me fall for you, and now you've stripped it all away." For a precious few seconds, the deception—omission?-- overwhelmed her.
You let me fall for you. She was as shaken by that realization as everything else.
"I do not deny it," he said. His voice grew quiet. "I have not lied to you more than was necessary." Sebastian rose and walked to the fireplace, bracing a hand on the mantle.
Laurel glanced at him, ready to be angry. Ready to rake him over the coals. But she was stricken by how normal he looked. Sebastian was just…Sebastian. Even though she knew this horrible thing, she could not look at him and be unaffected. He was devastating with his black hair, broad shoulders, and intense eyes. All these months she'd come to know him as she might any other man, cared for him, embraced him into her life. She believed what he was telling her, and yet her heart still trip-hammered in his presence. The warmth and affection she'd developed warred with dread and unease. She felt conflicted. Desperate.
"I don't understand why you kept on, if you knew--"
"I did not expect to care for you," he said. "Maybe you should take some time, have dinner, a bath." Sebastian gestured toward a heavy door leading to a dark corridor that led up to the main floor.
"I'm sorry," she whispered, pausing her pacing to face him. "I'm still trying to come to terms with it all. I just know we can't be together and it's killing me. I don't know how to walk out that door and never come back. You're the person I run to when I'm upset, when I need comforting. When I want to feel safe. It makes me feel empty to think I can't do that anymore. I'm hurting over things I've lost before I ever really had them to begin with." Emotion broke open inside her with a vengeance. The sudden sense of loss was acute and far more painful than she thought it could be. Tears stung her eyes and threatened to spill down her cheeks. She thought she should be ranting and furious, but all she felt was soul deep sorrow.
Sebastian regarded her with a serious, sober expression, his mouth a thin line. "You're content to put an end to it then, without taking time to consider things?"
"Oh, I'm far from content, Sebastian," she said with a little flare of ire. "What's to consider? How you'll stay as you are while I grow older every year, becoming less and less desirable and frail while you remain powerful and virile? I couldn't handle watching your interest wane while I wither. We live in totally separate worlds. I don't know how to exist in yours, and you can barely exist in mine. I don't know what to do," she confessed, pressing her palms against her flushed cheeks.
"We live in the same world, Laurel. You are just opening your eyes to the truth of it," he said. Sebastian looked tortured, torn. “I'll find somewhere else to stay if you don't think you can...abide being near me. Until we figure things out.”
Smearing away a traitorous tear, she crossed the room—not toward the door, which probably would have been the smart thing to do, but toward him. Wrapping her arms around his middle, she sank into his chest and sought the solace he so effortlessly provided. He might be this monster, this thing, but he was the first person she went to in an emotional crisis. Even if he was the one who had caused it. The reaction was as natural as breathing and one she didn’t question just now.
He hugged her to him, fierce at first and then gentle, stroking a hand over her hair. Kissing her crown, he stared over her head at a distant point on the wall. When she leaned back to see his face, he touched her under the chin.
"It will be all right, Laurel," he said, reaching up to close her eyelids with his fingers.
She let him, dragging in a breath and his scent at the same time. Laurel felt his departure like a cold whisper against her skin; a stir of the air and a brush against her fingertips. Surprised, she snapped her eyes open. He was nowhere in sight. The absence of his presence was so stark that she shuddered in reaction. Alarm chased the shudder and she hurried to what turned out to be a bathroom, looking inside.
Nothing.
Devastated--had she driven him away for good?--she wrapped her arms around herself and called out for him.
"Sebastian?"
Empty silence was her only answer.
"He's gone," Sara said from the doorway. She moved across the sanctuary and s
et a hand on Laurel's shoulder.
Laurel glanced at the sleep-rumpled woman with a start. She hadn't heard her come in. Maybe Sara meant he had retreated upstairs to his parlor, or his bedroom.
"Gone where? Upstairs?" She didn't wait for confirmation before she started walking, and then running up the long corridor to the foyer. Fear nipped at her heels. It didn't matter that she'd just told him that they couldn't be together, or that she knew they couldn't be together. It mattered that he was suddenly just gone. Everything was too raw, too abrasive on her nerves and her senses. She needed him as a buffer, needed him to be there to answer her questions, to calm her raging panic.
"Sebastian?" She shouted it, the echo bouncing back off the corridor walls.
"He's not in the house, Laurel," Sara said, following at a sedate pace.
Laurel emerged onto the main floor, wild eyed, her heart thundering in her chest. "Where then?" She glanced back at Sara, pushing hair from her temples, distraught.
"Out, I'm not sure where. What happened?" she asked, her eyes gentle.
"He told me," Laurel whispered. "What he is. He told me."
Sara, with caution in her voice, asked, “What did you say?"
Worry made knots of Laurel's stomach. Everywhere she looked-- nothing. No Sebastian, no reassuring voice, no understanding touch. "I told him that we couldn't be together, that there were too many obstacles. I pointed out a few that concerned me…"
Sara winced. "He's probably just gone to sort things out. Strong, silent types. They all do that. He'll be back when he can be appropriately stoic.”
Laurel followed when Sara led her with a gentle hand toward the parlor. The first sight of the piano halted her in the archway and she choked back a wave of nostalgia. Uncertainty gnawed at her. Immortal, some might say. He was, and she was not. How many good years would they have before she grew too old, too wrinkled? How bad would the pain be then, after all that time, only to lose him in the end?
Unthinkable.
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