Page 97 of Sebastian

“Of course I do. I have everyone making sure we get Addie and Natalie.”

She couldn’t breathe, the weight of everything crashing down onto her chest. His eyes never left her. Just a constant stream of unrelenting pity pouring from his gaze. Her body was covered in bandages, but she knew what was underneath them. Not only was she unable to give Sebastian children in the future, but now she was a monster. Nothing more than the scars the would soon cover her skin.

“Breathe, Em. Just breathe.” His warm hand slid under hers, but instead of it bringing her calm, she found she couldn’t stand it.

“I don’t want you here anymore, Seb,” she whispered. “You have to go.”

He looked like he’d been punched in the gut. “What do you mean?”

“I mean exactly what I said. I. Don’t. Want. You. Here. I don’t want you to see me like this. And I don’t want to be forced to see the pity in your eyes every time you look at me.”

“No, Em?—”

“Don’t you dare try to tell me it’s not there, because it is, Sebastian. Every time you look at me, your eyes scream your pity at me. And I don’t want it. You need to go.”

“Am I allowed to say something before you banish me?” He stared at the side of her face as she shrugged. “You need to look at me, Sprinkles. You need to look into my eyes while I say this. And if you still want me to go at the end, then fine. I’ll go.”

Her face turned towards his and she knew he’d see the tears sparkling along her bottom lashes.

“I love you, Emma. And I promise you, there is no pity in my eyes when I look at you. There is awe, for how incredibly strong you are. There is overwhelming thankfulness, because you are here and you came back to me. There is joy, for all the things we will still get to experience together. There is regret, that I wasn’t able to keep my promise to you, to protect you from that monster. But there is not one ounce of pity.”

“But I’m scarred now. Every inch of my body is the hideous reminder of what he did to me. He’s made me a monster.”

“Stop, Emma. Stop that right now. Each and every one of those marks will fade. There are excellent treatments available now to reduce the appearance of scars and I can have the best doctors in the world flown in to treat you. But don’t think for one minute that all these marks make you any less beautiful. They make you a warrior. A goddess. They are a reminder of your strength, your resiliency, your determination to be the victor. Those marks will fade with time, but your courage and your strength will not. You are not his victim. You are a survivor.

“I want to spend hour upon hour kissing each one of those marks, worshiping your body through them, because they remind me how blessed I am that you are still here. I will spend every night for the rest of my life pouring my love into each and every one of these marks until I erase every last memory of them being from him and you only associate them with the love I have for you. Until the only thought you have when you look at them is that your body is a temple I’ll be worshiping at until my very last breath on this Earth.”

“I can’t give you kids,” she whispered.

“And? I don’t care about that one bit, except for the fact that I know it hurts you so deeply.” He wiped a tear from her cheek. “If you want to have kids with me someday, and god, I hope you do, then we’ll foster or adopt. I don’t care one bit if our child has our DNA or not, Em. They will still be ours. And they will be loved with everything in our hearts no matter what. If you want to be a mom again, I’ll do everything in my power to make that happen.”

“I was never a mom before.”

“Yes. Yes you were. And yes you are still. You’ll always be Luna’s mom, and I promise I will never stop looking for her. I won’t give up until she’s back in your arms.”

“I love you, Sebastian. I don’t want you to waste your life on me.”

There was so much pain in his eyes, Emma had to look away. It was clear that he had more to say, but thankfully his phone rang before he could.

“I have to take this, Sprinkles. But I’m coming back and you are going to listen to what I have to say.”

She didn’t have the strength to even nod. Closing her eyes, she heard him move towards the window in her room.

“Yeah, Tracker, go ahead.”

Gage. Her eyes opened, locking on Seb’s. “Put him on speakerphone.”

“Gage, Emma is listening in too.”

“Em, I haven’t located them, yet. But I will. I promise.”

“Just get to why you called me,” Seb growled.

“Yeah, Cap. Listen, the FBI finally got a hit on one of their database searches from Emma’s sketch. Apparently Dr. Giovanni Sears, Natalie’s husband, is the same man Emma knows as Marco Santoro.”

Natalie’s husband. She’d opened the door, and Marco was standing there. Addie ran into his arms. Her whole world came crashing down. Emma screamed as the memories from the night Marco attacked her came flooding back.

“Fuck! Em? Sprinkles…come on now, breathe.” If Emma wasn’t in a full panic she might have laughed at the way Sebastian threw his phone to the ground and ran to her side. But all she could hear as her ears rang was the sound of Marco’s knife gliding across her skin. Each mark on her body burned as the memories of that night washed over her in a tsunami of grief. “He isn’t going to get you, baby. I promise. I promise with everything I am, Em, he’s never going to hurt you again.”

---