Page 70 of Taken Off Camera
“I remember enough.” My fingers brush the Mark on my neck. “I remember asking for you. Begging for you.”
“You were in Heat.” He swallows hard, his Adam’s apple bobbing. “You couldn’t consent.”
“We already had plans for you to see me through my Heat. I didn’t wear a nape guard.” My arms tighten around myself. “What did you think was going to happen?”
Sebastian turns away, his stark profile outlined by the glow of the monitors. “I thought I could control myself. Be what you needed without…” He gestures to my neck.
“Without claiming me?” I finish for him.
“Yes.”
“I felt disposable.” The words slip out before I can stop them. “Like you used me during my Heat and then decided I wasn’t worth keeping.”
Sebastian’s head snaps up in horror. “No. God, Micah, no. That’s not?—”
“Then what?” I cut him off, body trembling. “What am I supposed to think? You Mark me, claim me as yours, and then ghosted me.”
“I was ashamed.” The admission falls between us, heavy and real.
“Of me?” I whisper, shrinking into my hoodie.
“Never of you.” Sebastian takes a tentative step forward, hands reaching toward me before droppingback to his sides. “Of myself. Of what I did. Of losing control.”
I hug myself tighter, holding in the pieces that might scatter if he touches me. “You hurt me more by leaving than you ever could have by staying.”
Sebastian’s scarred face twists with regret. “I realize that now, and I’ll never forgive myself.”
He sinks back into his chair, the leather creaking under his weight. His fingertips trace the edges of his keyboard, tapping an uneven rhythm. When he speaks, his voice comes out rough, as if the words scrape his throat on their way up.
“I’ve spent my life trying to be in control.” The tapping stops. “Every decision, every action.”
I stay silent, watching the way his eyes fix on the monitor displaying the manor’s front gate. A car passes on the road beyond, headlights illuminating the wrought iron before vanishing around the curve.
“My family lives in the public eye.” Sebastian gestures to the screens surrounding us. “One wrong move, one moment of weakness, and it’s not only me who suffers.”
“Is that why you ran?” The shaking worsens. “To protect your family’s reputation?”
“No. That would be more noble.” His hands tremble as he folds them in his lap. “I ran because Iwas terrified of how you’d look at me when the fever cleared.”
“Because of the Mark?”
“Not just the Mark.” He swallows hard. “You told me you were scared of pain, and I promised you it wouldn’t hurt. But I broke that promise. I lost control, and I hurt another person I love.”
His pain pulls me a step closer. “What do you mean?”
Sebastian’s focus drifts to a space between the monitors where a small framed photo hangs of two teenage boys with their arms slung over each other’s shoulders, grinning at the camera. One of them is Sebastian, whose face is unmarred by scars.
“The car accident,” he whispers. “I told our parents I’d drive safely when I took my cousin Ezra for a drive after I got my license.”
The tension in his shoulders travels down his spine, leaving him rigid in the chair. I can almost see him, young and carefree, hands gripping a steering wheel for the first time.
“We were on a back road, and I was showing off.” His fingers dig into his thighs. “I took a curve too fast and lost control. The car hit a tree. I wasn’t wearing my seatbelt.” His hand rises to touch the scars on his face. “I went through the windshield. Ezra waspinned inside the car for three hours while they cut him out.”
“But he survived,” I say softly. “Right?”
“Yes, but he spent months in the hospital. Surgeries. Physical therapy.” He stares at the picture of them. “He was just a kid. Thirteen. And I almost killed him because I couldn’t control myself.”
The pieces click into place. Sebastian’s rigid self-discipline, his careful boundaries, his obsession with security. All of it rooted in this moment from his past, this unhealed wound.
