Pulling off my cloak, I removed my gloves and ran my hand over the mark of our Binding. “I just… I was worried about you.”
A bitter laugh escaped Sebastian, and I shivered.
“Worried? Luna, you don’t have to worry about me. Don’t you know who I am?” He finally turned around. Shadows flooded from his outstretched palms as he stepped towards me, and his eyes flashed with dark, swirling storms. “They call me the Prince of Darkness. Do you know why that is?”
He loomed above me, shadows swirling around him like a tempest as his wings snapped out behind him.
“I’m guessing it’s not because of your sparkling personality?” I quipped, trying to diffuse the tension.
Sebastian glared at me, his narrowed eyes and flared nostrils telling me exactly how he felt about the sudden appearance of my sense of humor.
“No,” he snarled. Opening his palm, shadows churned above his fist. “It’s because Iamdarkness. There is no other of my kind like me. Not really. Mother has… other things that she can do. But the shadows are mine, and I am theirs.”
I stared at him.
“I’ve seen you use the shadows, Sebastian,” I whispered. “Multiple times. I know what they do.”
“You have no idea what I can do, Luna. Not really. The things you’ve seen are mere parlor tricks.” His fist closed, and the shadows swirled around his arm like snakes, curling around his outstretched wings.
“Why are you telling me this?”
Throwing up his arms at his side, he huffed. “Because I’m trying to keep you safe! Those people down there were dangerous, and they were trying to kill you.” He ran his hand through his hair. “If you had just stayed put, I could have dealt with them. But no, you had to disobey me. And now look where we ended up. They’re gone.”
I stared at Sebastian. “What do you mean, ‘deal with them?’”
He raised a brow. A heaviness filled the air, and he glared at me. “Luna, what do youthinkI mean?”
The air grew thick between us, and I squirmed beneath Sebastian’s gaze.
“I think you mean that you were going to kill them,” I whispered, shifting uncomfortably beneath the weight of his stare.
He dipped his head in reply.
Obviously, I knew he was a vampire. I assumed that his lifestyle brought with it a certain amount of death. But still, hearing him talk about killing people so openly…
A shiver crawled down my spine.
“How many people have you killed?” I asked quietly.
A beat passed before his eyes flashed. “A lot,” he said gruffly.
That knot returned with a vengeance in my stomach, and my heart pounded rapidly in my chest. “How… how many is a lot?”
Sebastian’s wings flexed, and the silence stretched between us. In another part of the inn, someone moaned.
“I don’t know anymore,” he whispered. His voice carried echoes of sleepless nights and unfathomable amounts of pain.
Pushing off the bed, I walked toward Sebastian. “Why?”
Filled with meaning, the word hung between us as I moved to take his hand in mine. Why did he do it? Why didn’t he remember the lives he took? And perhaps more importantly, why did I care so much about the tortured look in his eyes?
“Sebastian—”
“I had no choice.”
His words echoed through the room, and for a moment, the only thing I could hear was the beating of my own heart.
“The queen?” I asked.