A Ballad of Snakes and Shadows // A Dark Sebastian Sallow Romance

Chapter Eighteen: Hit Me Right // all the good girls go to hell

When I came back down from the heavens, I found myself being cradled in the arms of the devil. Sebastian was pressing soft kisses in my hair, as he pulled me up against that broad chest of his. I could hear him even whispering words of praise into my muddled head as his fingers stroked the plains of my back. Those words felt so muffled in my head, I could only gather the smallest bit of the sentiment that he was trying to convey.

That he was proud of me for letting go, for making the choice to cum all over his fingers.

It barely registered to me what Sebastian was doing as I rested my head against his chest, pressing my nose into him as I breathed in his scent deeply. It was a warm, spicy thing that invaded my nose and went straight to my aching core. I hadn't expected him to smell so fucking good.

Nor had I been prepared for the gentleness each stroke of his finger offered against the small of my back. What I had expected was for him to shove me off him, to belittle me for what had just happened between us.

His mood was giving me a severe case of fucking whiplash.

Yet as he whispered those sweet, nasty things against my hair, my mind began to wander around the corners of an impossible thought.

Was my Sebastian still inside of him? Was there still a sliver, no matter how small, left of the boy who I'd loved so many years ago?

I wasn't sure if I could let myself believe that, given that he had broken me each time he'd been in the same room with me tonight. The Sebastian I knew now took so much pleasure in each tear that fell down my flushed cheeks.

This Sebastian took sheer, unbridled amusement in my downward spiral into the void.

My fingers clutched at the fabric of his shirt as I nestled in closer. I wanted to remember this moment for a little longer, the feeling of him being so fucking gentle with me. This would be so short lived, I knew that, once I asked the question that needed to be aired out between us.

I wanted those answers to give me some kind of comfort. I ached for it even the smallest bit of peace in knowing that he hadn't strayed too far from his true self.

"What happened to you, Sebastian?" I swallowed, letting that question tumble out of my mouth a bit faster than I had wanted to. I was enjoying the way he felt wrapped around me, and my stomach churned as I felt him shift a bit beneath me.

"People change," Sebastian said softly.

The hand in my hair had enough of its mindless petting, letting the last bit of the strands he'd been brushing fall back onto my shoulder. Now he used that hand to cup my cheek, lifting it so that my eyes would meet his. I could see something familiar behind the coldness in those eyes, something that almost resembled regret.

That was something I didn't believe that this version of Sebastian was capable of. What he was regretting now was unclear to me, though.

"Especially when they're not given a choice." His grip on my cheek tightened as his thumb brushed over my lip.

"Never forget that you took mine away from me."

My cheeks heated as I tried to pull my eyes from his. It wasn't regret that I was seeing no matter how similar the emotion looked. No, it was the sadness he felt over that residual pain of my betrayal. Inside of me, there would always be a lingering guilt that I would feel for what Ominis and I had done when we'd made the choice to send him away.

Ominis had believed that no matter what we had chosen he would have always turned out this way. That once the dark arts had influenced Sebastian, there would be no turning back to the light.

I didn't know if I agreed with him anymore.

What would my Sebastian be like if I hadn't sent him away? We could've stopped him from becoming this monster who only sought to tear us apart. To break us, to destroy everything we held dear.