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

Chapter Forty Five: Attention (Violin)

((TW: Mentions of SA, violence, gore - alcohol usuage, smoking.))

Erebus was not a modest man, by any definition. I was learning that rather quickly as we took a step into the private drawing room we'd been invited to. It was a grand affair, large enough to entertain at least more than a simple handful of guests.

The room was adorned with artwork I wished I could've stopped to look at, little glass and crystal bits that were littered around the room flickered in the light of the overhead candles.

It all screamed old money. Expensive old money.

And I felt quite out of place here, even if I had been welcomed in as an honored guest.

There were two dark wizards who stood in different corners of the room, and even with their masks on, I could feel their gaze. I felt like a stranger in this new little world I was dipping my toes into, and the way their bodies turned to look at me made me wonder if taking a swim was worth it. I was just testing the waters and I had already seen the little dangerous creatures that were at the surface, and those had only made me recede from their waters.

If those things were just at the surface, I could only imagine what laid beneath the dark, uncertain depths of it.

It wouldn't be anything as simple as sharks or crocodiles. There would be leviathans, great world eaters that would drag me under until I became one with the seafloor.

And I knew that, because the leviathan that walked behind me wanted to do just that.

Sebastian had been silent since we'd left the garden. It had taken great effort to pull away from each other and his eyes had grown cold, almost calculating. Like he was preparing for another fight before it happened. I could only stare as he burned away the vines around my wrists, unable to ask him anything because I did not know what questions were there to be asked.

This was all so new to me, so foreign and uncertain.

I was taken aback that he had taken the time to heal the superficial wounds on my wrists and the ones that lined my cheeks. He was slow and deliberate and traced his wand over them so gently it made my stomach clench.

When he straightened my gown until it was just as it had been at the start of the night, I realized what he was doing. He was prolonging this little unsteady truce between us, where peace and nearness resided. I hadn't told him that it was temporary, but somehow he just knew.

I could feel it in the way his fingers ran through my hair. I could see it in the eyes that gazed back at me while he tugged up all the loose strands back into their updo. In that moment with him, in the darkness of the garden, I found myself wanting to remain there. I wanted to plead with myself to stay in that little bubble of tenderness and silence, where nothing else but being close to him existed.

Because I had known the moment we walked out of that garden, there would be no going back. There would never be a return to a silent moment with Sebastian, because I would never allow it to happen again. I would only return to the resolve that I'd been clutching so tightly onto, where I would push myself towards the only thing that was necessary.

Hating Sebastian Sallow.

Hating him for being a treacherous snake.

Hating him for tormenting for months on end in deliciously despicable ways.

But most of all, I hated him for making me fall in love with him all over again. Just to take it away again.

That serpent kept close to me, like a looming shadow that had replaced my own. I couldn't tell if he was contemplating on finishing his task of devouring me or if he was protecting me from things far worse than him. Despite the fact that our game had once again come to a close, I could still feel that strange possessiveness Sebastian had for me.