Exile || Sebastian Sallow

27 | Surrender ♡

───•~❉᯽❉~•───

"So many mornings I woke up confused.
In my dreams, I do anything I want to you."
- Camila Cabello

───•~❉᯽❉~•───

♥ warning: contains explicit adult content
(another long chapter ahead)

27 | Surrender

Sebastian's Perspective

The night was quiet, but my head was anything but. While no sound drifted in from the open windows in the kitchen, not a sign of any creatures stirring, a constant storm brewed itself inside my heart.

Though I supposed our cottage being a little further away from the others had its advantages. I could wallow in peace.

To detach myself from Belle, was to chip away at my glass heart. I'd stood outside her bedroom door a second longer than necessary just to indulge myself in her closeness as if the whole ordeal of today wasn't enough.

When I left her alone and headed downstairs, breathing in the night air from the window and then plopping myself on the couch in front of the fireplace with a grunt, loneliness unlike any other seeped in. I ached everywhere. Physically and mentally. Bruised and battered from the unnecessary battles earlier. At the fucking possibility of Belle getting hurt and worst of all, almost dying. 

Every step down the stairs had me wishing upon an invisible well that I'd stayed up there with her. Not even the crackling fire in the hearth could embrace the coldness I felt in my bones because of her distance, though she was only one flight of stairs away from me.

But I didn't want to intrude, and after I'd been such a horrid ...

Well I couldn't exactly say what we were, but something that borderlines friend but not. Point was, I'd been horrible to her.

I wanted her, but I could not have her. These conflicting thoughts were hurting her. I knew that. And whatever bit of civility kept happening to us, kept daring me to pull back my defenses only for me to keep fighting because I didn't deserve someone like her.

One thing I've realized over these past agonizing days was how much I cared for her. I hated that I cared for her in the way that I did. That I'd put myself through hell for her. Even if I had to do it from a distance.

Because getting attached to her any further was dangerous. But fuck it, I already was attached. It was the sole reason I'd turn back around this morning when I realized she wasn't at the festival and tracked her down, knowing damn well she was going to use herself as bait.

When she used her ancient magic to save me from an attack I hadn't even seen, panic gnawed at me. She'd told me before that she couldn't use ancient magic, and damn it, I knew it would hurt her, but there she was using it to save me.

I laid my back on the couch, spreading my feet to its arm, my head on the other side. I pressed the heels of my palm to my eyes and let guilt overwhelm me. Because of me, she'd used her ancient magic. Something she wasn't even supposed to do.

I'd subtly checked for any sign of her hurting before I'd left her alone in the bedroom, but I'd seen nothing. Unless she was just pretending, then-