Chapter 208 Silly woman

“You are killing me, Serena. Just like you killed your sister.” He rasped, his voice wet and fading. “You are killing me…”

Viola frantically shook her head, her hands hovering uselessly over him. “No. I didn’t kill anybody. Sebastian don’t leave me. Don’t die!” She wept as his eyes began to flutter closed.

Viola whimpered in her sleep, thrashing against the couch cushions as tears streamed silently down her face, her lips moving as she begged for Sebastian not to die, begged him to know she hadn’t meant to hurt him. She felt a gentle touch against her cheeks, warm and careful, wiping the wetness away, and she opened her eyes slowly to be met with burning, deeply worried silver eyes looking down at her in the dim light.

Without thinking about a single thing she was doing, Viola shot upright and pushed up to kneel on the couch, and she reached forward and tore Sebastian’s shirt open to reveal his chest. There was no wound. No blood. No gaping hole.

She traced her trembling fingers across the taut, tattooed muscles anyway, tears still streaming freely down her face as she searched desperately for the wound that didn’t exist.

“I thought I hurt you…” She sobbed, looking at his chest with her brows creased deeply together in confusion. “I stabbed your heart…”

Sebastian, who heard her words, looked at her with his brows arched.

He had been feeling restless for the past two days of not seeing her, fighting every urge that pushed him toward her and suffering through sleepless nights.

He had kept himself busy by going to the training grounds and personally overseeing the warriors’ training just to keep himself from going to his wife, until tonight when something felt off in a way he couldn’t name or ignore, and he couldn’t help himself from coming over to at least check on her.

He had found her sleeping on the couch, almost peacefully at first, until her brows knitted together and sweat broke out on her forehead and she began to thrash and whimper, calling his name in a voice so small and distressed it had pulled at something deep in his chest.

He had been completely caught off guard when she jolted awake and tore his shirt open with trembling hands to touch his chest, where his skin burned beneath her palm the moment it landed there, the way it always did when she touched him.

’Damn man, we spent the entire day dreaming about her and she spent hers dreaming about stabbing you. That stings.’ Muffin remarked from within, and Sebastian shut him out without a second thought.

He noticed how she was trembling all over and slowly gripped her shoulders to steady her. “It’s okay. It was just a nightmare.”

“No…it felt so real.” She sobbed, unable to shake the image from her mind. She was used to having nightmares of stabbing her sister, but not of doing it to Sebastian.

“Vivid. Not real. It only felt real. Shhh…it was just a dream.” He rubbed her back gently, guiding her to sit back down on the couch before gathering her onto his lap and pulling her head against his chest, where her hand was still resting and moving against him, tracing him like she needed to confirm he was solid and whole.

“I…I can’t…” She whispered, still trembling from the aftermath of it.

Sebastian cupped her cheeks and tried to make her look at him, but her eyes remained closed. Her lashes were wet and her cheeks were flushed red and damp, her lower lip caught between her teeth as if she were biting down to hold back the next wave of sobs.

Was she this shaken because she had dreamed of stabbing him? Did that mean she cared about him enough to be reduced to this state, trembling and sobbing, for his sake alone? Sebastian thought, a spark catching quietly inside his chest and swelling it with something warm he didn’t have a name for yet but didn’t want to push away.

He pulled her back against his chest again, caressing her back and rubbing slow circles into it.

He rubbed her back until her sobs quieted and her breathing evened out and steadied. It was only then that he realized she hadn’t been fully awake this entire time, and she had drifted back to sleep against his chest without him even noticing it happen.

Sebastian carried her and brought her to her bedroom, setting her down gently on the bed, but just as he began to pull away he felt it. She had grabbed a fistful of his shirt in each hand, holding on tightly, and he smiled softly to himself because he remembered now that it was her habit.

Hovering over her, he leaned down and pressed a lingering kiss to her forehead.

“I have missed you so much it kills me every second to stay away from you, my love.” He whispered to her sleeping form. “And yet you are far too stubborn to even try to call me. I wonder if you will ever reach out to me first one day. I am always chasing you, but you never chase me.” He clicked his tongue softly as she stirred slightly in her sleep before settling again, completely oblivious to his quiet complaints about her stubbornness.

If it were up to him, with all the warmth and quiet delight that sparked through him simply by being in her presence, he would have moved them both to his main quarters long ago, away from the watchful eyes of pack members and elders alike.

But then he also knew that would stir another wave of curiosity he couldn’t afford right now. He hadn’t allowed Evangeline to live there, precisely because she hadn’t been his mate, so wouldn’t they begin to question why he would extend that privilege to his new Luna when he had never done so before? The questions that would follow were not ones he was ready to answer.

And beyond that, his main quarters had a problem he hadn’t been able to solve no matter how many times he had tried. Spies. No matter how many times he changed the set of workers stationed there, a spy always found a way to be planted among them, blending in seamlessly until he rooted one out only to find another had already taken their place somewhere he hadn’t yet thought to look.

Until Viola’s wolf awakened and she was no longer as vulnerable as she was now, separate living arrangements were the safer choice, even if every instinct he had argued loudly against it every single day.

Though that didn’t mean he wouldn’t spend some nights with her. Everyone was well aware that would be necessary if an heir was ever going to be made, the heir the entire pack pestered him relentlessly about as though it were the only thing that mattered.

Besides, he had already quietly planned a perfect stretch of time for them to spend together, away from all of it, and he couldn’t wait to see her reaction when the moment finally came.

“Silly woman.” He whispered with a small smile, before he carefully eased himself onto the bed beside her, his head pillowed on his bent arm, watching her peaceful sleeping face in the low light.

Watching her like this, the tension that lived permanently in his chest loosened just slightly, and Sebastian felt the pull of sleep creeping over him before he could think to resist it. He didn’t fight it. He let his eyes close for just a little while.