Page 22 of Treasured

“You should prepare yourself for the reality that he might not wake, Princess.”

Dropping Sebastian’s hand, I stood and turned, meeting Genevieve’s gaze. The priestess had looked after Sebastian and me since we first arrived at the abbey.

“What?” I asked.

She shook her head, her long hair escaping its braid. Pity danced in her black eyes. Pity for me. For Sebastian. For our situation. I hated it.

“He may not wake,” she repeated.

“He has to.” I paced the length of this too-small room. Three and a half steps in each direction. After being here for a few days, I memorized this path. I couldn’t sit still for long. Not while Sebastian was in this long sleep. “There’s no other option. He must wake. I can’t… if he doesn’t… he must wake up.”

The painful headaches were finally gone, having stopped a few hours after Genevieve had administered a healing tonic to Sebastian. It would mute the queen’s call temporarily, the priestess explained, but he needed to ingest it daily for it to work properly.

Thank the gods, the Second Order was willing to help us. I still didn’t trust them fully—I wasn’t sure I would trust anyone at all, after what had been done to us—but from the bits and pieces of conversations I was able to have, it seemed they weren’t exactly pleased with the way Queen Marguerite was running things in Eleyta.

Genevieve had indicated she would help us as much as possible. After so much time being alone in Castle Sanguis with little to no help, having a potential ally seemed almost too good to be true. Isvana only knew we needed all the help we could get.

But ally or not, I needed Sebastian to wake.

I leaned against the wall, suddenly exhausted. When had I last slept? The hours had slipped into days, and it was all a gray fog.

“I need him,” I told the priestess. “He’s my entire world.” I couldn’t even imagine living without him. He was my other half. Living without him would be like trying to breathe underwater. Impossible.

“Princess...”

“I’ll pray again,” I said firmly. “No matter how many times it takes, I’ll keep doing it.”

Someone had to hear those prayers, right? I’d met Isvana. She was real. She would bring him back to me.

How could he stay asleep? Our love was too deep for that. Too vast. He needed to wake up so we could experience life together.

That pity flashed in Genevieve’s eyes again, and she drew her lip through her teeth. “He should have woken already—”

A groan came from the bed. I turned, my slow-beating heart momentarily stopping in my chest, and my eyes landed on Sebastian.

That first day, while the priestesses gathered the ingredients needed for the tonic, he had screamed, thrashed, and yelled for twenty-four hours. I’d taken off his tunic after it got drenched in sweat. He lost his voice, yet he still hadn’t stopped crying out. The rough, coarse sound of his rasping cries would haunt me for years.

Only once the tonic took effect was Genevieve able to clean the cut on his cheek. She’d used strong alcohol to wash out whatever poison had been on the Fledgling’s nails. To my deep relief, it had healed. Mostly. Even now, faint red lines remained from where the vampire had ripped into Sebastian’s face.

But that groan…

Please let him wake, I prayed.

I stared at him. The lub-dub of my heart was loud as I waited. And waited.

Then, his bare arm shifted where it rested on his chest. Hope fluttered to life in my chest.

His lips moved, his tongue darting out and wetting them, and he coughed. “Find the key and break the bond,” he whispered.

The moment he spoke, my knees shook. Relief ran through me, and his words barely registered.

He was awake.

I prayed like never before, thanking Isvana for her blessings, and darted to Sebastian’s side. Dropping to my knees in front of the cot, I took his hand in mine. “Can you hear me?”

A long, never-ending minute passed before his eyes blinked open.

I had never been happier to see his gaze than I was right then. His lips twitched upwards, and he looked at me.

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