Page 66 of Born Chaos

“You think he’ll come?” I ask.

Roman shrugs. “He’s obviously beyond desperate. If you’re going to be there, I think he’d go just about anywhere.”

Which should sound pretty damn romantic, except it’s not.

“Alright. I’ll call him an hour before.” My chest is tight. My brain feels a little oxygen-starved. I want to scream and cry and run away. I want to rewind everything over the past few months and make it all right.

But I can’t do any of that. I can’t fix it. I can’t change the past.

“This isn’t your fault,” Roman says. His voice is low, rumbling. But there’s something… grounding about it. It’s so sure. It’s so determined. “You did nothing wrong.”

“Yes, I did,” I say with a nod. I know my eyes are welling again when I look back up at him. “Do you remember what Archer prophesied? That my lies would be my downfall? I lied to Sebastian. I lied to everyone, except you. I thought I hated you, yet somehow, you’re the only person in my life who knows everything. I did screw this up with Sebastian. And this is my fault.”

Tears streak down my face freely now, and I’ve never hated myself so much. I’m screwed up. I’m a horrible person. I was twisted and beaten from the time I was a little kid. My mother cursed me with the inability to die, but she just cursed me in general. To a life of misery and constant disappointment.

A sob rips from my lips when Roman steps forward and wraps his arms around me without saying anything. He pulls my head to his chest, enveloping me in his strength and warmth. I press my forehead to his chest, and one sob after another rips from me.

But just as I’m about to completely and utterly fall apart, the glass behind us shatters, exploding in toward us, washing us in utterly blinding sunlight.

Something slams into Roman, tackling him to the floor, and I stagger back three steps, glass shattering beneath my feet.

Sebastian looks more like a demon than a vampire. Half of his face is black with veins and his eyes are more red than any I’ve yet seen. Every muscle in his body is taut, coiled, feral. His hands wrap around Roman’s throat, and he pins him back against the floor.

“I should have known you could never be trusted,” Sebastian hisses in a voice that’s barely understandable. “How long have you been pursuing her? How long ago did you seduce her?”

“Sebastian!” I shriek, pouncing forward. I wrap an arm around his neck, pulling with everything I have in me, trying to peel him off of Roman.

Sebastian swings an elbow backward, catching me in the ribs. It feels like I’ve been hit by a semi, and I go flying across the room. I smash against the wall, and for just a second, I see stars.

“I should have torn you apart months ago,” Sebastian hisses as Roman swings a leg up. He hooks his leg around Sebastian’s neck, throwing him back and to the ground. In the blink of an eye, Roman is on his feet, his own eyes ignited a brilliant red, black lacing out over his face.

“Sebastian, there was never anything going on between Roman and me,” I say as I climb to my feet. I hold my hands out, trying to calm the situation down.

“I don’t need more lies from you, Juliet,” he snarls. The look of complete disgust on his face tells me he’s heard at least some of what Roman and I have said. “I told you I wanted to wait for marriage, and here you are with him.”

I took my shirt off. I was in Roman’s arms when Sebastian erupted into this room.

“It’s not like that,” I say, hating that I feel like I have to defend myself.

“Please, Juliet,” he hisses. “We’ve all seen the way Roman looks at you.”

“Yeah, like he’s wanted to kill me from the second I came into town!” I yell, losing it. “Sebastian, what the hell are you doing? You’ve completely lost your damn mind. This has nothing to do with Roman, and the absolute nothingness that’s going on between us. It has everything to do with the fact that you’ve gone completely insane and are ruining people’s lives in an attempt to keep me safe, when I’ve been doing that on my own for my entire life.”

“I love you,” he hisses as he and Roman circle each other. “You protect that which you love. No matter what it takes.”

I shake my head. “Not like this. Never like this. This isn’t love, Sebastian. It’s obsession. It’s possession. And no one willevermake me their possession.”

“You’ve gone too far, Sebastian,” Roman glowers. “What you’ve done to the gifted, the vampires. You don’t come back from this.”

“I did what I had to do,” Sebastian says, and with every word, he sounds more crazed.

“Then you never deserved anyone, least of all Juliet.”

I see it in his eyes, the moment the switch is flipped. As if the humanity in him is turned off.

Sebastian’s eyes darken.

Every muscle in his body tenses.

---