Chapter 245: The Cold That Followed Her
Sebastian~
It’s funny, really—being technically dead and all, but somehow I’ve never felt more alive than I do now.
Ever since Jacob laced his old, soul-deep magic into Cassandra’s aura, it was like watching her step out of a grayscale painting and back into full-blown color. She smiled more—not the polite, brittle curve of her lips I’d grown used to, but something brighter. Real. Her smile used to be a flicker of sunlight. Now? It was the whole damn sun. She laughed more too, and the sound didn’t come out strained or hollow. It was light. Effortless. Music.
She stopped waking up in the middle of the night, breathless and wild-eyed, like her dreams were clawing her from the inside. The dagger she used to keep tucked in her boot just to go downstairs for a glass of water gathered dust now. That’s how I knew she wasn’t just surviving anymore. She was healing.
The house didn’t feel like a bunker for forbidden love these days. It felt like something new. It felt like a home. A real home.
I still remember the moment she said she wanted to go out on her own. She turned to me with that look—the one that says, "brace yourself, you’re not winning this one."
"I’m going to the store," she said, slipping on her jacket like it was armor.
"Cool," I replied, already halfway to standing. "Let me just grab my—"
Her hand came up, halting me in my tracks like a spell. "Alone, Sebastian. I’m going alone. Just groceries."
I blinked at her like she’d just announced she was quitting her normal life to become a fire juggler on a pirate ship.
"Groceries?" I repeated, dumbfounded. "Cass, the last time you went out alone, a half-blind bloodsucker sniffed you out from five blocks away and tried to trade your location for a cursed coin and a blood bag."