Silver Eyes Ch. 13

Sebastian paced his bedroom for the umpteenth time ignoring the uneasy looks the twins were giving him and passing between each other.

'Err...Seb, don't you think you should go see her at her place? I mean, if she doesn't want to see you at her bar or pick up your calls then maybe if you see her at hers where no one could cover up for her then...' Damien started after clearing his throat.

'Don't you think I've thought of that? Do you think I'm stupid? It's been a week since I last spoke to her. Since I saw her. What the fuck has happened since then? She just ignores me. Acts like I don't exist. Like I'm invisible. I proposed to her goddanmit! And she was happy, she accepted it. Now...I just don't know. What have I done?' His scream ended in a broken whisper.

He dropped to a nearby chair heavily. 'You're right, Damien. I'm not thinking clearly. I'm gonna go over to her house. Now.'

Drake looked at Damien, then back at Sebastian, 'Actually, this evening's probably better. It's afternoon, Seb.'

Sebastian looked up at him, his eyes blazing, 'Do I look like I give a fuck?' He snarled.

Drake hid a gulp and shook his head rapidly. In all his years of being with Sebastian, and they had been a lot, he could not remember anytime that he had seen him as furious as this.

'Yeah, sure. That can be arranged. We'll just organise a car with tinted glasses for you, and you should be good to go, I guess.' He quickly said.

'Do that.'

***

Annette stared at her ceiling as she lay on her bed. She had finally been able to persuade Olivia to stop checking on her every time. That had been a chore. She sighed as she rolled over to her other side. She remembered the last time she saw Sebastian. He had come to the bar frantic with worry because she had not been picking up his calls. She had ignored him, as she had done the eighty seven calls she had received from him since Olivia told her the truth.

She punched her pillow angrily. She had to stop thinking about him. He was now her past. Now she had to focus on her life. Her future. Those sorry fuckers that had messed with her friend. And whoever was behind it all.

She had spent two days trying to find out any information from her neighbours. Like if they had seen anybody coming to her flat. Or if they had seen any strange cars or people around their block of flats. Nothing. A part of her knew that the fastest way she could find them was to tell Sebastian, but she'd rather eat dirt than do that. Maybe it was time to pay Angus' office a visit. She could beat their description out of him. Or just beat him up for the hell of it. She smiled grimly to herself as she thought about the satisfaction she was going to get from pummelling his hairy werewolf behind.

The doorbell rang and she sat up suddenly. Who could it be? Certainly not Olivia as she had her keys. For a second she grinned evilly as she thought it might be the attackers of before. Then she shook the thought out of her head. They could not be so stupid as to attack with warning. No, they would have broken in, catching her unawares. She walked to the door hesitantly, wondering who it was.

She opened the door quickly, ready to punch the unfortunate person behind it, but her hand hung in the air as she saw that it was Sebastian.

'Sebastian?' She gasped. 'What the hell are you doing here? In the freaking afternoon?' She dragged him in and quickly shut the door, then ran round drawing all the curtains shut.

'Are you suicidal? Have you gone mad?' She screamed.

'Yes.' Sebastian replied grimly, 'Yes I've gone suicidal. If that's the only way I can get to talk to you, then by all means, deem me mad.'

Annette studied him closely as her mind whirled in anger. He had risked his stupid life to come talk to her. Oh, now he wanted to talk. He must have forgotten his stupidity with Angus. In fact she was sure he had, or maybe that did not even register on his radar. She opened her mouth to yell at him then saw him weaving slightly on his feet.

She rushed to him and shoved him on the sofa, half-irritated, 'Oh sit down, you fucking drama king. You can't even stand straight and you have the effrontery to stare at me as if you have any right.'

'I have every fucking right to stare at you!' He tried to yell, but it came out as a loud whisper. His head was spinning. He was dizzy.

'You need blood, don't you?' She asked flatly.

Sebastian tried to deny it but he felt faint. He nodded slowly. Even the act of moving his head hurt him.

Annette rolled her eyes then crouched by his side. He made to bite at her throat but she moved away and stuck out her arm. He looked at her for a few seconds then he lowered his mouth slowly to her wrist.

She looked away as she heard suckling sounds. She did not feel any pain but she felt a tingle snake its way down her stomach. She hastily pushed it aside. She did not want to feel anything for him. No arousal, nothing. If she could squash her anger too, she would have done so in a heartbeat.

She looked down at his head and at the same time he looked up at her. The intimacy in the act of sucking from her wrist while looking up at her made her gasp. She tore her hand from him and quickly got up.

'You any better?' She asked quietly.

He nodded. He felt better. He felt better than he had before going out in the sun actually.

'Good. Now you can go out in the sun without any effects so don't let the door hit you in the arse.' She turned around to go back to her room but he blurred towards her and grabbed her arms.

She shrugged away of him, 'I'm not your run of the mill human toy that you can mind fuck, Sebastian. You may be infinitely faster than I am, but I will knock your sorry arse from here to your teenagehood. I said get out of my house.'

Sebastian simply stared at her in amazement, 'I can't believe you, Annette. The last time we spoke, everything was good. Fine, beyond perfect even. Now you can't even bear to look at me. What have I done?'

'Get out!'

'Fine. If that's what you want then I will. But you have to tell me what went wrong, what I did wrong before I go anywhere. At least you owe me that.'

I don't owe you anything.' She hissed at him so ferociously that he moved back a step, 'I don't owe you Fuck All, Sebastian Beaumont. All I owe you is the blood you lost for coming here in the first place, for risking your life to see me and I've paid you in full. More than full actually, 'cause, for the remainder of the day, you can prance about with glee in the sun. Consider that full repayment. Now leave, or I WILL throw you out. And we both know I'm very capable of that.'

Sebastian stared at her in horror. He must have done something really horrible for her to be so angry. He thought about forcing her to talk to him then he smiled bitterly to himself. He could not even do that right. She could not be forced. Not by him. Not by anybody.

He walked to the door slowly. As he made to open the door, he heard her mutter darkly to him, 'And tell your good pal Angus that he best be using his fucking werewolf powers to track down who hurt Olivia. That's the only way I'll make his death as painless as possible. He should consider that my forgiveness.'

He turned round quickly at that, 'What the...how did you know...hurt Oliv...' He was flabbergasted. She knew. She knew what he had sent Angus to do.

He walked towards her with his hands stretched out, 'Look Olivia, I'm so sorry. Let me explain...'

'Get the fuck out or I'll throw you out the window. Your last warning.' Annette whispered.

Sebastian stopped mid-step, 'Won't you even let me explain? Won't you at least give me that?'

'You had your chance to explain when I slept in your bed. You had your chance to explain when you fucked me over and over again. When you named me your sodding queen. When you took my blood. You had your chances. No more. Chances over. Leave.'

Sebastian bit back a hoarse cry. 'Please Annette. Don't do this. Don't destroy us like this. Please, I've waited for this, for you for over two thousand years. Two thousand years, Annette. Don't let it end like this.'

'I'm sorry, Seb.' She said softly. 'It's over. I can't be with anyone I can't trust. I just can't. You know the trust issues I have with people. You're the only one I've ever trusted as quickly as I did. It took me years to trust Olivia. With you, it took me less than a week. And you betrayed it. You sent someone to spy on me. I can understand that you did that when you hardly knew me, but you've had three weeks to tell me. Three weeks, Sebastian.'

'I told him to stop.' He said weakly, 'I told him to leave Olivia. I did.'

'But you never told me.' She replied and he hung his head at that.

'Telling him to leave Olivia is one thing, but telling me. Why couldn't you? Why didn't you?'

'I wanted to.'

'Then what stopped you from telling me then?'

'I didn't want to hurt you.' He whispered brokenly.

'Well guess what, you have.' And with that she walked to the front door and opened it, 'Since you don't want to go, then stay as long as you want. I'll leave. Good bye Sebastian.' She walked out and closed the door behind her.

For the first time in centuries, Sebastian felt tears slide down his eyes.

***

Olivia opened the door to her flat, exhausted from work. She dropped her keys on the side table and walked into the living room, turning on the light as she did so.

'Aaarrggghhhhh!' She screamed, almost falling over herself as she backtracked out of the room.

'No, no. Stop, it's okay.' Sebastian rushed to her side to steady her. 'It's me, Sebastian.' He smiled ruefully as she stared at him in shock, 'I never thought this was how our first meeting would be, but, hello. I'm Sebastian Beaumont. And you must be Olivia.'

She replied with a hard slap to his face. He barely felt it, but she gasped in pain and cradled her hand to her cheek.

'Sorry, about that. I didn't mean to hurt you.' He said quickly.

'I know. I knew it'd hurt me more, but I'd take the pain over and over again as long as it makes you realise how much I loathe you for what you've done to my best friend.' She shrugged out of his hold and walked into the room properly.

'What are you doing here, anyway? Haven't you caused enough pain?' She huffed as she threw her jacket on the sofa.

'More than enough apparently. She hasn't been back here since she left four hours ago. She should have come back by now, at least to change for work.' Sebastian replied wearily.

'Guess she'd rather skive work than be here with you.' Olivia snidely replied.

Sebastian just stared at his hands. 'Look, I know you must hate me. But you have to know, I love Annette. I really do. You have to believe me. I didn't mean for the Angus thing to go on as long as it did, I swear. I know I made a mistake and there's no way I can change what happened, but I promise I would spend the rest of my life making it up to her. And that's incredibly long.'

Olivia smiled a little at that, 'Fair play. And I do know you're crushed about this. Look at you, talk about contrite. I believe you, I mean you are a tosser, and I still hate your sodding guts, but one thing I'm sure of is that you do love Annette and you made an extremely stupid mistake.'

Sebastian looked with a tear-stained face at her, 'Thank you. Oh, thank you so much. You don't know how much your forgiveness means to me...'

'Hold it, buster. I said I know you love Annette, that doesn't mean I forgive you. Hell, not only did you fuck up with Annette, you got me involved with that Scottish twat and now some funny lot are after Annette.'

'What!' Sebastian looked confused. Annette had said something about some people coming over to her place and hurting Olivia but he had not been paying attention at that point. 'What do you mean after Annette?'

'Oh, didn't she tell you?' Olivia looked surprised then she rolled her eyes, 'Trust Annette to go all superhero on me now. I just knew she would want to do this on her own.'

Sebastian stopped himself from yelling at her to speak quickly. Barely.

'Basically, some guys came over here a few days ago asking for Netta. I told them to fuck off and got hit in the scuffle and Angus decided to go all hairy on me. Anyway, the point is, they talked about Netta being 'different' so obviously they know she's not your average human being and they must have known how...well different she is, what with being able to toss heavy objects about without chipping a nail, 'cuz they said it would make things easier if they had me as a hostage. So, you best be finding out what's happening here because I heard Annette muttering to herself about vampires being behind all this. And it makes sense since no one knows about this, well apart from me, you and your vampires and I'm pretty sure you weren't behind this.'

Sebastian's mind whirled as he took in all that Olivia had just dropped on him. 'Thanks for trusting me.' He said absently.

'Well, more fool me. Listen, I'm not your best friend or your new crony okay. I'm telling you this because I know Annette's too stubborn to do so and this is her life at stake. She thinks she can handle it but she has to know she's not invincible. Hell, everyone has an Achilles' heel and so does she. We just don't know what it is, yet. So sort this out. As quickly as you can because if my friend gets hurt, I'm gonna make sure you and the sun become best buddies, I promise you.' Olivia's indifferent facade broke as she wiped a quick tear that had rolled down her cheek.

'I'm just so scared. I mean, life wasn't perfect before, you know. But now we have vampires running through our lives and werewolves and kidnappers...it's all too much. I'm waiting for the inevitable breakdown that's gonna follow through because I don't think I can hold it together for so long. I've been handling Annette's otherness for a long time and I've gotten used to it, but now, vampires, werewolves...fucking Loch Ness monster I won't be surprised...I just can't take it anymore.' She barely noticed as Sebastian came round and put a consoling hand on her shoulder. 'And now I have to be strong for Annette because she's hurting. I barely have time to hurt myself...I really liked Angus you know. Plus I have to go to work and put on a brave face and a braver attitude 'cuz it's a dog eat dog world out there....I don't know if I can hold it together much more, I just don't know...' She broke down in tears.

'Hey.' Sebastian said, 'Hey, hey, hey, it's alright. Shush, don't cry.' He cradled her in his arms and rocked gently as she sobbed. 'I think you're one of the strongest humans out there. Certainly one of the strongest humans I've ever come across. And how you've managed all these, I don't know but I certainly applaud you. I'm terribly, terribly sorry about Angus. It was all my fault I promise, and if it's any consolation at all, I think he's fond of you as well. He's not the biggest fan of humans but he willingly stayed with you. Even when I told him I didn't require anything more from our plan. He stayed. He must have done so for another reason, one which I believe was you. And as for this new twist, I promise you, whoever's behind it will be brought to justice. This I assure you. So stop crying okay, you're a strong, strong woman and Annette is lucky to have you as a friend.'

Olivia sniffed and wiped her nose with her sleeve, then blushed slightly as Sebastian passed her a clean handkerchief.

'Thanks. Thanks really, breakdown aborted for now.' She smiled at him. 'Okay, now what to do about Annette.'

'Annette can take care of herself, how many times does she have to tell you?' A tight voice said.

Sebastian and Olivia whirled round to stare at an angry looking Annette.

'My, my aren't we cosy?'