21. ~Sebastian~

I watched Caleb with Sky out in the gardens, the two of them sitting cross-legged facing one another as he conducted one of his special therapy sessions.

It was their second one now.

She was doing a lot of therapy-related things lately. She was still seeing Granger every couple of days and her sessions had hit the double digits. Surprisingly, she was actually enjoying it and finding it helpful, according to what she’d told us in the den a few days ago when Caleb had bluntly brought it up, wanting to gauge where she was at to see if he could finally get down to what he’d come here to help her with initially.

I strained to hear what he was telling her.

All I could make out was something about blocks needing to be put in place when she was slated to enter the field to take out that motherfucker, Jett Bane, soon, so that she wouldn’t lose control like she had when taking out his recruits.

She was nodding along, agreeing with him.

Thank fuck.

She wanted to do this.

She wanted to get better, to get back to herself.

And she’d already been making strides there.

She was back to her sketching.

She’d dropped her walls with us and let us back in.

Cas had even walked by her room once and seen her looking up design schools.

I just really hoped against hell that when a lead finally came in on Jett, that it wouldn’t all go flying out the window. Obsessions were living, breathing entities and not easy at all to shake.

I turned away. For now, everything looked like it was on track. It was what I needed to focus on, not what could happen, not my anxieties trying to poison what was.

At least I knew how to deal with that better now.

Controlling what I could and learning to let go of what I couldn’t. Rooting myself to the moment. To the positives. And, thankfully, there was a lot of that now.

I was just making my way out of the kitchen, when Cas appeared at the threshold.

I took him in looking his usual slick and stylish self in a navy tailored suit, complete with a silver tie and a crisp, white shirt. “Aren’t you home from King Tower several hours early?”

“We have a visitor arriving in a few moments. I needed to be present.”

“What visitor? Dante?”

He shook his head. “Jeremy Wheeler.”

I tensed right up. “What?”

“He wishes to see Skylar for himself to ensure she is well. He’s astutely determined that her communications are being monitored so he doesn’t trust that her responses are truly hers.”

“And why do we give a fuck what he wants? Why are you even allowing it, rather than telling him to go to hell?”

“Bastian.”

I blew out a breath. “It’s her decision, I know. Just… why does this need to be happening now?”

“You’re concerned it’s going to destabilize things?”

“How far she’s come, that she is actually coming back to herself and us.”

“We won’t allow that to happen.”

“Can’t you just send him away?”

He stepped into me and laid a hand on my shoulder. “It’s not just about protecting her agency. He’s connected to Frank Bennett. Whenever Frank comes up for air in between deep cover operations, he reaches out to Wheeler to obtain a report on his daughter’s activities and overall wellbeing. The time is due for that to occur any day now.”

“And you’re worried that without him being able to see her, he’s gonna report to her black ops father that she’s being held hostage by us?”

“Something along those lines. We don’t want added complications right now. Things are at a crucial stage with my operation against Elijah, nothing can destabilize that.”

“But Frank Bennett definitely has the means to cause a shit-ton of trouble and grief, if he deems it necessary to protect his daughter.”

“He does, yes.” He shoved his hands into the pockets of his pants. “This is also a good test.”

“For what? For her?”

He nodded. “She’s been cut off from the world here in King Manor for weeks. This will be the first contact she’s had outside of the bubble of the three of us—well, and my staff. He’s also a connection to Jett in the way that he’d been working with her on her mission against him too.”

As much as I didn’t like the idea of her being tested like this, because it felt too calculating, I also knew it was an unfortunate necessity.

And, yeah, honestly, I also wanted to see how she would respond. It was a major anxiety for me, worried about something pulling her away from us, or something interfering with her progress and putting her back on the obsessive track.

“All right, yeah.”

“Good.” He gave my shoulder a squeeze. “I’ll let her know.”

I watched then as he headed through the kitchen and out through the patio, walking a few feet into the forest, which was the acres upon acres of King Manor’s backyard that surrounded the mansion.

I stayed where I was, out of earshot, but taking in their movements, reactions, and expressions.

Caleb frowned as Cas approached, clearly wondering both why he was home so early, and why he was interrupting his therapy session with Sky.

Skylar blinked out of the concentrated state she’d been in and looked up at Cas, smiling. She rose to her feet and gave him a greeting, welcome-home hug. He returned it in that very affectionate way of his, holding her tightly, then nuzzling against her cheek for several moments, before releasing her.

Caleb leaned back on his hands, curiosity sparking as he waited for Cas to get down to the reason for the interruption and him being home already.

I saw the moment Cas told them about Jeremy.

Caleb tensed up and pushed to his feet.

And Sky looked a mixture of surprised, then incredibly awkward.

It was going to get a whole lot more awkward when that shithead actually walked on in.

Caleband I hung back at the threshold of the living room while Sky interacted with that fucker, Jeremy, in the living room.

Well, one of them. There were three altogether in the mansion.

One was basically untouchable full with antique furniture and artifacts from around the world, the latter which Caspian’s mom, Laura, had spent years collecting. Cas had kept it as a sort of shrine to her. Just like he’d kept one of the master bedrooms that had been his parents’ room untouched too. Another one of the living rooms was decorated with a sleek minimalist design with subtle displays of wealth, the room, aside from his office, that Cas used to receive business associates once in a while. Mostly, he kept that to King Tower, but every once in a while a more personal touch was required, especially when on-boarding new associates.

And this one was the living room we actually used. It was actually his style, complete with the two suits of medieval armor displayed in the far corners and a sleek marble bookcase taking up an entire wall. The seating area consisted of two black plush couches and a couple of armchairs, all of which were accented with a gold leaf design. The rug between them and beneath the frosted glass coffee table was a gold and black artsy zig-zagging design.

Cas was sitting on the edge of his coveted armchair supervising as the two of them talked on the couch facing one another.

Sky was all tense, her back rigidly straight which conflicted with the casual black yoga pants and blue hoodie she still had on from her session with Caleb just a little while ago.

Jeremy had come in a pair of black camo pants and a teal bomber jacket. He’d been armed to the hilt and Luke and his security staff had taken at least ten minutes to confiscate all of his weapons and devices before he’d been allowed through the gates. He’d come prepared for a war. He’d claimed to Cas that this war wasn’t against us, but his concerns about being on Elijah Bane’s radar after involving himself in the situation by helping Sky and Frank get clear and disappear that night. While, on the surface, it had looked like Cas had bought that, he still wasn’t taking any chances. He didn’t have the luxury of taking anybody at face-value, something that had saved all our asses several times over the years. It had to be stressful for him, always having to account for every little thing, to always be at his best to see several moves ahead.

As Jeremy continued to tell Sky about a couple of jobs that he was working on, as well as how he’d been maintaining the upkeep of the safehouse and all that, I turned to Cal, asking quietly, “How’s it going with her?”

I wanted to know how Caleb was doing with helping Sky, but I also needed a distraction right now to alleviate the tension all over me from watching her in such close physical proximity to that shithead.

While I obviously didn’t like the idea of her being with anybody else, fucking anybody but the three of us, my negative reaction to him wasn’t rooted in jealousy. I’d already exorcised that the first night she’d been back. Plus, still holding onto that wouldn’t just be toxic, it would also be some majorly hypocritical bullshit, considering we’d been apart, I’d almost started dating someone else, Cas had been frequenting Obscura like crazy, and Caleb had been fucking around too.

Nah, what was getting under my skin about him was the unsettling predatory type nature of what had gone down between them. While Sky had been relegated to that safehouse, and her dad had then taken off, Jeremy had been her only point of human contact. He’d obviously been well fucking aware of that and of the vulnerability it had afflicted her with. He shouldn’t have crossed that line with her.

Not to mention, he was so much older than her, which invited a power imbalance, along with him being her protector and in a position of authority with that role during their time at the safehouse. He was also her dad’s close friend and army buddy, for fuck’s sakes.

I mean, so many lines had been crossed by him screwing around with her.

Given the state she’d been in when we’d first brought her back here, it only made it all the more sickening. She hadn’t been herself. She hadn’t been in a position or the right frame of mind to make those sorts of decisions.

I was pissed at myself too for not recognizing that and how bad things were for her the first night when we’d fucked. If I had, I never would have touched her then, let alone taken things that far, no matter how receptive she’d been. I would’ve held off.

Jeremy being here now was bringing all that up too.

“She’s doing well with it,” Caleb responded, pulling me from my tumultuous thoughts. “We’ve been working on identifying her triggers that call to that dangerously unleashed part of her that knows no bounds. Some of them are different now than they were when we first worked on this two years ago.” He grimaced. “Also, she hadn’t killed anyone back then.”

“Shit,” I grunted at that last part. Unfortunately, I couldn’t help with that or properly relate to it, because I’d never taken a life myself. Both Caleb and Caspian had, so she at least had that understanding there with them. “Her triggers were grief and pain?”

“The root of it was powerlessness.”

“Powerlessness? Sky is the strongest woman I’ve ever known.”

“Something she recognized about herself and owned all the way. But what Jett did undercut that for her. Majorly. Losing her mom, not being able to stop what happened that night, being relegated to the sidelines when you were kidnapped, the release of that sex tape and all the shit that came along with that, not being able to save her home, having to go into hiding, then finding out that he didn’t even die that night and was actually loose in the world. Then there was her falling for the three of us, something that she couldn’t control for the life of her and ended up freaking her out. All of it took a big toll on her, all compounding.”

“So, then, her mission to take out the threat in Jett is also about her thinking she can reclaim that power she feels she lost in the process?”

“In a sense, yes.”

“She doesn’t need to deal with him to reclaim anything. She can do it without, by rebuilding her life, something we’re all here to support her with.”

“I agree, but—” His words were cut off as we watched Jeremy slide his hand along Sky’s cheek and tell her, “I missed you. So much.”

Cas rose to his feet.

But before he could properly react, Caleb was across the room, grabbing Jeremy’s shoulders, and ripping him away from her.

He staggered back and only just managed to brace himself with a hand to the coffee table so he didn’t end up on his ass.

Well, then.

“What the—” Jeremy started.

A fist to the face from Cal cut him off, his head snapping to the side.

“Don’t fucking touch her!” he roared.

Jeremy hissed and slammed his knee into Cal’s gut.

Being the pain whore that he was, it didn’t even faze him for a second, no doubling over, nothing. Instead, it just fired him up all the more, and he swung at him again.

This time, Jeremy blocked it, then smashed his fist into Cal’s face, his knuckles scraping across his cheek.

He went in for another hit, but Cal snatched his wrist, then used the hold to haul him around and slam him into the bookcase.

Jeremy spun unsteadily around just as Cal reached him.

But it wasn’t fast enough to stop Cal from getting right up close and wrapping his hands around his throat.

“Gonna rip my throat out, killer?” Jeremy rasped.

“As if you don’t hold that same label, motherfucker,” Cal roared, shoving his knee between Jeremy’s legs and making him grunt and double over.

“Stop!” Sky cried, rushing over.

The two of them ignored it and Cal snarled at Jeremy, “But, yeah, I am a killer. Something you should be really fucking cognizant of right about now.” He tightened his grip around Jeremy’s throat, making him splutter. “Oftentimes, I don’t even feel remorse. I’m gonna have none for you after what you did to Skylar, you slimy piece of shit!”

“Took… care of… her.”

“Yeah? Is that what you call feeding her your cock?”

I knew we should stop this, but for the life of me I couldn’t bring myself to actually do it.

I was with Cal on this. I wanted him punished, I wanted to make damn sure he didn’t touch our woman again.

“Wasn’t… like that,” Jeremy eked out.

“You were in a position of authority and power. You abused it. Fucked her when she was vulnerable—scared, insecure, in pain, and grieving. It was basically sexual assault! You can deny it, try to bury it behind this friendship fa?ade, but it won’t make it untrue! Accept it! Acknowledge that’s what it was.”

Cas was right upon them then, but he pulled up short at the tail end of Caleb’s words, his eyes meeting mine.

He wasn’t just talking about Jeremy and Sky.

This was about Damien.

“He still plied you with liquor, brought you back to his place, settled you into a false sense of security, then stripped you naked and had his hands and God knows what else all over you.”

“Stop it.”

“It was sexual assault, Caleb.”

“No!”

Sky pulled at Caleb’s arm. “Let him go.”

He shrugged her off. “Get back.”

With the distraction she was posing, Jeremy used it against Caleb, then slammed his arms up and out, breaking his grip.

He threw his fist.

But Caspian was there just in time, catching it in his palm, then shoving it back with such force that it had Jeremy stumbling.

Caleb started toward him, but Caspian shoved him back with a hand to his chest. “Enough.”

“Like hell.”

“I allowed you to get it out of your system. Leave it at that, Caleb.”

So that was why he hadn’t stepped in right away.

I walked to Caleb and wiped blood out of the corner of his mouth. As I went to wipe it on my jeans, he snatched my hand and sucked my fingers into his mouth, his eyes flaming. Jeez.

“Thanks, B,” he said, smirking as he released my hand.

I rolled my eyes. “Seriously?”

His gaze dipped to my groin, the corner of his mouth turning up when he saw my semi-hard state. “Interesting.”

“Get over yourself. It was the delivering of justice and punishment.”

“Sure.”

“They’re fucking barbarians!” Jeremy yelled to Sky, jolting me and Caleb back to the moment.

Sky walked to him and took his hand. “Stop, Jer.” She looked him over. “Are you okay?”

“I’m not worried about me. It’s about you.”

She pulled her hand away and stared at him. “You didn’t come here to make sure I was okay, did you?”

“Of course I did. Your dad’s gonna reach out in a couple of days and—”

“I tried to call you, but you never picked up. You didn’t want to hear my voice because then you’d know for sure that it was real, that I was actually fine here, and you didn’t want that to be the case, did you? You wanted it to be manufactured by Caspian and the guys. It’s why you wouldn’t accept my texts as actually being from me. You wanted to believe they were the ones speaking for me, that I was really being held captive and in jeopardy and distress.”

“That’s not—”

“Jer,” she ground out in that no-nonsense tone we hadn’t heard from her in a long time.

“One time is a mistake, S! Four times most definitely isn’t!”

“God, we talked about this. What happened between us was a product of circumstance. I was even dead inside when we went there and I made that clear to you. It’s been over a year since we—”

“Made love?”

“Urgh,” I uttered.

Sky swung her head toward me. “That’s gross to you?”

“When it’s for him, yeah.”

She tugged at her hair. “It wasn’t for him.” She looked back at Jeremy. “You were intent on helping me with my mission so that it wouldn’t become a suicide mission, so that I could get back to my men. Was that all bullshit?”

“What do you think? Of course! These last few weeks, I’ve been trying to track that bastard on my own for you. So you don’t have to rely on these fuckers, S.”

“I’m not relying on them. I have a deal with them so that we all survive this and Caspian’s war against Elijah isn’t jeopardized. We’ve found a way so that we’ll all come out of this, a way through, Jer.”

“You don’t need any deal. I can keep you safe. You’re mine to protect.”

“I’m not a damsel in distress.”

“You need to be taken care of and I can give that to you. Being with these three just puts you in danger. Their world is filled with brutality and darkness.” He sneered at the three of us. “They’re barbarians.”

Sky glared up at him. “Just. Like. Me.”

Caleb and I exchanged a look, grinning. There she was. That was our woman, through and through.

Meanwhile, Cas looked on quietly, in intense observation mode.

That really didn’t bode well for Jeremy.

“No,” the bastard said. “You’re soft and sweet. And after everything that happened, you’re fragile and lost. You need to be looked after and shielded away from all of this.”

“Get the fuck out,” Cas growled all of a sudden, startling us.

“What?” Jeremy bit back.

Cas walked to them and wrapped his arm around Sky.

“It was you.”

“Me? What are you talking about?”

“You preyed on her grief and pain, the upheaval she went through. You reinforced it all, wanted her to feel lost and weak. Scared. You wanted her to need you and even depend on you. You had her believing you were the only one there, the only one she could trust.”

“Jesus Christ,” I exclaimed, as all the pieces fell into place.

“Jeremy?” Sky asked.

He shoved a hand through his curly hair. “Look, what I did was to protect you. You’d already suffered so much, I didn’t want anything like that happening again. And, yeah, I wanted you with me.”

Sky shook her head sadly.

“I fell in love with you, all right? I did what I had to do to keep you with me! Telling you about Jett surviving was supposed to further ensure that, but you reacted in a completely different way to what I’d intended or predicted!”

“Oh my God,” Sky breathed, pulling from Caspian and stepping away from Jeremy completely. “It wasn’t love. If you love someone, you do what’s best for them, what’s really best for them, not some bullshit like you’re spinning to fulfill your own agenda.”

“She’s a free bird, you fucker,” I growled. “Being caged in that safehouse broke her spirit. It hurt her.”

“But you didn’t care, so long as she stayed with you,” Caleb gritted out.

“You’re all bad for her!” Jeremy yelled, losing it now he’d been called out. “And I’ll make sure Frank knows that! He’ll come here and fuck you all up, then take her from you again.”

“Let him try,” Caspian snarled. “Then you’ll both find out why they really call me the King.”

Jeremy paled.

It wasn’t just the words. It was Caspian’s cold, fucked-up delivery, that black look in his eyes promising unimaginable ruin.

“S?” Jeremy called.

She met his gaze and rolled her shoulders, straightening, power radiating off her, as she told him, “I’m not a thing to protect, not a prize to be won. I’m not weak and incapable. Seeing me that way means you’ve never actually known me. The version in your mind doesn’t exist, it never has. Go. We’re done here.”

“But—”

“Go,” she ground out. “Get out of my fucking sight.”

He didn’t go quietly, yelling about her belonging with him, and struggling as Caspian and Caleb dragged him out of the room.

Luke came rushing with a couple of security guards to finish the job, to throw him out of the mansion.

I went to Sky and wrapped my arm around her, nuzzling her hair. “Are you okay, beautiful?”

A growl rumbled from her. “I’m fine.”

She shrugged out of my grip, startling me.

And then she was running out of the room.

Shit.