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“You make a decision every time you take an action, Sebastian.” His mother sent him a sharp look as she plated the misshapen pancakes, then set them between them.
“Yeah, I decide to be loyal.” Sebastian grabbed one of the pancakes but ended up gesticulating with it before he took a bite. “I decide to be dedicated. I decide to follow the people that I promised to follow.”
Sarah set her mug down hard. “And to what ends? Or should I say, through what means? How far—”
“What, we have a problem with my loyalty now?” Sebastian threw down his pancake and pointed at his sister. “I’ve followed you plenty, with all of your political schemes.” He rounded on his father. “And yours! You’ve been funding and supporting the Resistance for decades, but all of sudden, I’m the only one that has to bear a moral responsibility?”
His father shook his head slightly and didn’t raise his voice. “We didn’t say that.”
“He has to bear some, though!” Sarah did raise her voice. She pointed a finger back at Sebastian. “You have to live with the decisions you make, and you can’t keep outsourcing your moral responsibilities to other people.”
“I’m not outsourcing anything,” Sebastian cried. “I’m trusting and supporting the people I’ve chosen. The people like you, and like—”
“Leon Hess?” His mother slid her question in like a dagger, and it punctured Sebastian’s indignant outrage. “He’s someone you’ve decided to trust and support? He’s someone your comfortable having make all your decisions for you?”
The kitchen fell silent as his mother’s stinging question settled in the air.
Sebastian rolled his lips together and stared down at the counter. That was the question, wasn’t it? It had been for a while. He hadn’t realized his family had caught on to it as well. He swallowed as he set the stupid pancake back on the plate, his empty stomach rolling too much for food.
“And so what if I am? So what if he is someone I’ve chosen?” He looked up again at them when they didn’t answer and found their faces torn and unsure, eyes darting between each other. “What if I have decided I’d follow him to the ends of the planet? What if I…” He took a shaky breath, his family’s eyes on him burning into his skin “…what if I love him?”
His family reacted instantly.
The blood drained from his father’s face.
His mother looked like she had just had all her worst fears confirmed.
His sister dropped her head into her hands with a groaned, “Oh God, Sebbie,” and it was her that his tornado of insecurity targeted.
“Hey! You don’t get to have an opinion on my love life.” He rounded on her with a snarl. “I’m in love with a man who gave up his body for me. You’re marrying a man who doesn’t even know what the fuck you are.”
“He knows enough!” Sarah jerked her head up with a furious glare in her eyes. “He’s a good man, he has good values, and he’d—”
Sebastian rose and clenched his fists. “He’d drop you in an instant if he knew you were a parasitic—”
“Enough!” His father slammed his fist down on the counter. “Both of you.”
Sebastian spun away from them all and hunched his shoulders.
It wasn’t like he didn’t know what a fool he was. It wasn’t like he didn’t know Leon wasn’t exactly the knight in shining armor he’d always wanted. He knew damn well that there were things Leon would do, and that he’d ask Sebastian to do that… made Sebastian question himself and who he was.
But he also knew that no one made him feel the way Leon made him feel—so seen, so awe-inspiring, so powerful, so special, so adored—and in that way, Leon was everything Sebastian had ever wanted.
And Leon wasn’t just anyone. They’d fought together, bled and sweat together. Sebastian had a front-row seat to Leon’s strength, dedication, and brilliance. Leon was special, and he was Sebastian’s. And Sebastian was his.
So why shouldn’t Sebastian be loyal? Why shouldn’t he give himself over to Leon?
He pushed himself up to standing.
“Sebbie, wait.” His mother reached for him, and he batted her hand away.
“Get in touch with Martha,” he snapped over his shoulder as he stalked out of the kitchen. “Leon and I need to be leaving as soon as he’s up.”
Chapter Twelve
Leon slept for hours.
Sometime in the mid-morning, he’d woken up blearily and registered the light streaming in through the cracks in the curtains. But he’d also registered the warmth and the softness of the bed, the quiet, and the fact that no one was banging on the door, asking him for things, or telling him things, or waiting for him to ask them things…
