Sebastian watched her reach for the fish and something inside him cracked clean down the middle.
He had spent an entire day and a sleepless night convincing himself. He had replayed every word that creature had said to him in that bathroom, had turned each one over like evidence, had used it to build a wall between himself and what he felt for her because it had been easier than accepting that the woman he had fallen for might be the very thing his bloodline had bled against for generations.
He had held her last night knowing. Had breathed her in knowing. Had asked her to hold him anyway because even with the doubt eating him alive, he couldn't have not touched her. That alone should have told him everything.
And now she was sitting across from him with tears running silently down her face, not screaming, not defending herself with fury, just reaching out with a trembling hand to eat something that made her sick, just to prove to him that she was who he already knew she was.
