Chapter 567: Black ability
How did that even happen when she hadn’t sought out any black powers? Her ability had been pure until a moment ago, or was it not? She’d never hurt anyone before and she’d just hurt her sister’s husband of all people.
Black powers don’t randomly grow in mermaids. Mermaids have to seek them out and surrender their purity to obtain them, washing away their essence for more than a hundred days at the bottom of the Dark Sea. Ivy had never been there in her life.
"I have to wash it out of me somehow..." She mused quietly, not wanting to grow dark powers that turned mermaids twisted and sent them to the dark side of life, where the lines between evil and good blurred and they sought evil more than good.
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Sebastian stood in front of the bathroom mirror after his shower, a towel wrapped around his waist, staring at the black blood he had coughed into the sink. His eyes narrowed as he studied it, a needle-like discomfort pricking at his chest. Although he knew royal mermaids possessed the power to inflict more than just pain on a werewolf whose guard was down, he didn’t like having to go about his day with such discomfort.
He also couldn’t overlook Ivy’s reaction earlier. She had always been even-tempered, yet she had seemed unusually hostile toward him. He decided he needed to have a word with her and clear the air, especially regarding her assumption that he had hurt his mate.
He turned on the tap and let it wash away, then turned to get dressed for the visit to his sister, which he dreaded and didn’t know how to feel about.
He hadn’t seen her in more than two months, and her death was still taking time to settle completely inside him. He didn’t want to think of how he would feel seeing her and finally bidding her farewell, if he even could.
However, the discomfort in his chest was distracting, and he had to clear his throat a couple of times to get rid of the itchy cough. Ivy had struck his chest, and he didn’t know if she had awakened his corruption or had simply hit him.
As he began to put on his shirt, he was seized by a cough again that made blood come out and drop onto the light blue shirt. Irritated, he took it off, flung it aside, and grabbed a black shirt.
Meanwhile, Viola paced the bedroom worriedly, picking up the sounds of his occasional coughing, and she couldn’t help but feel even worse about it, because her sister had struck him over the reaction Viola had given.
She suddenly wished she hadn’t gone picking at that bottle, for she couldn’t remove the thoughts of the past from her mind, nor could she stop worrying about the man in the bathroom and, at the same time, feeling wary of him. It was a wariness that was totally unnecessary, because he would never hurt her.
But the feeling inside her was almost uncontrollable, and she found herself rubbing her stomach, searching for her babies’ movements as comfort. But they had been still since she woke up, and not even the thought of them could comfort her troubled heart. Their stillness would have worried her if she hadn’t experienced it occasionally before.
Her heart felt unsettled, and she wanted so desperately to fill the missing gaps in Azmira’s memories to put this away from her mind, but she knew she couldn’t do that now. She had to put all of this aside until they returned from the sea.
She was still pacing when her husband walked out of the closet fully dressed, his hair disheveled and damp, and Viola hesitated to walk up to him, not by choice but by a force she couldn’t stop, until she gave herself a mental shake and asked,
"Are you really all right? You’ve been coughing awfully dry in the shower. Did you cough out blood?" She questioned, still not coming closer to him. Sebastian smiled at her anyway and shook his head.
"I’ll be fine, her ability struck me unexpectedly, but it will wear off. Why are you standing far away, are you scared of me now?" He asked her, his eyes not giving away how much he hated this wariness between them, or the fact that Vaelor was about to destroy the bond he shared with his wife through a past action that still made no sense.
Viola realized the distance and walked up to him, pursing her lips.
"Why should I be afraid of you?" But her heart was, by the moon, her heart was, and she didn’t like the feelings. She wanted it gone, wanted to be able to stand beside him without feeling that inexplicable fear. So she hugged him, hoping to reassure herself that everything was fine. However, the moment he wrapped his arms around her, a flash of a dagger appeared in her mind’s eye, and she jerked away from him.
Not wanting to hurt his feelings, she quickly tried to cover up her reaction.
"I heard some of the guests are leaving today. I should be downstairs to bid them farewell. We should hurry so we can come back in time to see them off," she babbled, her words tumbling out one after another as she hurried to escape the awkward moment.
She pulled away from him and reached for her coat, but Sebastian caught her hand before she could get to it. He drew her back into his embrace from behind, resting his chin on her shoulder.
"Listen to this, sunshine," he whispered into her ear, bringing his hand down to hold hers. "Whatever you must have experienced there, I want you to always keep in mind that I am not him, okay? I am Sebastian, and you know me well and know what I am capable of doing." He tightened his arms around her, even as a tremor went through her body and she shivered like she was cold.
"I know," Viola said anguishedly, bringing her hand up to squeeze his hand around her. "I know, but I can’t stop it. My emotions are all over the place right now. Will...you pardon me if I flinch or act jumpy?"
He nodded against her shoulder, kissing her cheek. "I will give you time to get over it, but I will remind you every second of the day how much I love you and how much I can never hurt you." He said this, and then felt wetness drop onto his forearm. He looked to see tears rolling down her cheeks, and he immediately released her and turned her to face him.
"What is it?" he asked gently, tucking her hair behind her ears. His heart ached at the sight of tears gathering in her eyes, and he carefully wiped them from her cheeks. But the moment he raised his hand to touch her face, she flinched.
The reaction was small, almost imperceptible, but he felt it.
Viola hated herself for it. She hated the way her body seemed to recognize a danger her mind couldn’t explain, the way her heart raced whenever he moved too suddenly, as though some part of her remembered something she couldn’t. She forced herself to remain still, swallowing the fear clawing at her throat as she fought the urge to pull away from him.
"Tell me," he whispered huskily.
Viola’s lips trembled. She wanted to look at him, to search his face for the man she loved, but a terrible uncertainty held her back. What if the fear inside her wasn’t baseless? What if the memories she couldn’t fully understand were trying to warn her about something she wasn’t ready to face? The thought made her stomach twist, and she struggled to draw a steady breath.
"I’m afraid..." she confessed, her voice barely audible. "And confused."
Her fingers curled tightly against her palms as she tried to find the words to explain the turmoil inside her.
"You read in Vaelor’s diary that he loved her so much that he eventually killed her because she asked him to. But what I saw was different." Her voice wavered, and fresh tears slipped down her cheeks. "There was barely any love in his eyes when he slapped her..."