And so he had heeded the mental distress call and gone to protect his young cousin and brother, never knowing Percy's cry for help had been a trick, never knowing that Percy had deliberately summoned him from the cave.
He'd found his cousin barely alive and learned too late they had forced Percy to call for him.
By the time he'd returned to the cave where he'd left his sister hiding, the Slayers were gone.
And so was his sister's life.
Devastated on a level he'd never known existed, he'd refused to speak up in his own defense when his people had banished him.
He'd offered no argument at all against Damos's insults.
He should never have left Antiphone unprotected.
Now he looked at the woman he held cradled in his palm.
Channon.
The Fates had entrusted this woman to him, just as his brother had entrusted Antiphone to him.
He would not let Bracis have her. This time, he would see her safe. No matter what it cost him, she would live.
Sebastian headed for the forest.
Channon held her breath as they landed on the ground in a small clearing.
"Hide." The word seemed to sizzle out of Sebastian's dragon mouth.
She went without question, running into the trees and underbrush, looking for someplace safe. The forest was so thick that she quickly lost sight of the dragons. But she could hear them as they fought. She could feel the ground under her shake.
Grateful for the green dress, she found a clump of bushes and crawled into them to wait and to pray.
Sebastian circled around Bracis, enjoying the moment, enjoying the feel of the dragon blood coursing through his veins. For two hundred and fifty years he had dreamed of this moment. He had dreamed of drinking from the fount of vengeance.
Now the moment was upon him.
Bracis was the last of the Slayers left from that day. One by one, Sebastian had hunted them all down. He had hunted them through time and even space itself.
"Are you ready to die?" Sebastian asked his opponent.
Bracis attacked. Sebastian caught him with his teeth and clamped down on the Katagari's shoulder. He tasted the blood of the beast as Bracis shredded at his back with his claws.
Sebastian barely felt it. But what he did feel was the fear inside Bracis. It swelled up with a pungent odor so foul that it made Sebastian laugh.
"You may kill me," Bracis rasped. "But I'm taking you with me."
Something stung Sebastian's shoulder. Snarling, he jerked his head around to see the dagger protruding from his back. But it wasn't the steel that stung; it was the poison that coated the blade. Dragon's Bane.
Roaring from the pain of it, he turned back and finished Bracis off quickly by breaking his long, scaled neck.
He stood over the body of his enemy, staring at it blankly. After all this time, he'd wanted more out of the kill. He'd expected it to release the agony in his heart, to relieve his guilt.
It didn't.
He felt nothing except disappointed by it. Cheated.
No. In two hundred and fifty years only one thing had ever given him a moment's worth of peace.
Suddenly, a scream tore through the woods.
Channon.
Sebastian reared up to his full twenty foot height, searching for her through the trees with his dragon sight and senses.
He heard nothing more. His heart pounding, he ran for the woods where she'd vanished. With every step that closed the distance between them, all his feelings rushed through him. He relived every moment of Antiphone's death.
The guilt, the fear, the raw agony.
Under the onslaught of his human feelings, the dragon inside him receded again, leaving only the man. The man who had been crushed that day. The man who had sworn over his sister's grave to never let another person into his heart.
The same man who had looked into a pair of crystal blue eyes over dinner one night and had seen a future inside them that he wanted to live. A future with laughter and love. One spent in quiet serenity with a woman standing beside him to keep him strong and grounded.
Leaves and brambles tore at his flesh, but he paid no attention to them.
Like Antiphone, he'd left Channon alone to face an untold nightmare.
Left her to face ...
He came to a stop as he caught sight of her.
Frowning, Sebastian struggled to breathe. His vision was so blurry from the poison that he wasn't sure he could trust it.
He blinked and blinked again. And still it stayed before his eyes. Channon stood with a sword in her hand, and it was angled at Damos's throat.
"Bas, would you please tell her I'm not a Katagari." Channon glanced over her shoulder to see Sebastian standing naked in the woods. Human once more, he was pale and covered in sweat.
"Let him go."
By the sound of Sebastian's voice, she knew the man she held hadn't been lying to her. He was one of the good guys.
The instant she saw Sebastian stumble, she dropped the sword she'd taken from this stranger.
Channon ran to his side. "Sebastian?"
He was shaking in her arms. Together, they sank to the ground and she held his head in her lap.
"I thought you were dead," he whispered, running his hand over her forearms. "I heard you scream."
The man she'd cornered knelt beside them. "I startled her. I was trying to help you with Bracis. I sent out a feeler for your essence and it led me to her. You didn't tell me you were mated."
Channon ignored the man as Sebastian's body temperature dropped alarmingly.
Why was Sebastian trembling so? His wounds didn't look that severe. "Sebastian, what's wrong with you?
"Dragon's Bane."
Channon frowned as the man cursed. What was Dragon's Bane?
"Sebastian," he said forcefully, taking Sebastian's face in his hands and forcing him to look up at him. "Don't you dare die on me. Damn you, fight this."
"I'm already dead to you, Damos," he said, his voice ragged as he turned away from him. "You told me to die painfully."
Sebastian closed his eyes.
Channon saw the grief in Damos's eyes as her own tore through her. This couldn't be happening. She wanted to wake up.
But it wasn't a nightmare, it was real.
Damos looked at her, his greenish-gold eyes searing her with power and emotion. "He's going to die unless you help him."
"What can I do?"
"Give him a reason to live."
Her hand started to tingle where the mark was. Channon scowled as it began to fade. "What the ... ?"
"We're losing him. When he dies, your mark will be gone, too."
The reality of the moment hit her ferociously. Sebastian was going to die?
No, it couldn't be.
"Sebastian?" she said, shaking him. "Can you hear me?"
He shifted ever so slightly in her arms.
She wouldn't let him go like this. She couldn't. Though they had only known each other one day, it felt as if they'd been together an eternity. The thought of losing him crippled her.
"Sebastian, do you remember what you said to me in the hotel room? You said, 'I'm here because I know the sadness inside you. I know what it feels like to wake in the morning, lost and lonely and aching for someone to be there with me.' "
She pressed her lips against his cheek and wept. "I don't want to be alone anymore, Sebastian. I want to wake up with you like I did this morning. I want to feel your arms around me, your hand in my hair."
He went limp in her arms.
"No!" Channon cried, holding him close to her heart. "Don't you do this to me, Sebastian Kattalakis. Don't you dare make me believe in knights in shining armor, in men who are good and decent, and then leave me alone again. Damn it, Sebastian. You promised to take me home. You promised not to leave me."