Free Sebastian (Bowen Boys) by Kathi S. Barton Page A

him. Then he lifted her chin up again when she tried to go back to his throat. “I want you, but you need to give me permission to do this.”
    Permission. She’d forgotten about that, and stared at him as he waited for her answer. He would take her and make her his if she said yes. And as much as she wanted to feel him, to have him take her, she didn’t want all that came with it. She felt him as he began to pull away.
    “I’m sorry , Sebastian. I can’t be your mate.” He nodded as he stepped back. “Maybe you should just take me home.”
    “I can’t until we eat. It’s probably cold by now, so if you want something else just let me know.”
    She went to the table and sat down . Her legs were trembling, and she figured if she didn’t, she was going to fall.
    “Let me make you something else. It won’t be a problem.”
    “It’s fine. It’s still warm and since we didn’t unwrap the potatoes, they’re still warm, too.” Opening the aluminum foil, she watched as steam poured from it. “See, it’s just fine.”
    He sat down and opened his foil and looked up at her. She was just about to speak but looked at his neck and froze. There was blood there. She’d bitten him. She went to him and ran her finger over the opened wound.
    “I marked you.” Dizzily, she reached for the table and missed. As she dropped to the floor, she heard him say her name, and as the darkness closed around her, she knew that it was too late for either of them.

Chapter 6
     
    Wanera paced his lair and reached again for his messenger. Nothing. It was as if he was blocking him. And Wanera knew that he couldn’t do that any more than he could think a thought that he hadn’t given him. The man was simply a being that took messages to and fro for him.
    He glanced at the file on his desk and sneered at it. Since it had been brought to him, he’d been having one problem after another. And now this. His messenger was to go and get the girl and bring her back here. He should have returned hours ago, but still nothing.
    “Where the fuck are you?” He had nearly decided to go to the upper world and get her himself when he heard a small scratching at the door. “Come in, and whatever you want, it had better be fucking important.”
    The door opened slowly , and the being there seemed to be terrified nearly to the point of bolting. Wanera told him if he left without telling him what he’d disturbed him for, he’d hunt him down and vanquish him.
    “He’s here , my lord. Your messenger has been returned to us.” Wanera started forward and was on the verge of asking why the messenger didn’t come there himself when the being swallowed before continuing. “He’s been returned, my lord, and reeks of faerie.”
    Wanera stopped. The being had said “been” returned, not that he’d returned. Wanera felt a bit of fear trickle along his skin as he thought about what the implications were to what the being was saying. The thought “returned” kept circling around in his head.
    “Who returned him?” The being shrugged. “Where is he now? And what, if anything, did he bring back with him?”
    “He is in the main hall , my lord, the point he left this realm from. And he brought nothing back with him but the smell of female faerie. What shall I do with his remains?”
    No body , but remains. He started to tell the being to throw the remains in one of the pits, but thought he’d better take care to see if he might have brought something back with him. Wanera told the being to take him to the remains and show them to him. He didn’t know what to expect, but when he saw what had been done to the body, he nearly grabbed for a wall. She had destroyed him.
    There was really no way other than smell to know that the pieces on the floor had belonged to him. The messenger had been with Wanera for a very long time, decades as a matter of fact, but to see this mess now it was hard to think of it as a person he once knew. He knelt down and sniffed.