Page 85 of Modern Romance September 2025 5-8

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

S EBASTIAN BURST THROUGH the hospital doors in his long brown fur coat and big black boots.

He steeled his spine, broadened his shoulders, and readied himself for the smoke. For the flames. For the chaos. His heart gushed. He could not ready himself for that. For loss.

He could not lose Aurora.

His breath snagged in his lungs. All was still.

All was quiet. People sat on cream sofas, and they smiled and talked in gentle whispers.

Others walked through the flowerpotted corridor as if nothing was happening.

As if his Aurora was not bleeding. As if his love, his only love, was not dying. Without him.

‘Aurora!’ It was bellow, a scream, louder, rawer than the one he had screamed to the skies, to the gods, the morning Amelia had died.

Aurora would not die.

He would not allow it.

He would forsake the gods.

He would make them bring her back.

All eyes turned to him. Mouths dropped. A man in black walked towards him. His shoulders squared.

A guard wouldn’t stop him.

‘Where is she?’ Sebastian demanded.

‘He’s with me.’ Esther suddenly appeared behind the man.

Her perfect black bob cut slashed across her determined brown-skinned jaw.

She walked toward him. Looked up into his face, which was still staring down the man who barred his way to Aurora.

But she was here. In one of these rooms. And he would find her.

She gripped his elbow. ‘He’s with me,’ she said again, and he could not examine it. He could not think clearly. He could only think of Aurora. She needed him. And he was too late. But it meant something. Esther holding his elbow, claiming him as hers. Protecting him from confrontation.

‘He’s the father,’ she continued. ‘Aurora Arundel,’ she explained. ‘She’s in recovery.’

The rage that filled his vision, aimed at this stranger, this man who meant him no harm, whose job it was to protect those in the hospital, dissipated.

Sebastian’s shoulders sagged. He dropped his gaze to Esther’s wide brown eyes. Bruises sat beneath her usually immaculately made-up eyes. Tightness bracketed her colourless mouth.

‘Recovery?’ he asked, and it was a prayer on his lips. ‘She’s…she’s alive?’

She nodded. ‘She’s alive.’

Alive… She wasn’t dead. She was not lost to him.

‘Take me to her.’

Esther shook her head. ‘She needs a little time.’

There was no time. He was already late. She was hurting. He’d sent her away to protect her, but he hadn’t, he couldn’t…

He could not breathe.

He’d failed her.

‘Take me to her,’ he demanded. ‘Now.’

He needed to see her. To know she was alive. To hold her. Breathe her in and fall to his knees, and beg for her forgiveness.

He had been wrong. So very wrong to send her away.

He would follow her everywhere she went now.

He would follow her into the light and let the sun flay the skin from his flesh, if that is what it took to be with her.

Esther’s fingers tightened on his elbow. ‘There’s someone you should meet first.’

‘Who?’ he growled.

A tear slipped from the corner of her eye.

‘Your son.’

‘My son?’ he repeated, and he couldn’t fight it.

Amelia, clear as the day she was born, formed in his mind. Her tiny fingers. Her innocent eyes. He’d loved her instantly. And he couldn’t ignore it. The fear in his gut. What if he couldn’t give his baby the same?

What if he could not love his son?

‘This way,’ Esther said, and she led him down the corridor.

‘He’s in here,’ she said, stopping.

She held the door open for him. The bed was empty, but beside it sat a crib on wheels. A hand, so small, fingers so tiny, peeped out at him over the rim.

He rushed to the crib and peered inside…

His heart burst.

He was perfection. He was… He had Aurora’s black hair, thick and too long for a newborn. He had a little button nose, plum lips. But his eyes, they were just like Sebastian’s.

And he vowed right there and then, his little eyes would never see the horrors his father had.

He dipped his hands inside, and he picked up his son. Claimed him. He brought him to his chest. Cradled him, kept him warm beneath the brown furs he wore.

It was instant.

The love.

The unconditional love.

Sebastian turned to Esther. Tears filled his eyes. ‘I have a son.’

‘You do.’ She smiled, flaunted all of her perfectly square teeth as her eyes cried. ‘Congratulations, Sebastian. You’re a father.’

Sebastian closed his eyes.

And he wept.

All the tears he hadn’t before been able to. For the boy he had been. For Amelia. For his son. For Aurora. And he cried, too, for love.

The love in his heart. The love all around him, in the touch of his son, in Esther’s eyes. And they offered him nothing but warmth. Acceptance.

He knew he would never be cold again.

He was loved.

He loved them all, he realised.

Had she lifted the curse?

Had Aurora set him free?

Aurora opened her eyes. Soft amber lights lit the space. A room as big as any hotel room. A blue vertical tunnel sat in the room’s corner.

She watched the bubbles rise in the softly swirling water. Let her eyes adjust to being here. To still being alive. To surviving. She breathed in deeply. Felt her lungs rise and fall. Her fingers gripped something too soft, too familiar. A brown blanket of the softest fur covered her body.

She was alive. But…

Her chest thumping, she turned her head to the side of the bed, to where the crib should be. Where her baby should be.

And her heart, it swelled.

There was her son. On his father’s chest. His black-capped head cradled in a big, wide hand. A hand holding him so carefully, so gently, against his heart.

The heart he wouldn’t let her have.

Sebastian’s head lay back against the green leather of the high-backed armchair, his hair cushioning his cheek, and it fell to his shoulder.

They both slept so peacefully together.

His eyes opened. His green-rimmed irises made the inner amber of his eyes glow.

‘Forgive me,’ he growled.

‘You’re here,’ she said, her heart aching for him. He had punished himself enough. ‘You found us. There is nothing to forgive.’

His gaze sharpened. ‘There is everything to forgive.’

He went to stand.

‘Don’t,’ she said. ‘You’ll wake him,’

‘I won’t.’ He stood, moved to her bedside, and he did not wake the baby as he placed him in Aurora’s arms. ‘He should be in your arms. Where he is safe.’

And her heart, it could not take it. How could she make him understand he wasn’t a danger? To either of them?

‘He’s so small,’ she said. ‘So precious.’ And she held him close.

Her son. The baby she had carried inside her for all those months.

The baby that had brought Sebastian back to her.

The baby that would make them a family. She pressed her lips to his head.

Kissed him with all the love she had saved for him.

Only the baby. But she had more love to give.

More love to share with Sebastian. Her true love.

She raised her eyes to his. ‘But he is safe with you,’ she told him. ‘We both are.’

He nodded. ‘I know.’

‘You do?’

‘I know many things,’ he replied. ‘Because of you.’

‘What else do you know?’ she asked.

He sat down on the edge of the bed. And Aurora wanted to yell at him, to scream at him to choose everything. Now. With her. But she didn’t scream. She didn’t yell. She waited for him. Gave him time to tell her.

Because she would wait for him to be ready.

She’d wait for him for what felt like forever.

‘I lied,’ he said, and held her gaze. ‘Amelia didn’t wish for you. I did. Twenty-five years ago, I asked the gods, I begged them , for you, and they delivered my wish. They delivered you for me.’

Her heart broke for him. For all those years he’d spent alone. Waiting for…her.

‘I’m sorry I was late.’

‘I wasn’t ready.’ He shook his head. ‘But I am ready now. I’m ready to change. For you. For our son.’

‘I don’t want you to change.’

‘But I will,’ he said. ‘I will open the doors. I will let love in, and I will not suffocate it. I will not kill it. I will cherish it.’

‘I need more than softness, Sebastian,’ she said. ‘I need your love.’ She swallowed. ‘I want your heart.’

‘And it is yours. It was always yours,’ he confessed.

‘I knew it from the moment I saw you. I know that now. I understand I was too afraid to call it love. To name it. Claim it. I was scared that if I loved you as I loved Amelia, I would have to forever lock you inside a room to protect you. I would suffocate you with my love. So I sent you away. Both of you.’ His nostrils flared.

‘But I love you, Aurora. More than the air in my lungs. I am sorry I sent you away. I am sorry I pushed you away so many times when you only wanted to hold me. Let me hold you now, Aurora,’ he begged. ‘Let me love you.’

Her heart bloomed as she held the baby against her breast with one hand, and she held the other open for him to join them.

‘Come to me,’ she said, and his eyes glistened as he did just that. Leaned into her. Moved his mouth until it sat a hair’s breadth away from hers. He breathed, ‘I will always love you, Aurora. You were made for me to love. And I will love you with everything I am for the rest of my life.’

Gently he feathered his lips against hers. ‘If you still want me to?’ he asked roughly. His voice raw. ‘If you can still love me?’

‘I’ll always love you, Sebastian.’ She reached up to his face, and the air stilled. As did her heart. ‘You were made for me to love. I was made for you to love.’

‘Aurora…’

She didn’t know who moved first. And she held his face, cradled it, as he gave to her all that was inside him.

His love.

His heart.

‘I love you,’ he breathed into her mouth.

And she understood time had reset.

Theirs was just beginning.