Chapter 536: Corrupted Heart_Part 2

Sebastian’s eyes landed on his brother, and on his sister-in-law, who greeted him with a bow, and he answered with a curt nod of his head before looking to his brother, who nodded back at him.

"How have you been?" Alex asked, to which Sebastian answered curtly, "Fine." He rose from the table, his meal only half eaten, and asked, "Where should we do this?" He directed the question at the twin women, who both pointed toward the living room, and the two brothers walked over together, each settling onto the couch, facing one another, in the same room for the first time in months.

"I thought you said he was better now?" Ivy whispered to her sister, cold sweat prickling down her spine. She was still unused to Sebastian’s aura and the sheer intensity of his presence.

Viola had told her during their phone call a while ago that her husband had spoken to her and was doing fine, and that he was easy to be around again. But to Ivy, who was more familiar with his brother, Sebastian didn’t look any different from how he had been yesterday. If anything, his aura seemed even denser and sharper than before. Had her twin forgotten what normal was supposed to look like? Ivy gulped, dreading having to remain in his presence.

"He is," Viola whispered softly. "Can’t you see the difference in his eyes?"

She glanced at her husband, who sat with his elbows braced on his knees, looking anything but relaxed. He seemed impatient, or perhaps anxious; she couldn’t quite tell. But Viola could see the difference in his eyes. And as if sensing her gaze, Sebastian turned toward her, his expression softening a little.

"I think it’s only you he acts that way around, Viola," Ivy muttered.

Viola pulled her sister into the living room before letting her go and moving to sit beside Sebastian. She rested a hand on his broad shoulder, and he offered her a small smile in response to her touch.

"Are you nervous?" She asked him.

He shook his head. "You’re treating me like a terrified child about to get a shot, needing to be held through it." Sebastian whispered to her, though secretly he liked how closely she’d been paying attention to him, how she’d stayed near him this past hour, keeping his mind steady, keeping him from shutting down again.

She traced her fingers along his jaw, leaving a warm trail of her touch as they moved down toward his tattooed neck. "Who knows? It might hurt, and you might need my support."

She turned to her sister. "Is it painful, Ivy?"

Ivy, who was crouched in front of Alex and ready to begin, replied,

"It shouldn’t be, unless there’s still some remnant of it lingering. Alexander’s heartbeat is steady, but I’ll sing a song meant to draw out any hidden illness. If it hurts, that means it’s not fully gone."

Saying that, Ivy rose from in front of Alex and began to sing softly, not daring to check the other brother’s heartbeat. Both men watched her closely, along with her sister.

Ivy sang for a while without either man reacting, and Viola was just about to ask her husband if he felt anything, when she felt an uncomfortable prick in her own chest, right before Sebastian grabbed at his own chest, brows furrowing as he turned aside to cough. Almost instantly, Alex reacted the same way, and Ivy stopped singing, sensing their shared discomfort.

"That hurt, a little..." Alex remarked, frowning in confusion, since he’d genuinely believed himself cured until now.

"Are you all right?" Sebastian asked his wife, who was now rubbing at her own chest, a deep frown on her face. He turned to her, ignoring his own discomfort entirely, and pressed a hand just above her breast, rubbing gently as though to soothe her as she said,

"I felt a prick too, but it might just be your pain, transmitting through to me." Viola murmured, growing more confused by the second, since mate pain-transfer wasn’t supposed to happen until after the marking, just like the mind link they already shared, unmarked. As though reading her thoughts, Sebastian pulled her closer, trying to ease both her discomfort and his own at once.

"We share a lot of things we shouldn’t be able to share, without the mark," Sebastian murmured quietly, still rubbing her chest gently, pulling her head to rest against his own chest, before turning to Ivy.

"So my corruption isn’t fully cured, I take it?" He asked, and she shook her head.

"It’s not currently in danger of turning you rogue, the way normal corruption would. It’s cured, to some extent, but not fully, completely gone. It shouldn’t have reacted at all to the songs I sang to draw out hidden illness. It’s strange." Ivy muttered. Having once lived in an orphanage where their caretaker had been a healer, well-versed in medicine, Ivy had picked up plenty of knowledge over the years about corruption and exactly how it affected werewolves.

"Can you explain, as best you understand it, why you think it’s strange?" Sebastian asked.

Ivy sat down beside Alex when he tugged at her wrist, pulling her closer so that his own aura would be beside her and hopefully keep his brother’s intimidating presence from overwhelming her.

"It almost feels as though you both must have carried a dormant corruption your whole lives, and the grief you suffered simply triggered it awake. When I used my song to cure it, it went back to being dormant again, only this time, the residue it left behind isn’t fully cured, and any sufficiently deep emotional shock could trigger it awake once more. I’ve never seen or heard of anything quite like this before."

Viola, still resting against her husband, didn’t like the sound of that at all. "People aren’t born with corruption."

"But that’s exactly what it looks like, in both their cases. For it to have developed enough to already be triggerable by emotion this early, it’s really the only explanation that fits." Ivy said, glancing between the two brothers, both wearing identical, thoughtful expressions.

"Is there no way to cure it permanently?" Viola asked, pulling back slightly from Sebastian’s chest to study his face, his hand having stilled against her chest.

"None that I know of. What we can do now, I believe, is make absolutely sure neither of you falls into an emotion deep enough to touch the heart directly. It’s time you two started practicing happiness, deliberately." Ivy suggested, since the matter was out of her hands now, though privately, she couldn’t help wondering how something like this was even remotely possible. Was there something about these twins specifically that she wasn’t putting together yet?

Ivy watched her sister’s husband still rubbing at her chest and found herself thinking it was strange, too, how oddly their mate bond seemed to function. Perhaps something else was missing from the picture entirely.

Once the examination ended, Ivy and Viola excused themselves from the living room, leaving the brothers together, and made their way to the bedroom, where Viola turned to her sister.

"Ivy, I’m worried something strong enough might happen and trigger it in either of them again. I don’t want to lose anyone else, not if I can help it." Viola said, worry plain in her voice, and her sister reassured her,

"Don’t worry. It’s not something to panic over, as long as you keep watching his emotions closely through whatever connection you two share, which, honestly, I still find strange, given you don’t even have his mark yet."

Viola bit at her nails. "Could it be because I was his prophecy? The mark on my wolf?" She asked uncertainly, since she already carried a mark that had never shown up on her human form.

"Hmm, that could very well be it, but how did the mark even reach your wolf and not your human body in the first place? If you weren’t pregnant, I’d suggest we move up your marking ceremony, but we can’t risk his venom reaching the babies, that would be disastrous. Relax, I believe everything will settle once we understand the full pattern here." Ivy assured her, squeezing Viola’s shoulders gently, and Viola pulled her into a tight hug, murmuring,

"Waiting for two more months until the babies are born seems too far away. I need answers." Viola murmured and her sister patted her back.

"I will see what I can research and find for you as long as you promise you won’t stress about it." Ivy said.

"I don’t know what I’d do without you. Thank you."

Ivy smiled, holding her sister close. "You’d manage just fine, you have so many people who love you around you now. I’ll do some research into Silver’s prophesied mates, into their history in the sea, and figure out why they were born carrying corruption in the first place, so you never have to worry over it again. How does that sound?"

"Have I ever told you how much I love you, Ivy?" Viola asked, tightening her arms around her sister, who laughed softly.

"Not in so many words. But in plenty of other ways."

"I love you, dear sister."