Out of the Shadows // Sebastian Sallow

Chapter Eighty-Four

Happy Birthday to Rachel! And.... to me 😊 Only 109 years apart 😲🤭

Sebastian's Perspective

I awoke to a brutal cry. At first, it startled me. Who was crying in my quiet home?

Then it hit me. I have children now. Babies. Twins. I recognized that cry. I had heard it for the first time as he was born. "Baz?" I whispered to the darkness.

"What is it?" Rachel's soft, sleepy voice sounded next to me.

"I got it." I said as I rolled over to the other side of the bed and reached into the basket, grasping the small, crying bundle in my hands and pulling him to me. "Shh. Baz. It's ok." I held him and rocked him gently, but he continued to wail. It was getting louder.

Rachel chuckled softly next to me.

"What, darling? Why are you laughing at me?" I looked at her quizzically.

"I don't think you have the equipment to give him what he wants right now, Seb." She smiled and held her arms out. I finally understood. I handed him over to her as she sat up gingerly. I helped prop a pillow behind her as she opened up the front of her nightgown.

I watched in awe as my son latched onto my wife's breast and began to suckle. It was the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen. Besides when he was actually born.

"Wow. This feels... strange." She uttered softly. I smiled at her. Then his tiny hand crept out of his blanket and he laid it gently on top of her breast next to his mouth.

Rachel gasped. Then a faint bluish light glowed from his palm.

"Will." She said softly. Her teary eyes looked up at me.

"What is it, love?"

"It... it feels like... when Will used to hold my hand. It feels... good. Safe. He's... powerful. Like Will was." She said so quietly I could barely hear her. I reached over to enclose her fingers that weren't holding our son with mine. I squeezed gently as tears fell down her face.

"Is he... taking power from you? Or... anything like that?" I asked timidly.

"No." She said quietly. "I can just... feel him. Like I could with Will. He's... happy. My god, Sebastian! He's so happy!" Her tears were flowing fast. I reached up with my other hand to wipe her face.

"Of course he is, darling. He knows how much we love him. How we've been waiting for him." She smiled at me.

"I love you so much, Seb. Thank you."

I knew exactly what she was feeling. My love for her and our children made me ache inside. "I love you, too." I sat there watching her feed our son while she softly cooed and cried over him.

Eventually, he stopped suckling and his hand fell slack against his own face. "I think he's full." She said quietly dislodging him from her and tucking him back in his blanket. She never took her eyes off him. "He looks so much like you. Just look at this HAIR!" She stroked the soft bronze waves on his head and then moved to his face. "His little pink lips." She ran a finger over them. "I can't wait to see his eyes. I hope they're warm like yours." She looked up to me then, staring deeply into my eyes.

"I hope they're bright, like yours." I said just as softly to her. We stared into each other's eyes for a few moments. And then...

Another cry from the basket. This one was so soft. A barely audible whimper. Charlotte was way less maintenance than Baz. I chuckled to myself at that thought. "Next?" I asked Rachel, quietly.