"Sebastian?" I called from the main hall. I'd searched the whole mansion for him and had no luck. He was almost always by my side. So where was he now?

After a few long moments of waiting, I gave a long and heavy sigh. Clearly, my demon butler was ignoring me. Based on the rules of our contract, he was supposed to listen to me and come when I called for him. But I guess we'd both thrown the rules of said contract to the wind for the past month, so maybe that explained a little.

But even if he was ignoring the terms of our contract, he hadn't once for the last month completely ignored me when I called for him. I knew he was a demon and virtually invincible, but I couldn't help starting to worry. Human nature, I guess. We worry about the ones we love.

I gave up looking for him. He would come back later. I knew he would. He wouldn't leave me forever. If he'd wanted to, he would've eaten me and done it by now.

I made my way up the stairs and started walking towards my bedroom. I decided I would try to take a nap in the free time that I had. It'd been an exhausting morning and afternoon.

I yawned, opening my bedroom door. I rubbed my tired eyes, and then opened them, gasping at what stood before me. Well, knelt.

Sebastian was knelt on the floor by the door, holding a single black rose. He smiled at me as I entered the room.

He stood and walked over to me, offering the rose. I accepted it, then looked down at it, smiling. It was beautiful.

"Thank you," I said, smiling up at him, "but what's the occasion?"

He smiled back gently. "Does their need to be one?"

I looked back down to examine the rose again. "I guess not. I'm just not really used to getting presents for no reason."

Sebastian gently grabbed my chin with his thumb and forefinger and made me look up at him. "Chrystal, there is a reason. Just not a specific occasion." He then bent down and kissed me softly.

When he pulled away, we smiled at each other. My gaze eventually returned to the rose. "Get me a vase for this, would you?" I asked. No matter what happened between us, at the end of the day, we were still technically in a contract, and he was still technically my servant.

He bowed to me. "Yes, My Love," he said, then left the room.

I sat on my bed, twirling the flower between my fingers. No one had ever gotten me flowers before. Sure, there had been flowers at my parents' funeral, but those were just for the room and out of respect for the nobles that had been lost. They were for my parents, not for me. Not that I'd been able to see them anyway. I had still been in the hospital. And Jasmine had brought some to my hospital room, but those were from our own garden, and they were only to bring some color to the room. The lack of color had nearly driven me insane.

Sebastian returned a moment later with a clear glass vase. He set it on my nightstand. After taking one last whiff of the flower, I gently placed it in the vase. It made me so happy to see it there.

I glanced back over to Sebastian. "As kind as your surprise was, I'm really tired. I'm going to try to take a nap. Can you come wake me in a couple of hours if I'm not up yet?"

Sebastian nodded, smiling. "As you wish, Chrystal."

I returned his smile, and he came over and kissed me one last time before turning and leaving the room.

I brought my fingers to my lips. It still shocked me that he felt the same way I did about him. All my life, I'd been taught that demons and the devil only wanted to make humans' lives nothing but pain and suffering. I'd been taught that demons were emotionless shells that only existed to do the devil's bidding. But Sebastian made that seem impossible. The way he would kiss me, caress my cheek, look at me… He did them all with so much love in his eyes that he couldn't have possibly not cared for me.

I shook the thoughts from my head. I didn't need to convince myself that he loved me. What I needed was to change out of my party dress and take a nice long nap. I went to my dresser and pulled out some cute black pajamas with penguins on them (because I will always be a child at heart), and climbed into bed. I buried myself in the covers, and fell into a restful sleep.