Chapter 17
Chapter Seventeen
A s soon as my uncle and Sebastian left, I rummaged through my bag, dressing in my night attire. Only a couple minutes passed before there was a rap on my door.
Without hesitation, I swung it open.
Sebastian stood leaning against the frame, blocking the entire doorway.
“Hey.” The tips of his hair danced across his impossibly long eyelashes as he stared down at me.
“Hey.” I crossed my arms over my chest, retreating to the far side of the room, giving him a wide berth so he could come inside.
As soon as the door was shut, I approached him with barely harnessed rage. “What was that?” I accused, rage coming out in a snarl.
I had learned my lesson from my uncle, but Sebastian had no right to treat me like a child. He was barely older than me!
“That was me protecting you .” He seethed back, through gritted teeth.
“Like I said, I can take care of myself.”
“Can you?” he countered. “Going toe to toe with the chief and thinking you can come out unscathed?”
How dare he!
“Thrainn has more respect for me than you do. He treated me like I was an equal. You’ve trained me; you should know what I’m capable of. But instead you treated me like I’m not capable of protecting myself. Guess what? I can.”
He threw his hands out. “And yet, Maalikai broke through your defenses with ease.”
“He wouldn’t have been able to hurt me without becoming a eunuch,” I shot back venomously.
Sebastian closed the distance between us, stealing my air as he glared down at me. “Some warriors wouldn’t care. Some warriors would die just to get their hands on you. Thrainn may trust you, but from what I saw tonight, you will never listen and never learn.”
“Screw you.” Fury washed over my skin, coming in a heady rush.
Sebastian took an intimidating step forward, so no distance remained between us. “Never disobey my orders again, do you hear?”
“You are not my chief!” I stuck a finger up at him.
Overprotective asshole.
“And this is exactly why you and I would never work. Why we can never be together.” I didn’t just throw the words–I weaponized them. Sharp, deliberate, designed to wound. And I aimed them where they’d land the deepest–where I knew they’d inflict the most damage.
The hurt in his molten amber eyes was instant—devastating, the kind of pain you don’t come back from.
“Why? Because you can’t follow a simple fucking instruction?” I knew he threw it out in anger—pain. And I didn’t blame him. I’d hit where I knew it would hurt the most.
But I was livid .
I wanted him to feel what I felt.
I wanted to hurt him.
“No,” I snapped. “Because instead of seeing me as an equal, you see me as something broken. A wounded creature that needs protecting. You don’t trust me to be able to take care of myself.”
“Because I can’t lose you.” His voice cracked—raw and broken—it nearly undid me. It tore through me like flame.
But I didn’t falter.
Not even as it scorched.
“In trying to protect me, you expect me to be someone I’m not. Someone I could never be. So if you really want a damsel…” I let the venom bleed into my words. “…then save us both the time and heartache—go fuck Josie.”
The silence that followed was deafening.
Something in him splintered.
His shoulders dropped like the fight had drained out of him. His gaze flicked away from mine, just for a breath, but it was enough. The light in his eyes had already dimmed, like I’d just taken the last piece of him he hadn’t already handed me.
And Gods, I’d meant it to sting.
But not like that.
Slowly, with an edge of disbelief, he shook his head. Then, without a word, he turned and walked away.
The door clicked shut behind him.
Quiet.
Controlled.
Final.
I’d expected him to fight. To yell. But there was such a terrifying power in his silence. Especially from someone who always fights. Him walking away without a word? That silence cut deeper than any sword could—it shattered me.
I wasn’t raging anymore.
I was wrecked.
I thought I wanted to hurt him. I thought if he felt even a fraction of what I was feeling, it would be enough.
But it wasn’t.
And now I couldn’t breathe.
Not because I was angry. Not anymore. But because it felt like something inside me had split wide open and there was no one left to stop the bleeding.
I stood there, hollow and still, as the weight of everything settled into my chest.
I loved him.
Gods, I loved him.
But what if it wasn’t enough?
What if loving him meant risking everything?
And losing it all.
What if we tried, and we broke—and I didn’t just lose the man I loved… I lost my best friend too?
The thought sank its teeth into me, sharp and merciless. Because maybe we were already breaking. And maybe, just maybe , they’d be no putting us back together.
I didn’t know how to exist in a world where he wasn’t mine and worse, one where he was… but only as the boy who used to be everything. The echo of something we had lost, a shadow of what we could’ve been.
I needed to protect us.
Because otherwise I would lose him.
And that wasn’t even a possibility.