Chapter 12
Chapter
Twelve
SEBASTIAN
Icouldn’t see out of my right eye. One of Beaumont’s soldiers had socked me with his armored fist the moment he hurled me into a cell in the dungeon. It was still bloody and swollen shut, but that was nowhere near the worst of what I’d experienced since I’d been here.
By now, Sawyer, Kohen, and Kade should have been back to Lumosia. And if my timing was correct, Maeve was probably in the middle of her shit fit over how they were going to help me.
Reckless. And I fucking loved her for it.
The past few days, I had taken more beatings than I could count on one hand. In fact, I was due for another assault any minute now.
The first—aside from the black eye—had been handed to me by none other than Bitchmont himself.
Punishment for trespassing, he called it.
The beating that followed was delivered by the guard who had introduced me to my cell.
That one was for plotting to murder a royal figure.
The other injuries I’d been granted? Pretty sure those ones were just for fun.
I had no doubt that in due time my friends would return to try and help me. For their sake, I hoped I was wrong. If decomposing in this cell meant that Maeve was safe, then I would happily rot here.
Though I still planned to do everything in my power to get out, if the worst came to worst, I supposed there were far more despicable ways to die.
For example, accidental murder by your own domesticated feline.
Meeting your demise while relieving yourself in the washroom.
Choking on your absolute favorite dinner that you spent hours preparing—what a pathetic way to go out.
Choosing not to focus too hard on any outcome involving my death, I instead planned for if I did get out of this cell.
Despite her anger with me, I thought about the hug I knew Maeve would embrace me in.
I imagined how soft her skin would feel against my fingertips as I soaked in her addicting scent—coconut and vanilla would linger on my skin long after she left.
I practiced what I would say as another pathetic attempt at winning her back—and also planned what I’d do to my friends if I found out that they used her to try and bargain.
Chained to a stool in the dusty prison, I glanced around the space. It was lit with nothing more than a single, dying bulb and was entirely empty apart from a metal bucket intended for relieving myself.
Boredom was inevitable in such a desolate venue.
In an attempt to mask that vexing torture, I spent the morning counting the bricks that shaped the walls of my cell, settling upon the number four thousand and twenty eight.
With nothing else to do and an entire afternoon to kill, I started from scratch.
One. Two. Three.
Bright light shone through the bars of my cell as the main entry door swung open, my good eye squinting in an effort to block it out.
“Good morning, Mr. Hawthorne. Ready for our appointment?” Beaumont’s slimy voice slithered into my ears. He unlocked my cell, strolled inside, and untied the rag—made from my own shirt, nonetheless—from around my neck and then pulled it out of my mouth. “Miss me?” he taunted with a devilish smirk.
Though my mouth was as dry as a desert, I managed to spit in his face.
“Is that anyway to treat your host?” he sneered, wiping his lips that sunk into a grimace. “You just earned yourself ten more strikes.”
A soldier stepped in behind him, holding a few feet of loose chain in his gloved palms.
“Have at it,” I snarled, hunching my bare back to give him better access.
“You seem awfully eager to get struck,” Beaumont cackled. “A bit of a masochist, are we?”
“Are you going to stand there and chit-chat or get this over with?” I’d prefer the latter over having to talk to this dick. “I’m sure you have more important things to do—Actually, probably not,” I scoffed.
Beaumont crouched before me, his grey leather pants screeching with the movement. “I’m going to beat you almost lifeless, that is not up for negotiation. But before I do, I’m going to ask you something, and hopefully you’ll be more cooperative than you were yesterday.”
“Doubtful,” I muttered.
He leaned into my face and I stared back into his gaze, my attention unwavering.
“Where is Maeve Willawood? Where have you all been hiding? Because I know for a fact that my army left your castle in ruins, along with all of the villages and cities they could find. So tell me, where have you all been holding up for the past few weeks?”
Refusing to blink, my lips sealed shut, not uttering so much as a sound.
Beaumont nodded. “Okay. We can do this the hard way again if you wish.” He reached behind him and the soldier handed him the chain. “Fix your posture. I want to see your spine flex as I strike you.”
Between each debilitating crack of the chain, he asked me the same question. With each hit, I kept quiet—protecting her. Thinking of her.
I allowed my mind to float so far away that the pain felt foreign, along with the rest of my body.
The bruises formed on demand, my skin splitting and stinging more with each strike. I heard my blood splatter on the cement, but I shut out the sound, imagining her voice instead, back on the beach before everything went to shit.
“Seb, I’m in love with you,” she had said.
The way the beachside breeze pushed her hair into my face as she kissed me.
The most mind blowing and intimate sex of my life after I told her how much I loved her back.
Ten. Fifteen. Twenty-five. Thirty. Forty.
Ten more strikes than yesterday, plus a punch square in the jaw that split the corner of my lip wide open.
Beaumont’s revolting voice managed to crack through the darkness that shrouded my thoughts. “He’ll break eventually. The human body can only withstand so much agony before the mind turns delirious.”
He bent down into my ear. “I have no doubt that your friends and the girl will come for you, it’s only a matter of time. And while we wait, I’ll enjoy our daily appointments.”
My head fell limp into my chest, blood dripping in a steady trickle from my lip and multiple wounds across my spine.
I counted the drips as they splashed on the cement, utilizing the simple math as an aid to retaining my sanity.
Beaumont slithered to the front of me, waving his fingers tauntingly as he removed himself from my cell and locked the door. “Until tomorrow, Mr. Hawthorne.”