Chapter 46 #2
He shuffled where he sat on the floor. “Statistically speaking, there’s a good chance I’ll be dead.
I know Caelestis is in ruins, but technically speaking I still have plenty of years of duty to fulfill.
So do you,” he added the reminder that I, too, could be dead in ten years, if not sooner.
“But where would I like to be in ten years? I’m not sure. I try not to think about it too much.”
“Why?”
“Because I’ll probably be dead,” he said matter of factly.
My eyes rolled into my skull. “Someone’s in a mood.”
He shrugged, hiding his eyes from me. “How about you?”
I pondered for a moment, truly considering my response. What I had always thought I wanted seemed so far away now, though that didn’t mean I craved it any less.
“I like to think that I’d be married and have created a family of my own.
I hope to live by the beach and work as a bookkeeper in the archives like my mother did.
Or teach writing to the younger classes in a primary school.
I would have a small farm, just a few animals, and my home would be a cottage, not too big but not too small. ”
“Hm,” Sawyer mumbled, the back of his head still directed at me.
I opened my mouth, only to be interrupted by a loud fist on the door.
“Finally,” Sawyer mumbled, striding to answer the knock, clearly thankful for the interruption. He swung it towards him, revealing a cross-armed Samara. “Ugh,” he groaned, spinning away from her with a shaking head.
“You’re both wanted at dinner,” Samara said flatly before making a prompt exit.
We didn’t bother changing into appropriate attire. We wore the same outfits we had on this morning, although when I saw what awaited us in the dining room, I wished I had changed.
“Sebastian?” My eyes bulged at the sight of him, his forehead split above his eyebrow and caked with dried blood.
I raced for him, cupping his face in my hands. “What happened?” I demanded an answer. He’d only left a few days ago. For him to return so soon and without—
“Where are the others?” Sawyer spoke for me.
I glanced around the table. Azain sat next to his sister, Kade on her other side. But Pia and Kohen were nowhere to be seen.
I loosened my grip on his cheeks as Sebastian’s hand circled my wrists, guiding my arms to my sides. “They’re fine. They should be back to Lumosia by now.”
With my free hand, I ran a finger underneath the wound on his perfect face. He winced, but didn’t pull back. “Then why are you back? And hurt?” I whispered as I scanned his body for any more notable injuries.
Air blew slowly through his nostrils. “Sit.” He nodded once at me before gesturing at Sawyer to do the same. I was surprised he was even addressing him after everything, so whatever happened must have been serious.
I took the seat next to him, not drifting my attention anywhere else in the room. My eyes stayed glued to his, dark and swollen with…fear?
Clearing his throat, Sebastian glanced over my head and at Azain. “Go ahead.”
“They are everywhere,” Azain stated from behind me.
I spun in my chair, sticking my gaze on him. “The Hykahs?”
He nodded through his gulp. “I saw them with my own eyes, exactly as they described them.” He directed his words to Franlow, whose skin had paled to the color of a winter's frost. “Their twisted bodies wandered the forest just miles from here, dangerously close to our borders. We managed to steer clear of most of them.” His eyes dropped to the tabletop.
“We injured one, but not enough to kill it.”
“I think there are more than we even realized,” Sebastian calmly added. If he was truly scared, his voice did an excellent job at hiding it.
My body tensed. If this didn’t convince Franlow to help us, then I didn’t know what would.
Against my will, my eyes raked over Samara's stiff-figured body. To my pleasure, her beauty did not do a good job at masking her fear. I could read every emotion plain as day on her face. Her lower lip was just barely sucked in, her teeth chattering ever so slightly, sinking into the skin.
“Believe us now?” Sawyer leaned back in his seat, kicking his feet up on the mahogany table as he addressed Franlow, who granted him a seething glare.
Franlow’s eyes met Azain’s fear stricken ones. “May I remind you that you are under oath, and the penalty for breaking that oath is death? Is this really true?” he questioned his soldier.
Azain’s head bounced in confirmation, and a low groan tumbled out of King Franlow. His eyes shut tightly, and his silence granted me confirmation that he was rethinking our conversation from earlier. He would help us. He had no choice.
“How close to our borders?” Franlow pinched the bridge of his nose.
Sebastian adjusted his posture. “I would say ten miles north of here.”
A set of curse words spluttered out of Franlow’s lips.
“I need to discuss this with my wife, but it seems that you all may be getting your wish. Give me a moment, and I will return with an answer for you.” His navy robe swept across the floor as he pushed out of his chair, leaving us still surrounding the table.
Samara smacked her cherry-red lips, the sound forcing everyone's attention towards her. “You all have nothing to worry about. He’s going to help you. Which means we’ll all be spending a lot more time together,” she chimed, her lashes flicking at me briefly.
“Great,” Sebastian, Sawyer, and Kade quipped in unison.
Azain piped in, his words directed at Sebastian. “Do you think it would be best to bring your troops here, or for us to go wherever you all have been holding up? And were you serious when you said all you had for troops was the few of you?” His skepticism could not have been mistaken.
“We don’t have many troops. Fifty, at best. We were planning to go searching for any Caelestian survivors, but things changed,” Sebastian responded, avoiding the first part of Azain’s question.
“Fifty?” Samara scoffed, holding a flawlessly manicured hand over her lips. “Wow. You really do need us.”
“Do you think I’d be here, willingly making conversation with you, if we didn’t?” Sebastian shot back, and I had to bite my tongue to muffle my laugh.
She shrugged, much too confidently for my liking, however.
“For all I know, you could have been missing me,” Samara taunted, side-eying me briefly.
Sebastian spit out the sip of water he had just taken. “Still as self-absorbed as I remember.”
Azain ducked his chin, hiding his laugh.
His sister shot him a deathly glare.
Samara was nothing if she wasn't persistent. “Well, there's a lot to miss. Remember that night we spent together after my uncle's gala? You know, the one where we—”
“Samara,” Sebastian growled, his fists white knuckled upon the table. “Shut the hell up.”
My stomach churned with a mix of disgust and anger. If I could lunge across this table and strangle her with no consequences, I would.
Samara glanced around innocently. “What? They all know we were together. And we're all adults, there's nothing wrong with a little reminiscing. Taking a little trip down memory lane. Right, Sawyer?”
She did not just say that.
Sebastian flaunted me a brief look of confusion, to which I responded with my own signal that I would fill him in later.
“You’re right, Samara. I was just thinking about a funny story involving you, a bottle of wine, and a pair of ripped leathers,” Sawyer spat out.
Her eyes creased into narrow slants.
“Remember the time you claimed you were soooo in love with Seb, but he found you with your hands undoing the belt of one of our dungeon guards like, a few days after he rejected you. Oh, and how about the time you body shamed my best friend over breakfast?” Sawyer continued with a sharp hiss.
That shut her right up.
“You what?” Sebastian roared through a clenched jaw. His fingers gripped the edge of the table as he fought his body from rising.
“It’s fine.” I elbowed him gently.
Sucking in his teeth, Sebastian’s head shook twice, so incredibly slowly that I worried he was about to lose his shit.
I was right.
“I honestly don’t know what I ever saw in you, Samara. You are the most pretentious, thoughtless, cold-hearted, revolting, egotistical woman I have ever had the displeasure of knowing,” he spat, not missing a single beat.
“Don’t forget bitchy,” Sawyer added.
“Totally fucking bitchy,” Sebastian stated with a nod of thanks to Sawyer.
Azain, completely unfazed at the destruction of his sister’s character, uprooted the discussion, completely switching gears and addressing Sebastian. “Anyways…your land or ours?”
The double doors swung open. “Theirs,” Franlow answered. “And you cannot take all of our troops, but I will spare a third, which should give you around five thousand soldiers. If what you suggest about Beaumont coming after Mealioria next ends up to be the truth, then we will need an army.”
“What did that bitch say to you?” Sebastian slammed our bedroom door, locking it behind him.
“Don’t worry about it. It’s already been forgotten.” It hadn’t been, but I was trying not to waste any ounce of energy on her words.
“Tell me,” he demanded, grabbing my shoulders and spinning me towards him.
“It doesn’t matter, Seb. She’s just jealous that I have exactly what she wants.”
He sucked his lips in with his breath. “You're right.
It doesn't matter. Because I know whatever she said was complete nonsense.” One of his hands grabbed the back of my neck, his calloused fingers scraping my skin as he pulled his lips to my mouth.
“You are mine. And you are perfect. Everything about you.”
A needy breath pooled from me as he pulled my head back, exposing my neck to the softness of his lips.
My fingertips dipped to his waistband, gently tugging at the constricting material.
My thighs clenched tightly together, my nipples peaking under my shirt as his lips explored my skin.
He recognized my need, but instead of fulfilling it, he stepped back.