27. Scarlett
SCARLETT
THE POT HAS OFFICIALLY BOILED OVER
Sebastion speaks of war like he lives on the front line. He trains soldiers on the grass outside my window for hours every single day, as if an enemy army was already headed this way. He speaks of choices and responsibilities. Of freedoms and sacrifices.
He swears he wants to protect me, but he brings me to this place I’m not welcome and claims it’s for my own good.
I’m at war too, against a nameless, faceless letter-dropper whose primary goal is to send me to the brink of insanity.
I don’t have time to fight a second, noisier, closer war with a woman I don’t even know.
“You’re not leaving, Princess.” Sebastion saunters across the room, so fucking casual and arrogant in his stance.
So callous in the twitch of his lips. This is all a joke to him.
My terror, the fear I feel day after day cruelly crawling beneath my skin, is nothing more than funny fodder for him to smirk at.
“Stop packing your things and calm the fuck down.”
“Don’t tell me to calm down.” I toss my cross-body bag into the suitcase, then pens as I scoop them up from the floor and drop them in. “I’m not not calm, Sebastion. I’m just done.”
I slam a pile of jeans into the case, then a hairbrush.
He picks my brush back up and sets it on the bed. “You’re not leaving.”
“I am. And unless you slit my throat and make me stay, you don’t get a say in the matter.
” I stalk into the bathroom and sweep my dirty laundry into a pile.
I wish for a garbage bag or something to wrap them in, to keep them separate from my clean clothes, but that’s just not a luxury I get today, so I turn and stride back into the room.
“Go,” I flick my wrist toward the hallway.
“Spend time with your mommy. Stroke her hair and tell her how wonderful she is, since she’s clearly accustomed to a certain level of blind adoration.
I’ll be done in five minutes, then you can have your room back.
” I dump my dirty clothes into the suitcase. “It’ll be like I was never here.”
“You don’t get to run away, Scarlett.” He fists my stack of jeans and sets them on the bed. “You don’t get to leave.”
“Stop me.” I stalk to the windowsill and snatch up my notebooks.
Useless now, because I’ve run out of pages anyway.
“Get the hell out of my way.” I toss the books into my suitcase and slap his hands away before he can take them.
“And stop touching my stuff.” I bend over the bed and grab my jeans again, dumping them on top of the messy pile.
“Remember how you told me to close my eyes as we were approaching this place?”
With an ominously ticking jaw, he straightens his back and folds his arms.
“Well, now you get to close your eyes. Shut them, count to thirty, then I’ll be gone.”
“No,” he grits out dangerously.
“Yes.” I finger the hem of my hoodie—his hoodie—and peel it over my head.
The string catches in my hair and the stiff fabric tugs on my earring.
Ouch. “I don’t want to be here anymore.” I slam the hoodie against his chest and stop him from stealing the notebooks from my suitcase. “Stop unpacking my stuff!”
“You’re mine to protect now!” His booming declaration hits like a violent jab to the jaw, then he sweeps his hands under my suitcase and flips the whole damn thing off the bed. “I’ll be damned if I fail you, Scarlett. So stop asking me to.”
“I’m not asking!” Fury and sorrow meet in my veins and propel me forward until I’m bashing the sides of my fists on his chest to the same thunderous beat of my heart.
“I don’t want to be here, Sebastion! I don’t want to be in the same state as your mother.
I don’t want to know the location of her home, or sleep beside you every friggin’ night, and I especially don’t want sitting in your window while you chat with your girlfriend to be the highlight of my fucking day!
” I feel the buzz of her texts in my pocket.
Serena’s. Or Cleo’s. Or Terri’s. Or whoever the hell else wishes he would pay attention to them.
“I don’t want this! You brought me here against my will, you convinced me to stay, but now I’m done. ”
“I said no!” He traps my wrists in his hands and yanks me forward until our chests clash.
“Not every place you go will be comfortable, Princess, and not every human on the planet has to like you. When you realize popularity doesn’t matter a damn when you’re at war, you’ll see this is the safest place for you to be. ”
“Stop calling me Princess!” I scream as frustration and pain and trauma and sadness spike in my blood and sever that last tether holding me in place.
“Stop touching me. Stop acting like we are at war. We are not. You’re playing GI Joe with a woman who peaked in her twenties, and I’m trying not to lose my fucking mind while the men in my life push me around.
Lincoln demands I step left. I step left.
You order me to step right. I step right.
You and Lincoln argue in private like you think I don’t hear every friggin’ conversation, and both of you are determined to be right, no matter the cost of victory.
” I snap my wrists free of his bruising grip and snatch my cross-body bag from the pile on the floor.
“Keep my shit. They’re just clothes.” I drag the bag over my head and settle the strap between my breasts.
“Don’t worry so much though, okay?” I stalk past him and head for the door.
“I won’t tell anyone where your precious mother lives.
If it makes you feel better, I’ll tie my shirt over my eyes and walk around blind until my feet turn purple.
That ought to satisfy Arabella’s obsession with hiding in the mountainside. ”
I grab the door handle and twist it until the lock disengages, but then I’m crushed to the door with a body-slamming blow. My lungs empty and, for just a second, old fears rear up and freeze me in my tracks.
“You’re not leaving.” Sebastion plasters his chest to my back, his furious, panting breath heady in my ear. He slides his fingers into my hair and tugs just hard enough to expose the side of my face, then he leans in and licks the tears from my cheek.
My heart stops. My entire fucking soul turns to ice.
“I can’t let you go, Scarlett.” He peppers a gentle kiss to my cheekbone. To my jaw. A pained sob bursts from the depths of my chest, but instead of his usual smug taunting, his eyes scrunch shut.
Like my pain is his pain.
But then he slides his tongue across the very corner of my lips and swallows my whimper of fear. Of need. Of primal desperation.
“Fight with me if you wanna.” He inches back just far enough to allow me room to turn, then he dives forward again and presses me against the door.
“I love it when we fight, Scarlett. You have no clue how fuckin’ hard you make me every time you argue back.
You get so down on yourself for freezing up sometimes, but I’m the biggest, baddest motherfucker you’ll ever meet, and you never back down from me. ”
Groaning, I close my eyes and loathe the images that play through my mind: not of him.
Not even of his mom, or his kid brother hanging from the ceiling.
I see the pictures Serena sent, the pictures I was never supposed to receive, and then I see him walking with her just twenty minutes ago.
Arm in arm. Out for a leisurely stroll in the morning sun. “This isn’t—”
“Yes, it is.” He bites my neck and steals the breath from my lungs.
He folds lower, too large to comfortably fit beneath my chin, but he manages and nibbles intoxicatingly on my exposed collarbone.
“Whatever you’re gonna say, the answer is not no.
It’s yes.” He releases the sensitive skin on my chest and brings his eyes up to mine.
“I’ve never wanted a woman so fucking much in my entire life. ”
“But that’s a lie,” I whimper. “You always want women. You’re always bitching about your dick and how I could soothe it.”
“I like to test you.” He presses an impossibly gentle kiss to my lips.
“To tease you.” Another kiss. “To fucking torment you.” A third.
“I never dreamed of what it could be like, though. Having you. Tasting you.” He nips at my jaw and thrills in his victory as goosebumps sprint along my skin.
“The princess is not supposed to slum with her soldiers, Scarlett. But then you went and fucked us both over.”
“I…” I shake my head and ignore the potent, painful pounding between my legs. “What?”
“I don’t have a girlfriend.” He dives in and bites my bottom lip. “But thinking I have one makes you feral with jealousy.”
“I don’t—”
“Don’t lie to me.” He scoops his hands beneath my butt and lifts me like I weigh nothing more than a feather.
“You’re mad about my mom being a jerk, I know.
But she’s been a jerk the whole time. You’re mad I brought you here without your permission…
” He crushes me against the door and meets my eyes.
“But that happened days ago, and you’re still here. ”
My heart thunders wildly against my throat, blocking my windpipe and leaving me dizzy from lack of oxygen.
“That means you’re maddest of all cause you saw me and Serena walking together. That’s what pushed you over the edge, ain’t it, Princess?”
“Absolutely not. Now let me go.” I stare down my nose at him and pretend to believe my haughty act. “Now.”