Chapter 11 #2
Sebastian’s sword clattered to the ground as his fist collided with Lucas’s jaw.
His entire world was reduced to shades of red and black and gray. Anger surged and swirled through him, more than he’d ever known. Even when he’d awoken that fateful morning months ago to find his queen taken, one of his closest friends vanishing with her, he’d not known rage like this.
This anger was deadly. All-consuming. Intoxicating.
His left-hand gripped Lucas’s shirt, pinning him against the tree as his right fist struck him again and again. Blood splattered across his chest, his face, but he hardly felt it. His knuckles stung as they split, but they were numbed beneath the violence of his rage.
“Sebastian?”
A hesitant, bright voice cut through Sebastian’s blood-red haze. His arm froze, cocked above Lucas’s nearly unrecognizable face. He slowly looked over his shoulder at the path leading to their tent, chest heaving.
Ciana stood framed by the moonlight, curls wild around her head and a blanket clutched to her shoulders. Her amber eyes were wide, darting between Sebastian and Lucas, shock—and just a trace of fear—writing itself across her freckled cheeks.
When she returned her focus solely to Sebastian, something in him snapped.
Sebastian threw himself off Lucas, the boy slumping into the dirt. He swiped his sword from the sands, brushing it off quickly against his trousers before sheathing it.
Lucas spat blood into the sands. Sebastian felt the boy’s glare on his cheek, but he didn’t care. He strode three paces toward Ciana, her eyes still wide and unblinking, before he paused.
Sebastian turned halfway back. Lucas crawled slowly to his feet. “Go back to your family, Lucas,” Sebastian said softly, the rage that had pummeled him now softening in his chest. “The queen will await you in Desva.”
With one final glare—a weak one, as his left eye was swollen shut and his right was barely cracked—Lucas staggered back through the trees, crashing through the underbrush toward the main camp.
The silence that swallowed the oasis woods with his departure was deafening. Maddening, even.
“Sebastian,” Ciana repeated softly, breaking the silence with her melodic voice. He slowly faced her, and as he did, shame rose up in his throat.
Shame that he’d snapped. Shame that she’d witnessed it. Shame that even with his presence, he couldn’t shield her from the ghosts haunting her.
The splits in his knuckles burned.
“I’m sorry,” he said, voice cracking.
Her brow twisted. “Sorry for what?”
He flinched. “I shouldn’t… I shouldn’t have done that. He deserved it, but that’s not me. Mariah gets to mete out his punishment; I overstepped.”
Ciana took a tentative step forward. To his shock, a smile quivered at the edge of her lips.
“Honestly, it’s about damn time someone beat the shit out of him. I’m personally thrilled that the first one to do so was you. Maybe one day, I’ll be brave enough to get my turn.”
Some of his shame fell away, amusement rising in its place. “I’m afraid of what you would do to that bastard if given the chance, Goldie.”
Her smile faltered, the ends of her hair swirling. “Yeah,” she murmured. “I am, too.”
They held each other’s stare for a long moment. Sebastian softly cleared his throat then glanced down at himself. He suppressed a groan. His once-clean shirt was now splattered with blood, and he suspected the rest of him was, too.
“I need to clean myself up,” he said, turning toward the main oasis pools.
“There are water canteens in the tent,” Ciana said, almost shyly. “And extra towels and clothes.” She tried—and failed—to tame the wild mass atop her head, before her hands twisted together through the blanket.
Her nervous tick.
“Okay.” Warmth blooming in his chest, Sebastian followed her back to the tent.
They were silent as she dampened the towels and wiped the blood from his face and neck.
Silent as he slipped off his dirtied cotton shirt and buttoned on a clean one, trying his best to ignore the way her amber eyes seared his skin.
Silent as too many feelings he couldn’t afford to voice swirled through his mind, feelings he clamped down so hard on he nearly bit his tongue.
Eventually they returned to the pallet, side by side as they stared at the roof of the tent.
He finally found his voice.
“You’ll always be my friend, Ciana,” he whispered into the silence.
She didn’t react beside him, her chest rising and falling with her breaths.
“And as your friend, I’ll always protect you.
” Even as he said it, he couldn’t stop himself from remembering the feel of her soft, full lips on his.
The way her honeysuckle scent wrapped so beautifully around him, how sweet she’d tasted on his tongue.
Not a memory that typical friends would share.
He knew he shouldn’t, especially with Lucas’s foul words still racing through his mind, but Sebastian couldn’t stop himself from wondering how sweet the other parts of her were, what every inch and curve of her tasted like—
“Yes. Always as friends.” She exhaled heavily before rolling to her side, putting her back to him.
Oh, he was so fucked.