The boy swallowed. “Lucas. Lucas Blaise.”
Sebastian released him, shoving the boy to the ground. Lucas fell flat on his ass, and unfamiliar satisfaction again flared through Sebastian. “Thank you, Lucas. I greatly appreciate your cooperation.” He picked up the hunting knife, slipping it into a loop on his scabbard. “I’ll be keeping this as well. You’ve proven you can’t be trusted with it.”
Lucas was already pushing himself to his knees, moving slowly. “Why do you need my name?” he spat. “Why do you care?”
“Because, Lucas.” Sebastian stepped around him, sword still unsheathed and hanging loosely at his side. When he’d firmly blocked the path to their tent, he turned back. “Her Majesty will require a name when she hears what you’ve done—and tried todo again—to a Lady of her court. You’ll have a chance to plead for mercy, but…” Sebastian shrugged. “I highly doubt she’ll be inclined to give it.”
The fear and panic tightened in Lucas’s face. “But…but I haven’t done anything!” He blubbered, still struggling to rise to his feet. “She wanted me, always. And she liked it. Ask her! She loved the way I made her feel?—”
Sebastian couldn’t stop himself. In a flash, he hauled Lucas to his feet and pinned him to one of the trees, blade pressed against his throat.
“I’m going to let you in on a little secret, Lucas,” Sebastian growled. He didn’t know he was even capable of such a sound; he wasn’t known for being dark and menacing, but he slipped into it at that moment like donning a second skin. “If a woman asks you to ‘stop,’ that tends to mean she doesn’t want it.”
Lucas struggled beneath him, dark eyes flashing again with hate. “She didn’t know what she wanted. But I knew. She was always so wet for me, so ready?—”
Sebastian slammed him again into the tree, snarling. Lucas’s words died in a pained wheeze. “One more word, and I won’t bother waiting for my queen to decide your fate.”
Lucas stilled, something in his expression shifting. The haze of intoxication cleared somewhat, and his eyebrows lifted with realization.
It made Sebastian’s skin prickle.
“You want her, don’t you?” Lucas chuckled. “That’s what this is. You want to be inside her, and you’re jealous because she won’t let you. That I know what it feels like, and you never will.” His laughter grew louder, a wheezing sound that rang through the still desert night.
“Go ahead then,” Lucas said, a laugh still in his throat. “Slit my throat. See if that convinces her to open her legs. But I’ll let you in on a little secret of my own.” He pushed againstSebastian, dark eyes glimmering. “She only likes it when it’s forced. No matter what she says, that’s what gets her going. As long as you keep playing the good guy, you’ll never know the feel of that sweet little puss?—”
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.
