“How do I look?” I smiled and spun in a circle.
He adjusted himself in his seat and my stomach filled with knots from the way he looked me up and down, fighting to suppress a smirk.
“You're shorter than I realized.”
“I’m quite tall for a girl, I’ll have you know.”
One side of his mouth jerked up. “Oh really?”
“Yep. Five foot six.”
He rose to his full height and approached me, towering over me and proving just how small I really was compared to him.
“Point taken,” I said, looking up at him.
His eyes dipped to my face, and his voice turned gruff and serious as he spoke. “Listen, I'm up for having a fun night. But before we go back there, are you okay?”
I wanted to, but didn't lie to him. “No. I'm not okay.”
He inched forward, closing the gap between us. “You don't have to tell me what he said if you don't want to, but if it comes down to your safety, I really wish you would.”
I chewed the skin inside my cheek. Pia said to forget about everything for the night, but I didn't think I'd be able to do that until I told Sebastian what his father said to me.
“I’m surprised you didn’t go ask him yourself.”
“That would have been an invasion of your privacy.”
“My privacy?” I half scoffed, half chuckled. “Any ounce of privacy I had was destroyed the second you became my guard.”
Sebastian’s head tilted to the side, a lock of his deep brown hair falling over his brow. “You know what I mean.”
Pursing my lips, I gave in. “He told me about the traitor and King Beaumont's bargain deal,” I began, but paused to contemplate if I really wanted to tell him the rest of it. I could have just saved it for my journal.
Sebastian didn't ask for more information, he just gave me his undivided attention and waited for me to choose to give it.
I unclenched my jaw and found the courage to continue. “He also told me that for as long as he lives, I'm expected to work for him. That I'm expected to show up when he calls upon me—basically that I'm under his control indefinitely.” I released a breath, the words hanging heavy on my tongue as I said them. “He threatened my family. Told me that someday if I’m pregnant and I’m labor, that if he calls upon me, I’m still expected to be there.”
I filled him in on the rest of the details from the conversation, quoting the king word for word. When I finished, Sebastian looked just as sick as I had been this afternoon.
He cracked his knuckles and anguish overwhelmed hisface. His rough hand tousled his hair and then turned his back to me, the room silent except for the tapping of his foot. I watched him stand so effortlessly balanced and wondered what he was thinking.
“I hate him,” he muttered under his breath, copying my exact words from earlier today. When he turned back to look at me, I swear his eyes looked glossed over. “I fuckinghatehim!” he hissed, his nostrils flaring as he yelled so loudly that I was sure the others could hear him from down the hall.
A vein popped in his neck. “Where does he think he gets the damn right?” he shouted, then began pacing back and forth through his room.
“It's okay, Seb.” I stepped forward and placed a hand on the small of his back, stopping him in his tracks.
He spun on his toes and grabbed my shoulders, leveling his face with him. “It's not fucking okay, and you know it. His words made yousickfor fuck’s sake. He threatened you and your family. Nothing about that shit is okay.”
He drew a heavy breath, then dropped his arms and stormed out the door and down the hallway.
I definitely should have waited to tell him about this.
“Where are you going?” I yelled after him.
He didn't look back. “I'm going to talk to him.”
I sobered up extremely fast. For once since we’d met, I wasn't the one losing their composure.
