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Sebastian thrilled to being dragged around by the knight. It was a wonderful opportunity to feel his power. Lucan could pick him up and carry him around as if he weighed nothing at all - but as he looked up into Lucan’s dark, disapproving eyes, he felt all that power and will draining away.
“Troublemaker, are we?”
Lucan had just a hint of a northern accent. It made him clip his syllables and gave him even more of an authoritarian air.
“I don’t know what you mean, sir.”
Lucan’s eyes widened for a moment, and Sebastian knew his secret had been uncovered. Of course Lucan knew what his voice sounded like. They had been within earshot of one another for years, even if they had never spoken.
“Sebastian!”
Lucan exclaimed Sebastian’s name in tones that would ring in the prince’s ears for months upon months to come. It was a rough, stern, disapproving tone and it thrilled the prince to his absolute core.
“Hostile spell casting is forbidden in Force,” Lucan growled at him. He had put him down now, and Sebastian found himself standing before the knight, feeling very small instantly. It was not a feeling he was used to. Sebastian was taller than most men in the castle, and even those he was shorter than all deferred to him.
The Prince of Force was not accustomed to being lectured. He’d heard such things happening to others, of course, but had never experienced a tongue lashing or discipline from any man. He was quite enthralled, unable to take his eyes off Lucan’s very handsome, very grim expression.
“I don’t know how to cast magic,” Sebastian said when it seemed he was supposed to defend himself.
“Magic of all kinds is forbidden in the castle.”
“I know. Like I said. I don’t know any!”
Lucan leaned in, his voice a low, purring growl. “That was powerful primal magic, sire, and you must never, ever use it again.”
“I didn’t mean to,” Sebastian hissed back, forgetting all the little sensations of submission that had briefly shot through his internal chemistry. “Something just happened. I don’t even know that it was me who did it!”
“It was you who did it, and moreover, you should not be here. The training grounds are not your place. You will be punished for your interference.”
“Punished!” Sebastian squeaked the word as all those chemicals came rushing back in a hot flow. Whatever power he’d channeled had now well and truly deserted him, leaving him a very simple young man in trouble for the very first time.
Lucan took a switch which had been leaning up against the wall of the vestibule. There were plenty of implements all about the place. Most of them were along the lines of rods and canes. It was probably a small nod to Sebastian’s royal station that he chose the switch rather than a harsher heavy cane that would deal a terrible beating. Instead, Sebastian faced the consequences of a whip-like green branch cut from one of the trees outside the castle.
“You cannot punish me, Lucan,” Sebastian declared. “That is not how this is supposed to happen.”
“What is supposed to happen?” Lucan tapped the switch against his leg, cocking his head slightly to the side as he looked at the errant prince with a mixture of displeasure and something else that Sebastian could not quite read in his eyes.
“You are supposed to be impressed by my ability to move among the commoners. You are supposed to be impressed by my power among them.”
Lucan gave a short laugh. “You are an impressive boy,” he acknowledged. “But what you’ve done here today is very dangerous for you, and for everybody else. Especially the magic.”
“I didn’t do magic!”
“Boy,” Lucan growled, speaking to Sebastian as he would speak to any errant squire, and giving the prince a brief glimpse into what it must be to be one of the young men trained by this incredible man. “What just happened out there is going to have to be explained away in some manner that does not constitute treason, and that will not be easy. You have made a right mess of things today. Not to mention, you got yourself absolutely rocked by your partner. You’ve maimed him.”
Sebastian supposed he was supposed to feel sorry about that, but he didn’t. The crude boor of a young man had taken pleasure in hitting him and he would never tolerate that.
“You’ve got nothing to say about that?”
Sebastian gave a little shrug. “He deserved it.”
“No, you whelp, he did not,” Lucan growled. “You got a bump on the head. He may be forever blind.”
This was not what Sebastian had imagined at all. Lucan was supposed to be wildly impressed with him, not looking at him as if he was the most troublesome boy he’d ever encountered in all the years he had been training knights and soldiers. The expression in Lucan’s dark gaze was very judgmental.
