Page 17 of A Guard and a Gardener

Thatwas what he’d been demanding while he’d been pulling my hair hard enough to make me cry? Damn him.

“Lunchtime, I said,” Macario continued, letting out a disappointed sigh. “You’d come to me at lunchtime with gold or jewellery or whatever the fuck else you happened to find in the king’s palace. And what did you bring me instead?”

Mac paused from where he was closing in on me to peer down into our discarded picnic basket.

“Fucking grapes,” he said with disgust. “And a near comatose old man. Are you incapable of following even the simplest of instructions, Wyatt?”

“I’ll get you mone-”

“You sure will. Especially when I leave you with a little reminder.”

I nodded eagerly. “Yep, a reminder would be good. Maybe you can write me a note, or a-”

“Not a note. Something you can’t forget,” Macario said in a low tone, and then he crouched, his fingers curling around the hilt of Jiron’s sword where it lay in the grass.

“Mac...”

I continued to back up, watching fearfully as he unsheathed the blade and held it steady at chest height. It looked heavy; the thing was the size of my entire leg, and I knew Jiron kept it nothing less than impossibly sharp.

“Give me your arm,” Macario said.

“What? My arm? No, I don’t-”

“Fucking hell, Wyatt, I’m not going to cut it off. I’m just going to give you something to remember your promises so we don’t have to have this conversation again,sí?”

He was going tocutme? Or worse?

“I’ll remember!” I pleaded, trying to put distance between me and that blade but he stalked closer, the sword’s point aimed directly at my bare chest. “I’ll remember to get you the money, Mac, please!”

But the man shook his head, unmoved. “I know you too well to believe that, Wyatt. Now, stay still.”

*

Chapter Eleven

I choked on blood, spitting and swallowing the damn stuff in equal measures. I wasn’t sure if it was from the knife I’d received in my side a few minutes ago, or the beating that was currently still being inflicted, fists sinking into my stomach and back without relief.

Then someone yanked out the knife – although they twisted it for good measure as they did so – and I roared out in pain and frustration, slumping against my restraints.

“Almost a scream, hmm? Come on big guy, I know you can give me more than that.”

A hand slapped at my cheek as if to rouse me, but I didn’t bother to open my eyes. The healer’s Touch would tell him whether I was awake or unconscious, and he was always sure to bring me back if I began to slip away.

“You’ve been at it for two weeks,” a new voice drawled. I knew each of my torturers: how they liked to inflict specific pain, how long it took them to get bored, what they sounded like when they were excited, or tired, or pissed off. This man had never visited me before. “Two weeks, and you still haven’t broken him?”

The air in the basement changed as an awkward tension filtered through it. Despite everything, I was intrigued enough to crack an eye, determinedly not looking down at my damaged body or any of the bloody implements lying on tables around us.

“Sir,” someone mumbled, but the stranger gestured for him to be quiet, his eyes fixed on the healer at my side. A silverish scar ran across his neck and it was clear from the way he had his collar low and his long hair pulled back that the man was proud of the wound.

He probably had cause to be. A scar that wide and long indicated his throat had been slit to the bone, and I was sure that the only reason he stood before us now was magic. A Touch that had kept him alive and yet hadn’t healed the skin? A result of limited magical power or a deliberate choice, perhaps for the intimidation it granted in its reminder?

“Sir,” acknowledged the healer, saluting the senior rebel with a hand stained crimson with my blood. “This one has proven...resilient.” He sounded almost like he was sulking, and I might have laughed if I didn’t feel like my insides had imploded.

“Then I overestimated you.”

The healer bristled.

I’d been cut. Whipped. Beaten. Starved. Sliced, carved, stabbed. Entreated to detailed threats about what they’d do to Ren if they caught him before I gave him up. Forced to listen to them colourfully describe how he’d become a plaything for the men until his body gave out from the abuse. Similar threats were frequently levelled my way too, but either it was all bluster or they were too afraid to loosen my binds in order to properly have their fun with me. That wasn’t to say my cock and ass were left alone – they also formed part of the torturous attentions of my captors – but when the alternative was spilling what I knew of Ren and Mathias’ intentions in heading towards the Temarian border, it was just something I had to quietly endure.

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