Abbott's POv
I walked away from the guard wincing on the ground. My knuckles were split, Better his face than someone else's. Better this than going back to my room where she was.
I found myself at the lake, the one by my private garden.
For a moment, I thought about swimming until my lungs burned or maybe, until it gave out.
Instead, I drew my sword. There was an old oak tree beside the lake, it looked sturdy... indifferent.
It was where we had our first kiss, Abby and I.
I tried to think about that kiss but all I ended up envisioning in my head was Abby in Markle's arm. My wife and my idiot nephew!
The thought of it alone filled me with so much rage.
I swung. The blade bit deep into the trunk. Wood chips flew. Again. And again. The shock of impact traveled up my arms, a punishment my body welcomed.
I heard Bastian approach. I didn't stop, but I slowed. Let him watch if you wants to.
"What did the poor tree do to you?" he asked.
I ignored him, focusing on the growing gash in the wood.
He moved closer. "The knight will be fine. A broken nose, some bruised pride. Nothing alcohol won't cure."
"What makes you think I give a fuck about a faceless knight?" I snarled, swinging again.
"Because you give a fuck about every faceless knight that serves under you," he said, his voice annoyingly calm. "No matter how much you say you don't."
I stopped. Turned my head and looked at him with every ounce of murder I felt. He didn't flinch. Bastian never does.
I went back to hacking the tree apart.
"Do you want to tell me what's going on with you?" he pressed. "Where's your head at?"
I looked at him, gripping the hilt of my sword so tight the leather creaked. "What about my sword, and my posture, and literally anything about me, makes you think I want to talk about my feelings, Bas."
"Well, nothing," he admitted. "But I'm going to insist."
"You and what army?" I grunted, driving the blade deep.
He stepped right up to my side, his voice dropping. "Me and the life-debt you owe me from the Battle of the Ocean. I'm cashing it in."
I froze. The sword stayed embedded in the wood. I slowly pulled it out and lowered it, turning to face him. "This is what you want to waste your chip on?"
He shrugged, a infuriatingly casual gesture. "Seems as good a time as any."
I let the sword fall to the grass with a dull thud. I felt stripped. Defenseless. "What do you want to know?"
"Where's your head at, Abbott? What do you want?"
"I want nothing. There, I said it." I murmured and picked up the sword.
"Okay" He turned around and started walking away even though he knew I just lied to him and violated a rule about life-debt.
He didn't make it far when I spoke again.
"I want Abby!" The words were torn from me, a bloody confession I didn't know I was carrying.
Bastian turned around, his eyes widened slightly. The surprise on his face mirrored the shock in my own chest. He walked back to where I was standing.
"Abbott..." he was surprised I admitted that.
"I want her pregnant and barefoot in my bed. I want to have a couple of rugrats with her raising hell in these damned silent halls. I want my Daphne home with me, without looking over my shoulder, waiting for Aldous to hurt her."
"You want to be able to tell your daughter that you love her for the very first time in her life, don't you?" Bastian breathed.
I nodded.
" I also want you to be happy, Bastian, and to abandon this stupid, noble mission to kill a king—a mission that will certainly get you killed." My voice cracked. I blinked hard, fighting back a heat in my eyes that shamed me. "I want… I want someone to love me, Bastian. Monster and all. Devil or not. Not plenty. Just one single person. To prove I'm not difficult to love, Bas."
I looked at him then, let him see the raw, ugly want in my eyes before I had to look away. "And I want to find another wolf. I don't want to be the last of my kind."
The silence that followed was heavier than any blow I'd landed on the tree. Even Bastian was speechless.
I will be speechless too if he admitted to me what I just told him.
"I want things I could never have, Bas"
The humiliation of the admission burned. I snatched the sword up from the grass and turned back to the oak, swinging with a fury that felt like my last defense.
Thwack. Thwack. THWACK
"Maybe Abby might be that person for you, Brother"
"No." I told him firmly.
I looked at him, it was like he saw the raw, ugly want in my eyes before I looked away.
"Yes, if you let her"
"No" I shook my head. "Father loves breaking things I love. We shouldn't subject little Abby Spencer to that, should we? And she doesn't want me, anyway"
"You are bleeding" Bas commented.
I watched blood pool around my shirt, the stab injury that placed me in coma was ripped open just like that.
I kept hitting the tree anyway.
Thwack. Thwack. THWACK.
Then a piercing scream cut through the air. "Stop it!"
I turned.
Abby stood there, her face pale, her eyes wide with a hurt so profound it looked like I'd killed her favorite tortoise.
Bastian moved, trying to play the peacemaker. "Abigail, it's just a tree."
She didn't even glance at him. She walked right up to me, her small body trembling with a rage that dwarfed my own. And she slapped me.
The sting was nothing. The look in her eyes was everything.
"It's not just a tree," she said, her voice shaking with tears. "It's where we had our first kiss."
I froze. She remembered.
The ground fell away from beneath my feet. Our first kiss, she said.
Not hers and Markle's. Hers and mine. A memory I was trying to destroy. She remembered it too.
"You destroyed our tree. Do you hate me that much?" she whispered.
No. I don't, sweetheart. I almost yelled at her.
"Yes" I said instead.
She took off running and I just stood there pinned to the ground, watching her go further and further away from me.
"Are you okay?" Bastian asked me.
"Find me a war to fight before I lose my goddamn mind, Bastian"
He came closer to help me walk back to the castle. I shrugged him off and went back to hacking the tree apart.