We Were Born To Lose

I woke screaming and when I felt a man jump onto me, I thrashed even more. Every part of me wanted to get away, to run. I heard someone yelling but I couldn’t make out what they were saying. Waves of panic crashed over me, drowning me.
“JACK!” I heard my master’s voice and froze. My vision focused on his face. I saw his beautiful eyes with the gold flecks and focused on them. “You’re okay. Everything is okay.” He voiced softly. This was when I started crying. I didn’t sob, years of hiding the fact that I was crying had silenced any sobs I had but tears streamed down my face and my breathing was ragged. He pressed me to his chest and hugged me tight. I felt us rocking back and forth slightly, the small action calmed me. I was able to form coherent thoughts when the Prince pulled away but a few tears still found their way down my face. “What happened?”
“N-nightmare.” I whispered.
“Yeah I figured, what caused the nightmares?” He asked. Anxiety flared in my chest and I felt dizzy.
“I c-can’t.” I said, breathing hard.
“It’s okay, Jack you’re completely safe. No one will hurt you.” He cooed. My breathing got back to normal while listening to him comfort me. “What happened?” He brought two fingers to my chin and tilted my head up to look at him. I looked at those gold flecks and I couldn’t bare to lie to my Prince anymore. He deserved to know, even if he’d kill me after finding out, at this point, I wouldn’t care.
“When my old master moved us to Rivguard, he figured out that there were lots of gay men.” I said testing the subject, he didn’t seem swayed at such a ‘blasphemous’ thing so I continued. I told him about how I’d be raped several times a day everyday, how I was physically and mentally abused, how I’d completely lost hope, and finally how much of a savior he was for pulling me out of that life. When I was finished, he hugged me again and crushed my chest from holding me so close but I didn’t mind. It felt so good to be held and feel protected.
“Jack.” He breathed, “I-I don’t even know how to convey how strong you are.”
His words made a few more tears steam down my cheeks and after a while he finally released me, tears glistening in his eyes but refusing to let them fall. I’d never thought of myself as strong. I was always the weak one who cried and needed other people to protect him but here my master, the Prince, was telling me I was strong and I couldn’t understand what would make him think such a thing.
“Thank you Sire.” I whispered. He frowned at the use of the word.
“You know you don’t have to call me Sire all the time.” He said.
“Okay, thank you…Alex.” I spoke his name very quietly and timidly. He smiled which reassured me and I relaxed.
“What were the terms you agreed to?” I asked and Alex’s face went hard. “Oh you don’t have t-“
“It’s okay, you’ll find out anyway.” He cut me off, “King Cenrid, his son, and some of his knights are going to be staying with us for a while.” He said through gritted teeth.
“What?” I asked, his admission shook me to the core in a way that made my bones weak.
“Yeah they’re going to be staying in the castle.”
“You don’t seriously trust him do you?” I asked.
“Not one bit but his army is bigger than ours, we can’t afford a war with him.” He said. This was bad. With King Cenrid in the castle, they could hurt or poison the king, they could get their hands on battle plans that we do not want them knowing about, or worst of all, they could hurt my Prince. They could hurt my Alex.
I scolded myself for calling him mine when he is nothing of the sort. I had to stop letting my emotions get away with me, Alex is not mine and he never will be.
“How’s your arm?” He asked. I’d forgotten about it but now that he reminded me, the pain returned. I looked down to see it cleaned up with white bandages.
“It’s okay.” I replied, almost whispering.
“Good because we need to hurry, Cenrid is loading everything up into caravans and I’d like for us to be ready to go before he is.”
The knights helped me with the heavy stuff and were continuously giving me pats on the back and congratulations on my first battle wound. Finally we were ready to go. The riding order was Alex and King Cenrid in the front, then the knights rode in a circle around me, I suspected Alex had something to do with that, then after the knights were Cenrid’s men on either side of the caravans. The ride was dead silent and the tension in the air could be felt. It was like it was swimming all around us, filling our lungs and our veins as we rode alongside treacherous men.
We reached the castle late that night. Once again, the knights helped me unload the heavy stuff and I followed Alex to his room. When I shut the door, he turned to face me with a very hard expression.
“My father has ordered that you serve Cenrid’s son, Prince Almore. I will lighten your duties to myself to make time for him but if he hurts you in anyway, let me know and I will beat the living shit out of him.” He said. I nodded and let myself be dismissed. This was bad. This was very very bad. These men were dangerous and now I will be spending a lot of my time with one. And what’s worse is that if he does hurt me, despite what Alex said, I can’t let him know because if I do, Alex will pick a fight and the truce will be off. No matter how scared or abused I am, my life isn’t worth a war.

Notes

Title cred: One Hundred Sleepless Nights by Pierce The Veil


YES IT IS JACK. YOUR LIFE IS WORTH ALL THE WARS


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