Chapter 16

“Jade, you’re back!” Said Damian, happily when he saw me.
We were standing outside our cottage and he was carrying a platter of food.
I wanted to go to him but something held me back. “I am so sorry, Damian. I had to leave our son behind. They wouldn’t let me take him.”
He stopped smiling and dropped the platter on the floor. His face changed and he became Darius.
“You have to go back and get him or we won’t let you in,” he said.
“I can’t,” I said and I began to cry.
He shook his head and he became Dominic. “This is all your fault!” He said.
I woke up suddenly, panting. My dreams about my mates were no longer exciting as they used to be. Sometimes, they were nightmares and the triplets would chase me around, trying to kill me.
I didn’t know whether it was my guilt that created these dreams or if they were truly mad at me. I didn’t even know for sure whether they were still alive or not.
I heard Hycinth coming down the stairs and I smelled the food he was bringing even before he reached my cell in the darkness. They fed me leftovers from the servants’ kitchen and sometimes the foods were rotten but I ate them gladly because I wasn’t fed regularly.
I had lost track of time and I never knew when one day ended and when the next began. It was permanently dark here and there was no sound except for the few times that Hycinth showed up with food and water for me.
My hair had grown so long that I accidentally sat on it sometimes. My body stank and my breath irritated me. Still, I was alive and that gave me hope.
“Here’s your food,” said Hycinth, sliding the plate of stale bread and burnt meat through the space under my cell door.
“Thank you,” I whispered and descended on the food. I hadn’t been fed for almost a week and this awful meal tasted like heaven to me.
Hycinth was holding a torch and he watched me quietly as I ate like a hungry beast.
“What?” I asked when he didn’t leave. He never used to wait around whenever he served my meals.
“Nothing,” he said and turned to leave.
“Wait,” I said. “Please, can I beg you for a favour?”
“What is it?”
“What time is it now?”
“Evening,” he replied.
“How long have I been here?”
He paused to think. “A year and two months.”
I gasped. “Has it been that long?”
“Yes. Why are you asking?”
“My son… I mean, the Luna’s son. Do you know how he’s doing? Is he well?”
“I don’t know,” he replied honestly. “I am only a prison guard, Miss. I don’t know what goes on inside the palace.”
“Miss?” I smiled for the first time in many months. I cannot remember the last time someone spoke to me with such respect.
“Thank you,” I said and continued eating.
He turned to leave but then faced me again and said, “I’ll try to ask one of my buddies who works in the palace about your son. Next time I come here, I’ll have some news for you, I promise.”
My eyes filled with tears of gratitude. “Oh, Hycinth. Thank you!”
He smiled at me and then left. His promise gave me hope in this hopeless place. I woke up every time, waiting to hear his footsteps coming down the stairs. I kept imagining what he would tell me about my precious son when he came again.
Several days passed before Hycinth came again to see me. He told me that my son was growing into a happy little boy. The Luna was taking good care of him and he was allowed to play with the Alpha’s children in the palace.
I wept with joy, knowing that my child was fine. Thinking about him made me so happy beyond words.
“I can sneak you upstairs to the female prisoners’ bathroom,” Hycinth said one day when he brought me food. “You could clean up there while the other prisoners are in their cells. No one will see you.”
His offer surprised me. “What about the other guards?”
“Don’t worry about them. Once the cells are all locked up for the night, all guards remain in front of the prison till morning. I’m the only one allowed to come down here to attend to you. So, what do you say?”
I giggled happily. “Let’s do it,” I said.
He opened my cell and let me out. I followed him to the bathroom where he gave me soap, a sponge and a razor to shave. For the first time in a very long while, I felt beautiful again.
When I was done, he gave me a clean dress that he had ‘borrowed’ from a friend. It didn’t fit perfectly but it was neat and better than the rag I had been wearing for months. I felt like a new person.
Hycinth took me back to my underground cell which he had cleaned. He put a metal bucket with a lid in the corner of my cell.
“You can use that as your bathroom and I will empty it next time I come to see you,” he said.
I was overwhelmed with gratitude. “Thank you!” I said, hugging him.
He became my only friend from that night. I would always look forward to seeing him and when he came, he would tell me about my son and the things that were happening in the palace. Being in prison didn’t seem so bad anymore because of Hycinth.
“I am in love with you, Jade,” he told me one night when he came visiting.
His words surprised me. “Please, don’t say that. I am a prisoner condemned to die here. Don’t waste your love on me.”
“I don’t care,” he said stubbornly. “I still love you.”
He opened my cell door and I walked into his arms. We kissed passionately and my body remembered what I had been missing all this while.
I lifted my dress over my head and stood naked in front of him in the dark. We could barely see each other so our hands did the seeing for us.
His hands cupped my breasts and he squeezed them gently. Then he reached down and stroked me between my legs. I became wet almost immediately.
I grabbed his cock through his pants and he moaned loudly. “Oh, Jade!”
He quickly unzipped his pants and freed himself, giving me more access. I grabbed his balls this time around and played with them. His legs shook as I continued to massage him.
“That feels so good, Jade,” he moaned.
I went on my knees and put him inside my mouth, sucking him as if my life depended on it. He held my head for support as he began to thrust in and out of my mouth. I enjoyed pleasuring him like this because it was my little way of repaying his kindness to me.
He pulled me up to my feet and made me lean on the wall. My nipples brushed against the cold wall, sending sparks of delicious tingles all over my body.
When he entered me from behind, I gasped with delight. His thick cock filled me up completely and travelled deep inside me.
“Fuck me hard!” I told him and he obeyed.
Every brutal stroke he delivered was like a hard hammer, slamming into my body and I loved it. The harder he jammed into me, the more I begged him to keep it coming.
We climaxed together, holding unto each other tightly. I was totally satisfied but I wanted more.
“I can’t wait to come back here again,” he said to me as he began to dress up to leave.
“And I can’t wait to see you again,” I said happily.
Many days passed but Hycinth didn’t come back. I became miserable because it seemed that I had been betrayed yet again.
Why did people keep using me and dumping me like a filthy rag? What did I ever do to deserve this kind of treatment?
I cried myself to sleep many times and hoped that Hycinth would come back. When I finally heard footsteps coming down the stairs toward my cell, my heart jumped for joy but I was disappointed when a different guard showed up.
He threw my food at me and walked away without saying a word. I couldn’t even ask him about Hycinth because he never gave me a chance to speak.
I was half asleep one day when I heard footsteps again. I didn’t bother to get up because what was the point?
“I have good news for you.”
My eyes flew open instantly when I recognized the voice. “Hycinth!”
“Yes, Jade, it is me,” he said, smiling.
He was holding his torch in one hand and a plate of food in the other.
“You came back!” I said happily.
“Yes, I did, but that’s not the good news.”
“What is it then?” I asked eagerly.
“Luna Elena is dead.”