Chapter Eight

***REMI***

My escape is the furthest thing from elegant.

My lungs burn, and my feet, in my split-second decision, are bare. I want to say I had a plan, that this was well thought out, I have a way to escape, but that’d be a flat out lie.

All I know is that when Vienna was kind enough to leave my arms unchained for the night it settled over me that no one was coming to save me. That I am helpless and unable to save myself.

So I snuck out into the hall and bolted.

The House of Twilight is a labyrinth. I sprint by an open courtyard, my feet pounding into the cobblestone so hard they hurt. I’m crying and hate that I’m crying.

How far am I going to run?

Who is going to help me?

There’s a clearing in the distance glowing in the light of the moon. Snow from the mountains glitters in the air, devouring the space whole.

But there are stairs. Stairs to the city and its people beyond. They warned me no one would help me, but one has to. Just one of them.

Seconds before my body hits the first step, the Midnight King is before me.

I slam into the snow and his hard muscled chest, the force stealing the breath from my lungs. He barely even registers the force, doesn’t even stagger. And in a heartbeat he’s staring me down, daring me to run.

He’s so much taller than me that I have to crane my neck to the snow and stars. His eyes still, make my heart stop.

Ice blue and mountain. The King is his land.

“Didn’t we warn you not to run?” His expression is masked by boredom, but I can feel his rage simmering just beneath the surface.

I don’t want to make him angry. I don’t want to disappoint him, but I also don’t want to be his next meal. I’m torn between being a good girl and saving myself. I don’t know where I stand.

Complying in this instance means my death. I’ve only ever compiled in this life. He’ll be angry if I run, but kill me if I stay.

For a split second, the King’s mask slips, and I swear, there’s something like worry behind those striking eyes.

“Come on,” Keiran says, gesturing back towards Twilight House.

“I want to go home,” the vulnerability in my voice makes me wince.

“Why?”

“Because I miss my sisters and the wildflowers.”

The Midnight King raises a single brow.

“I want to be good, and I want to help your lands, I can’t believe you murdered Reiyna.”.” My voice breaks at the same time as I do. I didn’t mean to reveal to him so much, state my greatest fears, but I'm on auto-pilot. “I-I don’t want to be killed.”

I caught a strange look for Keiran. One I imagine he hasn’t given another in a very long time. When he touches my back, I flinch, but the stubbornness of his gaze tells me I can’t pull away.

“Listen to me,” he says slowly. He runs his tongue over his bottom lip. I think I see his fangs. “We are not going to kill you. In fact, killing you would be the worst thing any of us could do.”

I raise my head at this.

Keiran goes on.

“A long time ago, my lands were the target of attack from the Seven Isles. We were turned on by four of our allies, all being controlled by our enemies from the North. It took everything I had to save my people, and now I have wards around them that I can barely hold up.”

The High Lord of the Seventh Isle takes a deep breath as if debating with the shadows if he should tell me the next information.

Whatever the shadows said, he decided to tell me. “I made a bargain with the Witches centuries ago, I retrieved the Offerings for them, and they, in return, supply the magic I need to protect my lands from our enemies.”

I blink back tears. I’ve been told by more people than I can count that the Midnight King is soulless. This doesn’t sound soulless at all. The male before me has been tasked to sacrifice the one to save the many.

How unfortunate that I am that one.

The pieces click into place. Some of them anyway. They won’t kill me. They need my blood.

Realization dawns on me. I’m not staying here. My journey is not over. “The witches will take me.”

Keiran nods once. Still, I can’t get over the sheer size of him. He rivals the mountains.

“And they will keep me…alive,” I say the words slowly, “for my blood.”

The man of myth and mountain nods. Shadows move with him as if attached.

The next conclusion is best left unspoken. If I run, if I leave, kill myself, getaway in any capacity, the people of the great city below me will all die.

“How many?” I ask, and Kieran doesn’t even have to look at the city below to know what I’m referencing, what I’m referencing.

“Two hundred and fifty thousand.”

My heart stills. Lungs go cold. Two hundred and fifty thousand in exchange for one.

“Are they human?”

“Some are human, some are vampires. Most of the young are fae, orphans collected from past wars.”

I turn fully to the six-foot-seven male. He looks more tired than before, more human. A dark, broken prine dying for his people’s life.

“This is what they meant by it, must be willing,” I say more to myself than him. “I’m willing to go with the witches to save them.”

Keiran inclines his head, his gaze turning to sharp edges. Shadows pool around him, blurring the space between us. “Do you really think it’s that simple? Do you think dozens of dumb princesses before you haven’t said the same thing?”

Suddenly, his centuries of existence are showing, and I feel young, small, dumb. Of course, others before me have offered to save his city. Of course, I’m not self-sacrificial.

But if dozens before me have offered to save him–the city, why hasn’t it worked yet?

I eye the steps down to the city, contemplating running again. As bad as I feel, these people have nothing to do with me, and maybe I could still get home–

Large, tattooed arms wrap around my waist. Kallias captures me and lifts me from the ground, throwing me over his shoulder in front of Keiran.

My cheeks turn red at the contact of his skin. Kallias smells like evergreen and mint, and his body is ridiculously toned.

His arm is strong against the back of my thighs, but my dress, my dress is flowing and open and threatening to expose the entirety of me to Keiran.

“What-no!”

Kallias’s threat is unusually aggressive. “Fight me, little doe, and I’ll carry you back to the house naked.”

I stop resisting. There are warriors in the court, dozens of Keiran’s men. I’d die if they saw any more than what is already showing.

The Midnight Prince is glowing. Grinning like he possibly couldn’t have stumbled across anything more amusing.

“Good girl,” the twin praises when I go slack, “run away again and we’ll have Xaden throw you in the dungeons.”

“And Rhodes visits you at night,” Keiran adds.

My blood travels from my stomach to my ears. Would they really torture me for fun? After telling me to save their people I must be compliant?

Something horrible is on the horizon. Something that'd make me think twice about tossing myself into the fire for a quarter of a million souls. And the sooner I can figure out what is coming, the sooner I can prepare for it.

Or escape.

The Midnight King
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