Chapter 429

“Mids,” Jesse sighs, putting his hands on his hips and shaking his head at Midnight, exhausted and frustrated. He peeks over the top of the separating screen that Juniper gave them, well aware that the tent full of ambassadors and Atalaxian royals is listening to their heated conversation and casually pretending that they’re not.

“I don’t want to go,” Midnight growls, curled in a ball at his feet, her face tucked tight against her knees and her hands sunk deep in her hair. “You can’t make me!”

“I can’t make you,” Jesse agrees through his teeth, crouching down next to her. “But if we stay here, we’re all going to get killed.”

“We won’t get killed,” she hisses, whipping her face up to glare at him. “I will negotiate with Darkness when he breaks out of that stupid egg! I will assure him that we are still his humble servants! He’ll just kill all of them!” She jerks her head towards everyone else in the tent.

One of the eavesdropping ambassadors groans in fear. Another hisses at him to shut up.

“Oh, Midnight,” Jesse sighs, falling back on his ass and reaching out to stroke Midnight’s back. This conversation has been going on for…far too long. And every moment that passes gets a lot closer to that reality – to Darkness getting free, and coming here, and destroying them all.

Except, unlike Midnight, Jesse has no intention of declaring his fealty to evil or watching his countrymen die.

“What are you really scared of, Mids?” he asks, continuing to softly stroke her back. “What’s stopping you from letting me take you home and give you a wonderful life?”

She just shakes her head and tucks her face back against her knees, as she’s been doing this entire time.

“I mean, everyone’s going to be really nice to you,” Jesse says softly. “I’m sure they can’t wait to meet you. You’re going to have a fantastic life in Moon Valley.”

“They’ll make me be a whore,” she moans.

Jesse can’t help laughing, just a little. “Midnight, I promise, no one will make you be a whore.”

She goes silent and Jesse lets her have a moment to think.

When she speaks again, Midnight’s voice is softer than before, and laced with fear. “She’s going to take my magic from me,” she whispers.

“Who is?” Jesse asks, his shoulders straightening in surprise.

“The blonde rat!” Midnight moans, devastated at the idea.

Jesse frowns at his mate for a second, confused, and then bursts into a smile. “You mean Ariel?”

Midnight lifts her head and nods vehemently. But when she realizes that Jesse is laughing, she smacks at him, hard, with her tiny hand.

“It’s not funny!”

“I mean, calling Ariel a blonde rat is very funny,” Jesse says, scooting closer to Midnight and tugging her close. “But why would you think she would take your magic away?”

“Because she took that Prince’s magic away,” Midnight murmurs, leaning against him. “And now he’s all weak and useless.”

“And healthy,” Jesse adds. “And not corrupted. That darkness was making him horrible, Mids. He punched Ariel and…probably did all sorts of other awful stuff that the corruption made him do.”

Midnight turns her face up to Jesse’s, her eyes wide and sad and shining. “If you think the corruption makes people horrible,” she whispers. “Do you think I’m horrible?”

“I think you’re magnificent,” Jesse replies, stroking a hand over her hair, speaking his honest truth. “I think that whatever that darkness does to people, you’ve somehow managed to resist it for years. I think you’re a miracle.”

Her little mouth begins to tremble and Jesse’s whole heart aches.

“I have to admit, though,” he adds, soft. “It breaks my heart to see your little wolf sunk in the Darkness like that. I want to see her running free. And you too.”

Jesse’s wolf howls in his soul, standing at the edge and peering over at Midnight’s long-suffering wolf, sunk deep in the dark oil, panting hard, her eyes lit with a maniacal glow.

Midnight just slowly shakes her head. “Jesse, I don’t know who I am without the Darkness,” she says quietly. “I…I don’t remember agreeing to the bargain. I don’t remember…who I am.”

“You’ll still be you,” he whispers.

“What if I’m not?” she asks, tears slipping down her cheeks. “What if darkness is too much of who I am? What if I’m…gone?”

Jesse sighs, completely without an answer for that concern. Because Midnight is right. Gabriel – his whole personality shifted when the darkness left him. Midnight – would she lose herself completely? Become someone else?

His wolf snarls at the idea, hating it. Because as strange as this little person is, she’s already become so incredibly important to him.

“I promise you, Midnight,” Jesse says, pressing his hand to his heart. “No one will force you to give up your magic or your darkness unless you ask it. I promise.”

She looks away, clearly considering it.

“But Midnight, we’ve got to go,” he says. “Darkness – he doesn’t love you in the way you think he does. He doesn’t care. He’ll kill you along with the rest of us – I seriously think that’s true. He thinks that you betrayed him – he’ll take you out as a threat”

Midnight considers for a moment longer, beginning to rock back and forth, clearly torn and not handling this big decision well.

“Do you…just want to go back to be with the whore?” she whispers.

Jesse grits his teeth against a sigh because…well. Because he does want to see Daphne again. Very, very badly. “Mids, I promise that I want to go back to keep us safe.”

“Are you going to go to her?” she snaps, turning to him with a frown.

“You are my first priority,” he says, assured, leaning close to her. “I actually want you two to meet –“

She snarls, turning away, and Jesse grimaces, realizing he may have said the wrong thing.

“Midnight,” he sighs, dropping his head into his hands. “Please.”

“I don’t want to leave my house,” she says, quite mournful.

“You’ll have a new house – a whole palace –“

“No,” she snarls, starting to cry. “I want…this is my home, Jesse. It’s the only home I’ve ever had.”

He sighs and looks up at her again, realizing that his offer was callous. “Then we’ll take it with us.”

“What?” she says, turning towards him in surprise.

“We’ll take it, the whole thing,” he says with a shrug. “Whatever you want, Mids. We’ll do it.”

“You’re not just saying that?” she whispers. “To make me go?”

“Midnight, I love you very much,” Jesse says, putting both of his hands on her shoulders. “I want you to have everything that you want and need. If that is this yurt, then hell yeah we’re taking it to Moon Valley.”

She looks to the side, her mouth twisting. “And I can decide…who comes in and out of the yurt?”

“Of course,” he says, his heart lifting.

She turns back just a little to glare at him from the corner of her dark eye. “So…I can have a rule? No whores in my yurt?”

Jesse works hard to fight his smile and fails. “Not a single whore in the yurt, Midnight. I promise.”

She exhales slowly with her eyes closed.

Jesse waits, barely breathing.

“Fine,” Midnight snaps, suddenly jumping to her feet. “But we have to go now.”

“All right!” Jesse says, jumping to his feet and very nearly knocking the screen down in his hurry to get everything sorted. “I need all hands dismantling this yurt, and everything inside it, into as small a package as possible! Everyone hold a little bit if you have to!”

The entire group just stares at Jesse for a long moment of shock.

And then at once, they leap to the task, hope humming through the room.

Midnight stands at Jesse’s side, watching everyone dismantle her home, tears in her eyes.

Mark and Rafe stand on the palace roof, watching as the helicopter comes in for the landing.

“Did we seriously have to come up here?” Mark sighs, shaking his head and glancing at his brother. “It’s not like Hank doesn’t know how to get inside.”

“Mom asked us to greet her friend,” Rafe bites out, glaring at his little brother. “So, we’re doing it.”

“Ariel’s in Atalaxia, Juniper’s in the freaking underworld, both of them facing death and negotiating wolf and cosmic power matches,” Mark mutters, scuffing the toe of his boot. “And we’re here saying hi to a delinquent.”

“Oh, be polite,” Rafe says, unable to help laughing a little as he gives Mark a little shove. “I’m sure even you can take a little human delinquent on. She can’t be that tough.”

“Mom said she got kicked out of school for trying to set it on fire,” Mark murmurs.

Rafe laughs and shakes his head, focusing on the helicopter as it begins to land. “She was suspended for being incendiary and rallying her fellow students to protest. That’s…very different.”

Mark mutters further discontent but Rafe ignores him, straightening his shoulders and preparing to meet Hank and his delinquent daughter with as much grace as he can muster. Hank called earlier, letting Ella know he had to bring his daughter along with him on the trip as there was no one to stay home with her and ensure that she didn’t get into any further trouble. Ella had, of course, been enthusiastic about the addition – but Rafe? He wasn’t so sure. She sounds like a handful and he doesn’t really want any further trouble right now, not with his life already falling apart.

Both Rafe and Mark watch closely as Hank steps out of the helicopter and waves to them before turning back to the door and getting in an argument with whoever is still inside.

Rafe grimaces a little as the argument continues for way longer than it should, until Hank has to reach bodily into the helicopter and yank his daughter forward.

The moment she appears – tall and slim, in baggy jeans and an oversized hoodie, a disgruntled sneer pasted over her mouth – Rafe’s expression drops from his face.

His wolf goes still in his soul, staring forward at her.

Rafe’s heart basically stops beating as Hank and his daughter come forward, Hank arm wrapped forcefully around her elbow, obliging her to come along, clearly against her will.

But no…it’s impossible…Hank’s daughter, she’s…human…

“Hey Mark, Rafe,” Hank says, perfectly amiable, apparently missing the fact that Rafe is frozen to the spot and not breathing. “You remember my daughter, right? Say hello, Maryam.”

Maryam just sneers at the princes, clearly refusing to obey.

Rafe’s wolf howls in delight.