Chapter 430

The Land of Darkness hums in peaceful silence beneath its trio of moons. A dark weasel sets his little rump on the ground and sighs contentedly, raising his nose to the sky, sniffing in the cool night air. Or day air. It doesn’t really know – it’s all the same here. It begins to wonder if there’s any wild cabbage growing close by –

WHAM.

The weasel screeches and turns on its tail, dashing away from the twenty-four people that suddenly appeared from absolutely nowhere, each with their arms full of a piece of yurt or a treasured possession.

“Are they all here?” Midnight gasps, dropping Jesse’s hand and running around to check, her favorite little stuffed penguin still clutched to her chest.

“Um,” Elias says, standing on his toes and using his superior height to look around at all the ambassadors. “Yes, I’m counting twenty, and then all of us – I think we all made it –“

“Not all the people – I don’t care about them –“ Midnight snaps, glaring at Elias. “I’m talking about all the pieces of my house!”

“I’m sure it’s all here,” Pippa says very soothingly, reaching out a hand to pat Midnight on the shoulder while Ben fights to keep his face straight, avoiding the urge to laugh. “We know how important it is to you, Midnight – we’ve all been very careful to make sure we got it all.” Midnight growls and flashes her teeth at Pippa, not trusting her. Not yet.

“Where…where is here?” Jesse asks, turning in a circle and peering around with a frown on his face. Honestly, it all looks…exactly the same as the place they just left. Just hills and waste in the darkness. Midnight promised that she’d vanish them all away to somewhere that lined up with Moon Valley but…god, how does she know?

“Can’t you see my map?” Midnight says, turning away from the quiet and wide-eyed ambassadors who keep their respective yurt pieces held tight in their arms, awaiting further instruction and praying not to die.

“Map?” Jesse asks, frowning.

Midnight nods and points around at the ground. “See? All etched into the dirt. It’s the map of your stupid Alpha castle with all the big boys running around in it.”

Jesse’s eyes go wide as he sees what she’s talking about – that Midnight has, indeed, painstakingly drawn out a map of Alpha Academy on the ground, presumably so that she could more effectively spy on him for Darkness.

“So…you…” he exhales sharply, hardly able to believe that it’s so close – that this whole insane journey is so nearly finished. “That’s where we are? One more vanish and we’re…in Alpha Academy?”

“Well, that’s what you wanted, isn’t it?” Midnight snaps, turning to him and putting one hand on her hip. “That’s what you made me give up my entire life for, and destroy my house, and betray the Dark God –“

“We’re very grateful, Mids,” Jesse says, stepping forward and ending the harangue before Midnight can have a melt down and second guess herself yet again. “And trust me – it’s right. But you can’t take us to the palace? In the capital?”

Her little shoulders slump as she looks at him, tired and afraid. “I don’t know where that is. I – it took a long time to find your stupid boy school.”

Jesse smiles at the description, stroking a hand over her hair, looking with a great deal of love at her dark eyes, her sad little face. “The Academy will do perfectly, Mids. Thank you so much. We’re ready when you are, okay?”

He looks up around at all of the collected people, each of whom looks hopeful and excited, except perhaps Elias, who looks worriedly at Pippa, and Pippa herself, who stands with her eyes closed, her arm looped around her Alpha, her other balancing a basket full of Midnight’s kitchen supplies.

“Where in the castle do you want to go?” Midnight whispers, looking up at Jesse with a great deal of faith in her eyes.

“Um, maybe to our room?” he offers, wanting someplace safe and secure for her to land.

“Okay, this way!” Midnight says, turning and striding off to another part of her little map. Jesse blinks when he recognizes the space that she walks over to – where Midnight has carefully detailed the shape of the room he shares with Rafe and Ariel, including the details of the location of their couch, their beds…

Damn, how much did she spy on them?

“Everyone stay in the lines!” Midnight calls as the entire group begins to step within the threshold of the map. “If you don’t, you’ll shift to Moon Valley inside a wall and then you’ll be dead!”

Jesse spins to her with his eyes wide. “Is that true!?”

“No,” she grumbles as the gathered crowd gasps and presses in close to each other, fastidiously avoiding the lines that demarcate the sides of the room. “It will just be easier if we’re all together. If they’re scared they’ll listen to me.”

Jesse stares at his little mate for a moment and then huffs out a laugh, shaking his head and taking her hand. “All right, Mids. Do your work.”

Everyone else again shuffles around and holds hands or otherwise makes contact with their neighbor so they can all travel together, quietly waiting, expectant.

Jesse watches closely as Midnight exhales a long breath, looking around at the Land of Darkness as if she’s saying goodbye to it. Jesse squeezes her hand and she looks up at him.

“You promise?” she whispers, a great deal of trepidation in her voice.

He gives her a soft smile in return, leaning close to press a kiss to her hair, knowing that she’s asking if he means it – everything he promised her. That his family will be kind, that Ariel won’t take her magic away unless Midnight asks, that she will have a wonderful life.

“I promise, Mids,” he says, nearly a whisper. “Every word.”

Midnight exhales slowly and the entire crowd of twenty-four instantly disappears, nothing but their footprints left behind.

The Land of Darkness returns to its eternal state. Quiet, and dark, and peaceful beneath the sky lit by three moons.

I rest my cheek against the expanse of Jackson’s back, feeling mildly miserable physically, even if my wolf sings for joy in my soul. The ATV rumbles as Jackson drives it through the darkness of the Atalaxian night. My body moves and shifts along with it, jolting this way and that as we go, Jackson’s backpack shifting distractingly on my back as well. But even if I am not in the most comfortable sleeping position, I doze.

I slip in and out of sleep, my body exhausted from whipping from the extreme of a new mark to the rejection of a mate. All the while my left arm throbs, pain radiating from my wrist. Not for the first time in the past week I wish for my mother. God, having a magical healer in the family sure didn’t inculcate a very strong sense of pain tolerance in me, did it?

I lift my head slightly when the ATV begins to slow, blinking back to the present.

Jackson has been all business from the moment he started striding out of those cages in the Land of Darkness, me in his arms. There wasn’t a great deal of small talk or conversation as he carried me across that wasteland and far enough outside the cages that when he shifted us back to our world we couldn’t be seen from the Castle. Instead, Jackson concentrated singularly on finding his little campsite again, getting that packed up in under two minutes and then driving us hastily away.

“How are you?” he murmurs, bringing the ATV to a stop and then turning to me from his spot ahead of me, his long legs straddled on either side of the machine.

I give him a tentative smile. “I’m stiff and tired. But otherwise I’m great!”

“Great,” he grumbles, shaking his head a little and huffing a doubtful laugh. “Ariel, you’re always gorgeous, but for heaven’s sake you look like you’re going to fall off this thing.”

“I do not,” I murmur, frowning at him and sitting up a little. I immediately betray my over-confident assertion by tilting slightly to the side and losing my balance – just a bit.

Jacks laughs and flashes out a hand, catching me by the arm and setting me up right.

“Why’d we stop?” I ask as Jackson cups my cheek in his palm and passes me a little energy. “You stop that,” I snarl, smacking his hand away. “You’re running low, Jackson – even if you pretend you’re not. You’ll be a skeleton by the time we get home.”

“I’ve been lower than this,” he murmurs, giving me a smug little smirk and swinging his leg over the seat before standing straight. “And we’re camping here for the night.”

“What!?” I squeak, looking around at the seemingly random field, all tall green grass situated next to a pretty little stream. “Why!? Can’t we go home? Can’t we just…call my mom and make her send a helicopter!?”

Jackson laughs and shakes his head, taking a cell phone from its place in a little saddle bag on the side of the ATV. “Lost charge days ago.”

“And you didn’t bring a charger!?”

“Where would I plug it in?” Jacks asks, leaning down a bit to grin at me.

I scowl up at him, sighing a little with disappointment because…well, I really did want to get home to see all my family. And to just rest. “What’s the point of a being a Princess if you can’t call a helicopter up at will?” I grumble, crossing my arms over my chest with a pout.

“Poor baby,” Jackson coos, a bit dry.

I laugh, looking up at my gorgeous mate, framed as he is against the star-lit sky above…

And I consider that…well. There are worse things than camping alone with your mate in the middle of nowhere, aren’t there?