Chapter 399

But suddenly Gabriel appears in the middle of my room and strides immediately for me. “You are not to go there,” he snarls. “Sleeping there!? In the Darkness!? What were you thinking!?”

I cringe away from him again even as my wolf snarls.

“Gabriel,” Elias says, his voice warning. “Reel it in.”

To my shock, Gabriel does as Elias says, stopping before he reaches the side of the bed and comes within arm’s distance of me. Still, he turns his furious face back to mine. “Did you like the pretty cage I built for you, pet?” he growls, leaning forward to stare into my eyes. “So that even if you try to escape me by going to the Land of Darkness, I’ve still got you trapped.”

I realize it all with sudden clarity that rather takes my breath away. That all of those cages in the Land of Darkness – they’re for me. Just in case I try to run away using that world – because, somehow, I’m better at it than him. Better at shifting there, better at navigating it, because he only dedicated himself to Darkness five years ago.

But me? I’ve had this gift since I was born.

I fight, hard, to keep a smile from curling on my lips. But the desire to keep my pleasure hidden is aided by the realization that…it must have taken ages for them to build all of those cages in the other world – the miles and miles of steel fence to keep me trapped.

Which means that they’ve been planning to trap me for…a long, long time.

I look up into my mate’s seething face and suddenly make a decision that I…do not want to be in his presence any longer.

And so I shift again, as easily as breathing, my eyes catching a sly smile on Elias’s face as he watches me go.

Suddenly I’m back in my bedding in that dark world, looking up at the moons that still hang in the sky, letting that smile come fully to my lips.

Because Gabriel can follow me here, but I can just shift back. And every time he chases me from one world to the other, his talisman – whatever that is – will weaken. Which means his only real choice is to eventually leave me the hell alone.

I sigh, slightly mollified by this tiny victory, and curl up in my stolen duvet, looking up at the sky, my wolf huffing with sadness as she curls up in my soul.

Because it really is just a tiny victory in a very horrible situation. Honestly, the idea that sitting alone in a cage in a wasteland world is my best refuge…

My wolf gives a little howl and I press my eyes shut, knowing that this is going to be along road. Wondering, honestly, how I’m going to survive here. Because my mating ceremony is in a week! And I can’t spend the entirety of that time curled up in this cage.

Even if it’s the only place where I can even start to feel like myself.

Jesse groans, pressing the heels of his palms against his closed eyes, laying flat on the ground in the yurt. Because by now, to his best estimate, he’s spent a week here with Midnight in this strange world of Darkness, even though it’s hard to tell because there’s no sun and no clocks and time is…weird here.

But regardless of how much time has passed, he’s never, ever been so bored in his entire life.

Midnight, on the other hand, is delighted.

“Do you want to play the cards again!?” she asks, her voice thrilling with anticipation.

Jesse sighs and drops his hands to his chest, turning his head to watch as his funny little mate lays out the scraps of paper in front of her, shuffling them up. In this past week they made a little deck of cards and he taught her to play poker, using little bits of stick as chips.

To his surprise, her agile little mind immediately took to the game and she fleeced him for all that he was worth after about two days. He grins at the memory, laughing a little.

“Come on!” Midnight urges, grinning at him. “I’ll loan you some sticks.”

“I already owe you ten thousand sticks,” Jesse sighs, shaking his head. “I don’t need to get into any further debt. I’ll end up like my father.”

“Oh, come on,” she replies, laughing. “I’ll go easy on you.”

Jesse sighs and pulls himself up to a sitting position, groaning as he does. Because, of course, he refuses to share Midnights bed and also refuses to let her sleep on the floor instead of him. Which makes him feel quite gallant but is doing one hell of a number on his back.

“All right, Ace,” Jesse says, scooting closer to Midnight and rubbing his hands together. “Put me down for fifty stick and deal me in.”

She laughs, delighted, and does as he says.

Jesse watches Midnight, a little smile on his face as he watches her sort the flimsy little cards and then deal them out. Because even if the majority of the week has been horrible – just hard labor doing the basics to stay alive, and terrible food, and an incredible amount of boredom and anxiety worrying about everyone at home – getting to know Midnight has been…

Well, it’s been lovely.

As she peeks at the two cards she delt herself, Jesse thinks again on his initial hatred of this girl. And even if he realizes that it was justified in this moment –he was scared for himself, after all, and for Daphne – he knows now that it was too harsh. Because she really is just…a sweet girl in a horrible situation.

Over the past week Midnight has proved herself to be hard working, and clever, and optimistic, and funny. Funny as hell – sometimes not even intending to be funny but leaving Jesse in stitches. And the conversation has just been great – Midnight listening with wide wonderous eyes as Jesse tells of the realities of his world, and then her eagerly stumbling over her words as she tells him of her own life.

Yes, in the past week, Jesse has come to sort of…get it. Why the Goddess picked someone like Midnight for him. Because were she to have grown up in Moon Valley she’d have been spunky, and vivid, and fierce and sweet.

But, of course, she grew up here. And her poor little corrupted wolf…

Jesse sighs, picking up his cards and studying them, forcing himself away from the thought. Because Midnight hates it when he pities her, and any conversations about that wolf go again and again to why he won’t accept the bond, and why he won’t love her, and why they can’t immediately have eighteen pups.

“And here’s the flop…” Midnight murmurs, setting out the first three cards on the floor of the yurt. Jesse smirks, loving how fast Midnight has picked up the lingo from his world, how much she delights in these simple things.

But even if so much about hanging out with Midnight has been great…she certainly has been a lock box regarding any information about this world.

Inwardly Jesse’s wolf gives him a nudge, urging him forward. And he decides to put a little more on the table with this game than just a bundle of sticks.

“I’ll raise you two sticks,” Jesse murmurs, putting the required amount forward.

Midnight keeps her face perfectly still as she glances at her cards and then up into Jesse’s face, studying his expression. His smirk deepens and she shakes her head at him.

“You’re very bad at this, Jesse,” she says with a sigh, putting forward her own two sticks to match his. “You say you can tell when I am lying but I know when you are bluffing.”

“Maybe you do maybe you don’t,” Jesse murmurs as Midnight turns over the next card for the turn. “But I do know that you’re lying about that Fancy House you told me about before. With your friends in it. Where you ate meat and cake.”

Midnight goes still, frowning as she looks up into his face. “I wasn’t lying about that.”

Jesse shrugs, pretending to consider his cards, even though honestly he’s not really paying attention to the game. “All right, but even if you’re not lying, it’s clear that they don’t exist. I mean, you spend a lot of time alone, Midnight, I guess you just made them up.”

“I did not,” she says, straightening her spine and looking at him aghast. “They exist!”

“Imaginary friends are great,” Jesse says, lowering his cards a bit and looking at her with a bit of false pity. “You shouldn’t be ashamed, Mids.”

Midnight rankles at this, her eyes flying wide, and Jesse’s wolf turns in an eager circle. Because honestly he does think that they exist, he just wants to know more. A great deal more.

This week Midnight has staunchly refused to take him to spy on the Atalaxians, but she has accidentally dropped some information about a dark palace on the other side of the world that she calls the Fancy House. And a Prince who lives there. And the cakes she gets to eat there once a year on the Day of Darkness, when she is allowed to go and mingle with everyone else.

“I’m not ashamed, Jesse,” Midnight says, her voice low and dangerous as she stares at him, unblinking. Jesse fights his smile, because Midnight is very adorable when she gets all serious like this. “The people in the Fancy House are real.”

“If you say so, Mids,” Jesse sighs, putting forward a few more sticks.

But Midnight ignores the sticks. “You’d better believe me, Jesse Sinclair,” she snaps.

“I do believe you,” he murmurs, gentle and condescending, the voice he uses when Seraphina tells him that there’s a monster under her bed. And like Seraphina, the tone just pisses Midnight off more.

“They exist,” she hisses, shadows starting to leak from her, her eyes going dark.

But Jesse has dealt with Midnight’s flares of temper enough this week to know to ignore it. He, too, has learned when she’s bluffing. “Yeah well, I’ll believe it when I see it.”

“Fine,” Midnight snaps, reaching out and grabbing his arm.

Jesse’s eyes fly wide because…what? This is new.

“Let’s go. Right now.”

“What!?”

“You want to see that they’re real? Let’s go.”

Darkness suddenly consumes the pair and Jesse gasps in fear, staring around him, searching desperately for the world – the yurt – the damn reality –

But suddenly the world snaps back into place around them even though the yurt is…gone.

Jesse pants, staring around at the dark scene – at the beautiful lake spread out in front of him, at the dark figures gathered in a beautiful little pavilion – all laughing together. But is…one of them blue?

“See?” Midnight says. Jesse snaps his head back to her, his mouth falling open. She smirks at him, all trace of shadows gone. “Told you they were real.”