They closed in around me with unsettling gleams in their eyes. The metallic tang of fear spread on my tongue.
“I’ve heard in the olden days when we chased our prey, it would make the blood more delicious,” the pudgy one offered.
“Y-you can’t,” I protested weakly. “My father is friends with the King.”
The blond one licked his canines. “I bet the King likes his blood fresh and that’s why he converses with a filthy human like your father. If we want to be kingly, we must follow his example, eh boys?”
My back hit something solid. I turned to find the tallest, biggest boy with ebony skin leering down at me.
“Yeah fellas, let’s have a fun chase, shall we?” His voice cracked from hormones, but that didn’t make it any less terrifying.
The beating of my heart thundered in my ears. My stomach turned sour. I should have run as far and fast as I could, but I was closer to vomiting on my shoes.
“You all are disgusting,” another voice interrupted.
The small gang of boys all turned toward the lanky, dark-haired prince who leaned casually against a tree. A tingle of fear and unease ran down my spine as the prince's gaze shifted toward me, causing my skin to prickle with a mix of excitement and dread. He’d never given me much of a second glance, but now his dark eyes seared into my skin. Even as a pre-teen, intensity and power radiated from him.
“Why would you want to drink fromher? That’s repulsive.”
The prince’s words cut through me like a knife, straight through my belly button. The way he said it made it sound as if they suggested drinking from a slimy toad-infested pond. Whilemost of the kids usually treated me with cold, polite indifference, the prince gave voice to what everyone was thinking.
The boys nearly tripped over themselves agreeing with him before they followed him off to practice sparring.
In that moment our eyes locked and I saw something intense and raw in his gaze that took my breath away. Was it revulsion or was it something more? Something unspoken? My breath caught in my throat as I struggled to interpret the complex emotions burning in his stare.
Kaison Charming’s words ignited a fiery anger within me but also gave me a sense of relief. Because of his insult, the boys lost interest in torturing me and moved on.
But I never forgot how that moment made me feel. The fact that the child of my father's best friend openly scorned me hurt more than I wanted to admit.
It was then that I knew for sure that I would always be an outsider in Midnight, no matter how long I lived there. No matter what special concessions the King gave my father, I was too different.Repulsive.
The days following filled me with a crushing weight of loneliness that burrowed deep into my soul, gnawing and tearing at my insides until I was nothing but a hollow shell.
And now, over a decade later, Charming waltzed me around the ballroom in front of the entire Midnight court, chatting with me as if we were old friends who could joke about any one of his character flaws.
Old instincts kicked in as he led me onto the dance floor. I detached, the world blurring into a peripheral sideshow. I hovered somewhere above, my body going through the motions mechanically. I floated there, an observer of my own life, watching as if through a film projector.
Gradually, certain sensory details—the muscled shoulder under my hand, the firmness of his grip on my waist, thefaint scent of his expensive cologne—seeped into my awareness, anchoring me once more to the here and now.
Even I can’t deny that my artist’s eye is drawn to the balanced proportions of his face that have successfully calibrated the sharpness of his father’s and his mother’s soft, round one. It perfectly straddles the masculine and feminine to create irresistibly androgynous features, making him universally appealing.
The golden flecks in his dark brown eyes pulled me back in further. Then there were the snakes of ink sneaking out from under his high collar. His Highness had neck tattoos.
Midnight Kingdom? More like I’d entered the Twilight Zone.
Then I began to have a stupid episode, my heart tripping over itself, a stupid bout of faintness, until Charming practically carried me on the dance floor. Prince Kaison Charming had saved me from an incredibly embarrassing moment and even made me feel almost. . . safe in my moment of weakness.
Pushing my consideration of Prince Charming’s true character out the window, I remind myself I came here for a reason. The Ember of Midnight.
I have two options. Option one: wait for Prince Charming to come back and be subject to his nosiness.
With that last look, I got the impression he planned for more than just an interrogation. I can’t imagine what, but I’m not sure I want to find out. The prince's plans for me could range from mild inconvenience to hideously fatal.
Not to mention, I run the risk of the fairies changing their mind and deciding to thrall or snack on me. The King said I was welcome, but I’m not stupid enough to believe what anyone says in this place. My father had the King’s favor, not me. And after what the prince said. . .
An invisible fist reaches in and grabs my guts, giving them a sharp twist.
Murder.
