TO KILL A KING

FOURTEEN-DISTRICT

KING

"So what do you say? Are you in?"

"I'm in."

That was the extent of our alliance.

I should've been grateful, it wasn't his neck that had been saved. It was mine.

He had no real reason to want to help me out, if anything I would've expected him to dangle me before the alphas. Like meat to wolves. But there was still time for that yet, his true intentions had not yet been revealed.

I should've been grateful. But I wasn't.

I couldn't help but wonder what his real reason for helping was. It certainly wasn't because he liked me. Far from it.

An outsider may have wondered why we hadn't killed each other yet. They couldn't see the sort of unspoken agreement between us. For the sake of the people. Maybe.. just maybe, we could make this work.

It may even work out in our favour, there was no way he could run the entire pack alone. Previously when the pack was half the size I had needed three Betas, one for each sector of the pack.

Each held a unique trait that was crucial to the running of the pack in a fair and balanced way.

Logic, grit and amity.

Elijah, Cole.. Farrah.

One dead, the other missing, now only one remained.

I hadn't even been able to speak to Elijah since... I shut out the thoughts. I couldn't even bare to think it, let alone relive it.

I would find him after this, I promised myself.

I hadn't realised I had been staring transfixed at the Alpha until his lopsided grin that caused my insides to tumble violently, accompanied by a low chuckle ripped me from my daydream. "See something you like?"

I choked on my spit, but managed to pass it off as some awkward clearing of my throat with a wince. "Far from it."

His eyes darkened in a way that reminded me of winter nights spent gazing at the stars. But that was peaceful. This was far from it. This was dangerous, as if the stars themselves were just a flicker of oblivion, threatening to implode above us. 

"Your heart rate says otherwise."

I had no response for that, instead I inwardly cursed my own biological rhythms. Switching to subtle, deep breaths I hoped that that was enough to calm the raging tides inside of me.

I changed the subject with a wicked frown. "I go along with your little act, but I have some conditions."

He looked as though he wanted to burst out laughing, but he shoved the temptation back down and let his stoic mask take over, so that I couldn't read him.

He was austere, scanty and cold in sentiment. Nothing could be taken from his blank mask. He didn't so much as twitch as he leaned back in his lush chair, lifting his glass to his lips. 

"Conditions?" He asked, his eyes that dragged along every inch of my body ridiculed me for so much as even daring to oppose him.

"Yes." I said firmly. I would not back down, if we were to make this truce work I couldn't allow him to walk all over me. I had boundaries, and lines he couldn't cross. "First of all I want to keep my cabin."

He gave me a look as if to say, seriously? That was it.

It may not have seemed like much to him, but I built that cabin with my bare hands. It was the only place I had truly to myself. My safe place.

-Or at least it was until his brother tried to kill me.

"Fine."

A small wisp of confidence flickered inside me, filling my chest with gaseous bravery, lifting me to sit a little taller, hold my head a little higher. "And I want my people and I to have safe passage in and out of the pack, whenever we please."

It was pushing his already wearing patience thin, I could see him fast loosing his jest. Before long, if I kept up the demands we would be back at one another's throats.

His scornful eyes seared into my soul as he assessed my request. I could feel the ebbing cold that crept down my spine beneath his heavy gaze, causing the hairs on the back of my neck to stand on end.

A muscle in his jaw ticked. I wondered how he could have such porcelain perfect teeth when it seemed as though he were always clenching or grinding them.

"Fine." He managed to force through the tight white spaces.

I let out a long held breath. A weight had lifted from my chest. But still I wasn't done..

"-And lastly.." I said slowly so that I could gauge his reaction to get another request. "You will not kill anymore of my people, no matter what happens in the trials."

"No."

I had pushed him too far, I knew as much as he slammed his glass to the desk so hard a thin hairline crack crawled up the length of the glass like a diamond tendril, and droplets of scotch stained the hardwood.

"Then we don't have a deal." I said nonchalantly. Rule number one of bargaining. Never let the other person know just how much you want what they're offering. No matter how tempting.

But it seemed as though he had also memorised the unspoken words of negotiation as he c****d his head to the side slightly, causing a thin strand of raven hair to fall above his brow, as he narrowed his eyes dangerously at me. "What if I want something in return for all these... Agreements."

My skin crawled, what felt like a thousand tiny lightning shocks prickled my skin. My entire body grew hot at the lewd inference of his smooth words.

I swallowed the lump in my throat, shoving the heat of my beast back down inside my chest where it couldn't escape, though that didn't stop it from trying.

It took every ounce of strength I had to keep my words steady under the weight of his piercing eyes.

"What do you suggest?"

He contemplated for a few minutes, and in that time the silence stretched out between us, so unbearable and suffocating that when he finally spoke, grounding out his words in a low, sonorous rumble it almost felt like a relief. -Almost.

"Your name."

I scoffed to hide the bolt of pain through my heart and the flurry of violent curses that pressed achingly against the borders of lips on instinct. "What about it?"

"What is it?" Everything about him screamed calm, yet his sharp eyes pierced me like the point of a dagger, pressing, urging, daring...

"No." The word was so dead and cold it shocked even me as if fell from my tongue. I turned my face into an indifferent mask so that he couldn't possible read the years of hurt that echoed inside of me.

No. 

He didn't get to know me like that. 

He didn't deserve to know me like that.

His jaw was a chain of straight, angular lines, all shifting in unison as he tensed his jaw, before letting it relax. For a brief second he shut his eyes, and when they opened again his face mirrored mine.

Both so empty. Both so cold.

Guards were fully up in both borders, walls build to high, far higher than anyone else that only we could see atop each others defences, and that only scared us more.

That the only person capable of breaching our walls was someone like us, cold, calculating, and ready to use the others flaws to their full advantage.

"Why not." His voice hurt my chest like violet bruises and ash kisses, spiralling through me like a wisp of smoke, slowly poisoning my body.

"You may think you know me, North.." The first time his name left my tongue it frightened me how easy it came, and how it felt just as good as I had imagined it to. "-But in reality, you know only what I want you to know."

I kept my cards close, and upright to my chest. I had played this game for too long, and been played too many times to just let it slip like that.

It was a moment like this that I would've expected him to laugh at me, like he always did. To force the most raw and primal parts of me into the open, only to degrade and humiliate them. Tearing down every last shred of confidence I had.

Well not this time.

"You don't have to tell me now," He said with a lingering air. I hoped that that was the end of his sentence. That that was it. Nothing more. But with a sinking of my heart he added a promise. "-But I will find out. Someday. Be it now or in a thousand years. I will know."

Only the gods could live that long, I told myself in reassurance. And though he may look as though he fell from the heavens themselves, with his voice like thunder and eyes like the devils, I was certain that he was not a god.

I didn't say anything. I didn't need to. 

There was no telling men like him, so pig headed in their own ignorance.

Instead I let him live in the little dream he had created for himself, allowing him to stay there, to get comfortable, would only make it that much more pleasurable to be the one responsible when it all came crashing down around him.

"Rest up." He said breaking the heavy silence that engulfed the air around us, and standing from the desk, pushing the chair back with a screech as he leaned on the desk, pressing his weight onto his forearms that I couldn't help but stare at, watching as every muscle shifted and contracted as his weight moved. "The ball will mark the beginning of the trials at the next full moon."

The next full moon, it clicked with a horrid realisation that maybe I hadn't saved us at all. Maybe I had only doomed us further into the oblivion.

"But that's in less than a week!" I cried outraged, but he didn't care as he turned his back to me and strode from the study. Leaving me alone and raging once more.

***

Sorry this is a short chapter!

QOTD-What do you think King's real name is?

Any thoughts? Theories?

Don't forget to vote and comment!

-TFOA