The Safe House Part 1
1149 Words
The Midnight Prince
Ashen
“Was the princess safe after the cinder boy found her?” my daughter asked.
“For the moment,” I said.
My son frowned. “That sounds like no.”
“It sounds like truth,” I told him. “Safe is not always a place. Sometimes safe is only a breath between dangers.”
My daughter leaned into my side. “Did he take her home?”
I looked at the fire.
Home.
For a long time, the little cinder boy had not understood what that word meant.
“No,” I said softly. “He took her somewhere hidden.”
“Why?”
“Because he had spent his whole life being found by the wrong people,” I said. “And he was not ready to hand the princess over to a world that had already lied about him.”
Moon bled through my sweater.
Not much.
Enough.
Enough to make my hands shake as I knelt beside her in the snow while the dead rogues cooled around us.
“Veyra,” I said.
The fae dropped to her knees on Moon’s other side, her face too serious for comfort.
“I know.”
“Help her.”
“I am.”
Her hands hovered above Moon’s body, silver-blue light gathering around her fingers. Fae magic did not glow like wolf magic. It shimmered, like moonlight caught in spider silk, beautiful and unsettling all at once.
Nara stayed in wolf form, Novett’s white body planted between us and the trees, guarding every shadow with bared teeth.
Moon’s lashes trembled.
Her lips parted.
“Ashen,” she whispered again.
My chest tightened.
“She is delirious,” I said.
Veyra did not look up. “If that comforts you, hold it close.”
“That was not helpful.”
“I was not trying to be.”
The silver light sank into Moon’s wounds.
Her breathing hitched.
I moved toward her, but Veyra snapped, “Do not touch her.”
I froze.
“She is in pain.”
“She is healing.”
“That looks the same.”
“Yes. Bodies are dramatic.”
Moon’s side knit slowly beneath the torn fabric. The claw marks along her shoulder softened from deep red to pink. The bruises did not vanish, but they faded enough that I could breathe again.
Veyra’s glow dimmed.
She sat back hard, one hand pressed to her chest.
Nara shifted behind me, returning to her human form in a spill of moonlight. She grabbed a blanket from the pack and wrapped it around herself.
“Is she going to be okay?” Nara asked.
Veyra nodded once. “She will live.”
That was not enough.
It should have been.
It was not.
I looked down at Moon’s face. She seemed younger asleep, but not weak. Never weak. Even unconscious, there was a stubborn line between her brows, as if she was still arguing with danger in her dreams.
“She needs clothes,” I said.
Nara blinked. “That is what you are worried about?”
“She is the princess of LunariaNova. She cannot wake up in the woods wearing my sweater and blood.”
Veyra lifted one brow. “I assure you, royal scandals have started with less.”
I ignored her.
My mind was moving too fast now.
Moon was with us.
The princess.
The missing princess every royal guard, noble house, bounty hunter, and desperate fool in the kingdom was searching for.
The world thought she had been taken by rogues with an omega named Ashen.
The real Ashen was standing in the forest holding her blood on his hands.
My blood ran cold.
“We cannot go to the palace.”
Nara stared at me. “What?”
“Not yet.”
“Ashen, she is the princess.”
“I know.”
“Her mother is the queen.”
“I know.”
“Then maybe the queen should know her daughter is alive.”
“I know that too.”
My voice came out sharper than I meant.
Nara flinched.
I hated myself for it immediately.
I dragged a hand through my hair, then winced when dried blood pulled at my skin. “I am sorry.”
Nara softened. “You are scared.”
“No.”
Veyra snorted.
I looked at her.
She smiled faintly. “That was adorable. Try again.”
I closed my eyes.
Yes.
I was scared.
Not of the palace walls. Not of Queen Selene. Not even of the questions waiting there.
I was scared because the moment I stepped into the palace with Moon in my arms, I would stop being a boy who ran.
I would become the center of everything.
The masked wolf.
The missing omega.
The son SilvaFrost erased.
The boy with the Frostveil ring.
The wolf in chains.
I was not ready.
Moon stirred.
Her eyes opened halfway.
“Palace,” she whispered.
I leaned closer despite myself. “Princess?”
Her gaze found mine, unfocused but stubborn. “Take me… home.”
The words should have made the decision simple.
They did not.
“If I take you to the palace now, whoever helped Dorian will know you are alive before we understand what happened,” I said. “Callan wore my face. A witch touched your memories. Dorian knew about the ring. Someone inside SilvaFrost, maybe more than one someone, is still moving pieces.”
Her eyes closed briefly.
When they opened again, they were clearer.
“You cannot run forever.”
The truth of it struck hard.
“I know.”
“Then come with me.”
My throat tightened.
To the palace.To the queen.To the throne.To answers I had spent my life avoiding.
“I cannot,” I said.
Her expression softened in a way I did not deserve.
“Cannot?” she asked. “Or are not ready?”
I looked away.
That was answer enough.
For a moment, no one spoke.
Then Moon nodded faintly.
“Then lead,” she whispered. “For now.”
My eyes returned to her.
She was injured, exhausted, stolen from her home, wrapped in my sweater in the middle of a forest full of blood, and somehow she still gave me a choice.
That was the most dangerous thing about her.
She did not push.
She made staying feel possible.
Veyra cleared her throat. “Touching. Warm. Deeply inconvenient. Where are we going?”
I looked toward the trees.
Images flickered in my mind.
Not memory.
Dream.
A cabin hidden among black pines. A silverwood door. Frostveil markings carved beneath the eaves. My mother standing on the porch in a gown I had never seen her wear, smiling sadly as if she knew I would find it too late.
“My mother had a cabin,” I said.
- Writer
