THIRTY EIGHT

Alpha Isaiah is now on Wattpad! Go check it out (:

Word Count: 1698

¬Akara

I only allow myself a moment for the information to sink in before I'm out of bed, ignoring the slight protest in my stomach from my room.

Marek...or Marek as Tai isn't in the hallway when I open my door, having vanished into the depths of the estate where he will never be found, able to get back to Vaia with no issue. I don't even want to think about how I kissed him, convinced it was Tai. Fighting the urge to panic, I run down the hallway, heading straight toward Tai's office.

Thankfully he is there, as I was half convinced he would be down in the cells, dealing with Nesrin. He looks up from where he was staring at his desk, looking over me, clearly not expecting me to be up and walking so soon after my wound remerged.

"Tai..." I breathe, stopping short. "I think I'm going to be sick."

"Woah, what's going on?" he questions, circling his desk, gaze sweeping over me. I let him touch me, even as I survey him closely, looking for any impurity in his appearance, to ensure a Summoner hasn't taken over him. Nothing about him seems abnormal, but that doesn't make me relax, knowing Marek is a powerful Summoner, one capable of replicating an appearance without any issue at all. What makes me feel better is the reality that Marek is likely long gone at this point, and wouldn't stick around any longer than he needs to.

"Marek was here, in the manor," I say quickly, assuming he is very much aware that Marek has escaped, since Nesrin will be in his cell. I wonder if they even bothered to clean up all my blood...

Tai flinches. "You saw him?"

"Sort of," I comment anxiously, rubbing the back of my neck. "He pretended to be you. I didn't realise until the last moment."

Tai cups either side of my face."Are you okay?"

"I kissed him," I wince. I don't want to hide this from him, and Marek is definitely not worth it. "He tried to stop it but I...I kissed him Tai."

Tai pauses, a dark shadow of anger passing over his face, although his grip on my face remains gentle. A slight amount of fear bubbles up inside me, knowing that Marek is the one person in these lands that can truly anger Tai to the point he would do something irrational. I watch the way a muscle in his jaw feathers, his eyes darkening as they glance down at my lips, as if he is imagining

"It's okay, we will find him and he will pay for that." His tone is effortlessly smooth, yet the fury laced in there makes my blood chill. I'm not sure if Marek will truly pay for it, but there is every possibility Tai will go out of his way to try.

"I should have known..."

"Would you like me to take you to your room?" Tai asks softly, seeming to snap out of his Marek haze, focusing wholly on me now.

"No, he was just in there," I shake my head, letting him take my hand. "What's happening with Nesrin?"

"You know?" He frowns, before seeming to realise that the only way I could have known that would be because of Marek. I'm surprised he hasn't dismissed me to demand a whole search of the estate to make sure the Hunter still isn't in here. "Oh, nothing good."

"Tell me."

Tai chews on his bottom lip before finally sighing reluctantly. "Father has killed her."

"What? No Tai, tell me you're lying," I demand. Killed her? She can't have been in here for any longer than an hour or two, and he already killed her? I know Kailor is a selfish, cruel King, but I had no idea he was capable of killing someone who was his Noble for however many years...And suddenly, we are not the perfect good guys like I believed us to be.

Tai grimaces, anticipating my reaction. "He couldn't risk another escape, and she wasn't providing information. So we killed her."

We?

I back away toward the doorway "No...No."

"It was out of my control. I did all I could but he wasn't listening," Tai insists, following me out of the room.

I don't wait to see if he's going to follow me, as I turn, stalking down the hallway, letting anger tug me along, drawing me down the stairs towards the cells. Tai protests from behind me, begging me not to go down there, but I'm not listening, now I need to do this. I'm so consumed with rage, even Tai's voice doesn't lift it, and usually he is my safe place, the one person I can focus on when all my emotions consume me.

Entering the cell room, I see Kailor discussing something with one of his guards, and behind the cell bars, Nesrin, body slumped against the wall, head down with her blonde hair raining down over her face.

And she is very much dead.

I whirl around toward Kailor, who doesn't even look at me until I stop speaking. "You're sick...You're disgusting."

"Akara, you need to leave," Kailor responds flatly, hardly interested in sparing me a glance.

"You killed her...She's dead you disgusting pig!" I yell, approaching him. The guard he was speaking to steps in front of him, giving me a warning glare, but Kailor brushes him off, folding his arms over his chest as he looks down at me like I'm nothing more than a nuisance.

"She was a traitor," he growls, pointing into the cell. "A spy for the other side."

"There's no 'other side'" I snap back.

Kailor sighs, looking over my shoulder, once again dismissing me like I'm nothing. "Taius, take her away."

"Come on Akara, we can't risk aggregating your wound," Tai says from behind me, grasping my elbow. His tone is tentative, not wanting to upset either me or Kailor. I could stay here and yell at him all day, but I know the longer I stare at his face, the worst I'm going to feel.

"You're going to pay for this Kailor." And that's a promise.

With one more glance at Nesrin, I let Tai drag me back up the stairs. I hate everything about this. I've never been so convinced I should escape all this and run into the forest...I mean, my family is at risk, and I'm still here supporting Tai. I love him, and I know that, but someone, innocent or not, dying at the hands of Kailor and Tai makes me feel sick.

Tai doesn't stop until we are standing in his bedroom, his door firmly closed. "I know it's frustrating, but there is nothing that we can do now."

"I hate him. I hate your father Tai," I say, feeling guilty for even putting it out there. Tai doesn't deserve to be blamed for his father's actions, but it just makes me so overwhelmingly angry that Kailor can do as he pleases and no one can tell him otherwise. We are meant to get Tai's throne back, not to enact revenge on everyone who has done us wrong.

Holding my shoulders tightly, Tai forces me to look up at him, into concerned eyes. It's that gaze alone that stops me from falling apart, stops my knees from buckling within me.

"I understand what you're feeling. But what if we had let her go?" he asks softly, not trying to make me feel less for my feelings, just trying to get me to see the sense in what he is saying. I'm struggling though, to see what this is all for anymore.

"You didn't need to...She didn't have to die," I exasperate.

"I wish it were Marek instead of her. Trust me," Tai responds, the tension in his shoulder deflating.

I wonder where Marek is now. He will be far from here by now, leaving me behind to pick up the pieces of what happened between us, to sift through every word he uttered. It felt so different kissing him, like a part of me knew it wasn't Tai, and yet the idea didn't fall into place at the right time.

And he had seemed so reluctant to kiss me...Was it because he felt guilt for tricking me, or because he truly didn't want to?

I was so in love with him, until he betrayed me. He clearly feels something for me, no matter his agenda, which makes this all the more confusing and hard to grasp.

Tai silently examines me, wary of my response, wary of my next move. Instead of dwelling more on his wretched father, I reach up and grasp either side of his face, kissing him. He's tense under my grip, like he senses I'm kissing him to remove the feeling of Marek off my lips that won't seem to vanish.

Eventually, the tension releases, and he wraps his arms around me, allowing me to kiss him properly, thoroughly.

It's wrong...I know that. We should be sitting down, talking about what transpired with Marek in the cell, and with that hot bar of steel that Tai threatened to use against me. But I can't bring myself to feel more pain, to let the thought of Tai being willing to use that on me wreak havoc within me. We will discuss it, and we will make sense of it.

Even if in this moment, the future terrifies me.

💚••💚

If you guys want to read ahead, you can read more of KING'S SEDUCTION on Radish! It's chapters ahead of Wattpad (:

You'll will find it under KING'S POSSESSION on Radish, as season 2!

👻••👻

I'm officially rewriting Alpha Jasper's story now on Radish! It will be following the same storyline with the same characters, but with revised scenes and some new ones!

I love Jasper's story so much that I wanted to go back and rewrite it. I hope you guys will enjoy it, you can find it now on Radish (:

Snapchat: midikacrane

Instagram: Sophie_Midika

~Midika 💜