ততততত

𝐓 𝐎 𝐁 𝐈 𝐍

His crown would be so easy to steal if it weren't for Imogen.

Well, she's not here. She's in Adorid, so she can't shoot an arrow into my head if I decide to take Ruslan's crown.

For six nights, I scaled these castle walls and entered her bedroom to seek out the passages. I memorized the routes within them, and I reckon I can navigate this castle now without Imogen's assistance. Only problem I have is that I can't admit to Gareth how much I know. I've fed him lies all week about my progress.

A smart thief would break Imogen's heart now and disappear before she can return, but my soft heart refuses to listen to my logical brain, not even for Aspen. How can I break the spell Imogen's put me under? I should've never let her build a home inside me, because now there's a part of me that belongs to her. I may be a thief, but she stole a part of me as well. I don't think I can get that part of me back.

Somehow, by the grace of the gods, I forced my legs to enter Ruslan's bedroom—which is where I am now, staring at his goddamn golden crown. A crown like this would sell for thousands of coins, but that's not what it's intended for. The discovery of this crown would change everything in the war. It'd force Orion to spill truths about his kingdom that he longs to bury deep within the catacombs.

Take it, that little pesky voice inside of me whispers.

I can imagine the betrayal in those grey moons when Imogen discovers that I am the reason her kingdom fell. I can almost see the tears drawing rivers down her moonlit cheeks, taste them on my tongue as if I could kiss them away. My chest splits inside of me, just as hers will. She trusts me. That goddamn fucking sliver of trust is killing me whole.

TakeitTakeitTakeitTakeitTakeitTakeitTakeit—

Fuck.

I can't.

I can't fucking do it.

I'm a pathetic excuse of a thief. I can't even steal Ruslan's crown when the chance is handed to me on a fucking silver platter. I can't do it—not even with Aspen on the line. Maybe I'm a coward crumbling under the influence of personified moonlight, because that's all that seems to occupy my mind. Yet, I need to reroute my attention to Aspen.

It's supposed to be for her. All of this. Aspen's stuck in that castle with him too.

I retreat from Ruslan's room and descend back into the shadowed passages. The moments between then and now blur, and I burst through the passageway entrance in the closet, stumbling like a goddamn idiot into Imogen's bedroom. How could I fail as a brother? Every night I choose Imogen when I should be choosing Aspen. I fall asleep dreaming of twisting strands of golden blonde hair between my fingers and breathing in the vanilla scent of her flawless porcelain skin.

My soft heart has officially gone off the ship of rational thought.

I'm drowning, and yet I can't save Imogen from him. I'm only one man, and Aspen came first. She's always been first.

But I fear the threshold of emotions I've crossed with Imogen has grown over the course of these last few nights. She's not even here, and yet little trinkets and drawings she's left behind bring me closer to her. Unknowingly, I clench the crescent moon pendant around my neck, holding tight as if it contained her soul.

I just want a few more days of being next to her. Is that too much to ask? I need those lips calling me a 'petty thief' and those moonlit eyes gazing upwards at the beauty of her kingdom. I need her to tell me stories of her escapades while we sit by the firelight.

I remove my boots and sword, my eyes locked on the neatly tucked quilts on her bed. This is more than a basic surface level need for Imogen. This is a full blown hurricane that's swept through me and taken my heart in its wreck. I let go of the cliff's edge and fall into the temptation of her, climbing on top of her mattress and gazing haphazardly at the cathedral ceilings.

I close my eyes, reminiscing of footprints scattered across the sand. I hear the hum of her voice as if she were there singing her soprano tune. A birdsong. A lullaby. Her fingertips brush over the horrific scars that deform me with a tenderness that dissolves the phantom pain. She's sweet honey I could taste for millennia. Just one more taste is all I ask, my final wish.

Because tonight, if death held me at the gallows and asked me to confess, her name would be on my lips. Not to ask for forgiveness, but to rever in a future neither of us can have.

I long to cherish her in my arms forever, to steal her and build ourselves a home by the lake, protected by the dominion of Mt. Elora.

My hand lifts up my shirt, fingertips passing over sculpted muscles and throbbing veins before slipping beneath my trousers. Although, I imagine it to be hers. Her touch exploring where hard meets soft. Her breath fanning my cheeks as the erratic rhythm of her hand begins to languidly stroke my cock. I dream of those lips kissing trails over my bare chest, biting marks along the way.

I shrug the trousers lower down my hips, exposing my iron hard erection. Hard. Always so fucking hard this late at night when Imogen and I meet in my mind. Gods, it's only gotten worse as the lingering scent of vanilla lulls me back into a state of bliss. Heaven and earth collide as I lay back, letting my hand accelerate pace.

I close my eyes, then open them dazedly with the thought of her. "Imogen... Imogen... Imogen..." Her name dresses my lips in a ghost of a whisper with every flick of my wrist. "Imogen... Imogen... Imogen..."

I shouldn't be doing this. Not in her bed for fuck's sake, but gods. I can't pretend that there isn't some gravitational pull that makes our stars align. It just happens, and I can't stop it. Stop us. I need her to do it for me—to end this tether between us.

But even I know she won't.

"Imogen... Imogen... Imogen..." Her name is one I want to whisper for more than just a fragment of time. I want it to belong to me—mine—and yet she belongs to no one.

It's not that she's beautiful, but she's ethereal. The way her nose flares at the slightest annoyance, the way her giggle charms me when she laughs, the way her fingers tease me as she shoots me with an arrow—she's a full fledged storm of dominating thunder and electrifying lightning.

"Imogen... Imogen... Imogen... "

Just once more utterance of her name and I'll fall. No I'll fucking explode.

"Imogen... fuck—"

And in that moment, I meet the borders of her heavenly glow, only to fall backward into the shadowed darkness of reality. Imogen's not here. Just the mess of my release and my stupid fucking hand.

I climb out of the bed and disappear into her empty washing chamber. Fortunately, there's a few supplies left behind so I can clean up my goddamned mess. With every lingering second, the guilt of what I just did on her bed sinks onto my shoulders.

I am so fucked.

The silence of the night breaks with a voice from outside her bedroom door. Her voice. I swear it's an illusion, a figment of my lust-overloaded imagination. I remain hidden in the washing chamber, although my body begins to feel all types of excitement at the sound of her. I try to calm down like I'm some sort of animal, but my souls already chosen her for tonight.

My Imogen.

"Princess, you've hardly spoken since the celebration," a woman tells her.

"I don't need any assistance tonight," Imogen speaks, her voice hollow of any emotion. The sound doesn't suit her. In fact, it doesn't sound like her at all.

But she's returned from Adorid.

Her bedroom door clicks open, and my moonbeam enters the room.

Alone.

That light inside her completely dimmed. No spark. No glow.

He destroyed my moonlight.

When the door shuts behind her, she's shrouded in the shadows of the room. Her pale white dress is loose against her frame, falling to her ankles as if it were a waterfall. Her golden hair is braided into a thick tail that runs down her back, a few tendrils scathing her rosy cheeks. The hearth remains ash, and every sconce and candle burnt out long ago. Yet, through the darkness of the night, those two moons find my silhouette standing in the doorway to her washing chamber. Her expression remains solemn.

No, she's numb.

I close the space between our bodies. I cage her between my arms, ushering her back up against the closest wall. There's no life in those grey irises, nothing at all. I long to fix her soul, to be the remedy she needs to awaken from this trance at dawn.

How? I'm uncertain, but that fire in her no longer burns. I need her to scorch my skin and light me ablaze. Like this, she'll never pierce me with her arrow or stab me in the heart.

"Imogen," I murmur, almost in desperation. She's like a hunger I can never satisfy.

Without much thought, I lower my lips against hers in a devouring kiss. Her lips part, just enough for me to taste the seams and crevasses of her mouth. Her kiss has always been divine, a drop of moonlight against my tongue, but this feels revitalizing, as if she brought back a part of me from the dead.

A moan escapes me as I press the hard planes of my body against the soft curves of hers. I longed for her. Dreamt of her. Six days apart from her has made me a drooling doting puppy. And vanilla. That damn delectable vanilla. As I break our kiss and dip down to the pulse of her neck, my open mouth paints her soft unblemished skin, hunger lacing every possessive claim.

I'm so lost in my affections, and Imogen?

She's still. Unresponsive.

I back away, ending abruptly as the realization crushes onto me. I should've ended the mauling of a kiss the moment she never reciprocated.

I meet her grey moonlit eyes, and she stares straight at me. There's an empty void within her I long to refill. This can only be the result of King Leighton, and hell knows what he did to her. Did he touch her? Break her? Show her the deeper ugliness in his heart?

"What did he do?" my voice drips out in a growl.

Instead, she takes a deep breath in before her voice breathes out a powerful decree: "Kneel."

I rever in her, and fall to my knees. I bow before my princess—the one royal across all the lands who I will forfeit my soul too. I gaze up at her as if I came to beg her for mercy.

Maybe I am.

I fear I stole her heart and am going to tear it apart piece by piece.

"Princess," Gods, it scares me to see her like this. "What did he do to you?"

She flushes her spine to the wall, then lifts up her leg from beneath that flowing white gown. Her calf brushes against my cheek, the fabric of the dress tangling up in my limbs. Fuck it, I want to taste, to savour, to consume her whole. Everything I desire remains inches away, and yet I can never trespass those boundaries. A thief can't long for the simple touch of a princess. I bite my tongue, looking up at her grey moons.

"Make me feel something," she whispers. "Make me feel good."

"Princess..." The request stirs the lust-driven beast inside of me, and I swallow to tame it in the pits of my stomach.

"Please," she begs, her words breaking my already soft heart. She has me on my knees, at her beck and call.

So I answer her in the way she desires.

My eyes fall shut, sealed by lust-weighted lashes as I slip my hands beneath her dress, collecting the delicate white fabric within my hands. My lips trail against her bare calf, then up to her knee. Smooth skin grazes beneath my mouth, untouched by any man or woman vying for her heart. She tastes of heaven and starlight combined. She's a challenge, an enigma that I never took into account, and now I get to unravel her inch by inch.

I release the dress over my head as I usher her deeper against the wall, sneaking underneath as my lips trail up her inner thigh. I dust my lips over the sensitive skin, placing lithe nips mixed with messy kisses. A groan of desperation escapes the back of my throat before I continue to ravish whatever I can. She's mine, and yet she can't be. A thief and a princess entwining would send us both straight to hell. Yet, I have her in my arms, tasting of honeysweet danger. I hook her leg over my shoulder and inch upward.

Until my lips touch a wound.

A knife wound—a crimson jagged line slicing against porcelain skin.

"What the fuck is this?" I lift a hand up around her thigh, my fingertips tracing the fresh mark.

She lifts up her dress and digs a fist into my chestnut waves of hair, urging my mouth deeper towards the scallop trim of her arousal dampened panties. "Keep going."

But I don't. I resist and pull back, slipping out from beneath her white dress. "For fuck's sakes! Who did this?"

She swallows, her two moons crested with tears. One falls down her cheek in a hopeless tiny stream, yearning to be swept away with the tips of my fingers. But why do I bother asking when the answer is apparent?

This is because of Leighton.

Leighton.

The king of Adorid.

I want him dead.

Killed.

Thrown deeper than the depths of hell so he can never crawl out of that godforsaken hole.

"I can't do this, Tobin," her voice cracks, almost silent. "His heart is too dark, and I can't... there's nothing I can do to fight him." She sobs louder now, refusing to look down to meet my gaze. "He'll cover me in ugly scars, won't he?"

My heart shatters in my chest. She fears what he'll make of her, that she'll become a product of his demise. Yet, I'm covered in ugly scars by his tyrannical hand. It's me that felt the brunt of it, whose blood spilled for the sake of Adorid.

A cut is only the beginning with him, and I'll make sure that bastard of a king never lays a finger on her again.

She wipes the tears that fall so freely down her rosy cheeks, until finally she musters the courage to meet my brown eyes that she always finds so kind. "Make me feel something," she asks again. "Anything but like this."

I kneel before her, and I trace my fingertip on top of the wound, before placing a featherlight kiss on the crimson scab. She feels like she's the only one who has felt his wrath, whose blood was drawn in a fit of powerful fury. But she's not. We all carry scars, and ours? They just tell the same story of a moment in time that neither of us ever want to recall.

"Please," she begs in a breathless sob.

She needs to know that the scars she wears—I wear them too.

With one look up at her, I set my hands on the hem of my shirt, prying it away to reveal tanned barren skin. Her eyes catch the crescent moon pendant dangling around my neck. It's her necklace that she gave to me to sell, but there's no fucking way in hell I'll part with it. Her gaze drifts over to the ink on my shoulder. I run my knuckles over the ancient Adoridian script—lost time is never found again. Because it isn't. For us, all time is lost, and all we can do is find ourselves when nightfall falls once more.

Still, I kneel before her as her vulnerable petty thief—a soft hearted fool on his knees for a princess who he can never plunder. A beam of moonlight illuminates the space between our bodies. Tonight, she'll know that I am no ordinary fugitive. I am tainted. Scarred.

Like her.

I kneel lower, so low that my lips brush against her ankle so my back remains exposed in her vision.

Scars.

Thousands of them.

Deformed. Ugly. Unlovable.

"Gods," she cries. My princess collapses to her knees, her hands to my spine. Both palms splay wide against the ugly skin, searching each ridge for answers to who dealt such brutal blows. "Did... did he do this to you?"

My breath hitches. No one has seen these scars. No one else has felt them beneath their fingertips.

No one but Imogen.

"Tell me, Tobin," she orders. Powerful. Authoritative. Fierce.

I keep my mouth shut, almost afraid to let any truth about my past slip.

"Tobin."

She forces my body to roll over onto my back, and I release a strained oomph. I stare up at those two moons, her nose flaring with determination and fire. Her hand snaps to my chest, pinning me down.

I submit like the predictable petty thief that I am.

She straddles her legs around my torso, a beautiful light igniting inside of her. It's a spark. A faint glow.

But it exists.

I chuckle. "You look like you're about to fight me."

"You show me your back dressed with whipping scars. I'm allowed to be a little concerned," she leans in, my pretty little fiery weapon. "Who. Did. This?"

"Gods, your fire will burn me."

"It already has," she hisses and places her palm on my erection that's developed in her presence, fisting it through the fabric. I groan at the touch. "Don't think I didn't notice your little mess on your clothes," she hisses. "How discreet of you."

Instead of answering, instead of confessing that god awful truth, I reroute my focus to rebuilding her broken fractured soul.

"Princess," I scoop a palm around her cheek, pulling her head to mine. She lets me guide her. "Leighton will never cover you with ugly scars," our foreheads brush, and her eyes fall to my lips. "Because nothing about you is ugly. Nothing. Not even a mark from an asshole like him can change that."

"But I can't fight him. Not like I am."

"That's just what Leighton wants you to think," I say. Our lips caress as if we are two lovers—well, maybe we are. "My beautiful fiery weapon, you will destroy him with your fury."

"Your beautiful fiery weapon," she mutters, repeating my words.

All I see is her—and I can't stop my heart from allowing her inside no matter how hard I try to resist. Her eyes widen, and those straight pursed lips crook into a bashful smile. One moment, I'm in awe of everything that she is. In the next, we connect and mold with such immaculate perfection that the gods will kill me for it.

I roll over, sheltering her with my body as if to protect her from the world. Her soft hands sweep over those deep scars, claiming each mark as her own. When she breaks the kiss, her lips nip at the curve of my ear.

"You're mine, you petty thief."

I am hers.

I belong to Imogen.

I don't think I'll ever belong to anyone else.

── •✧• ──

Hi everyone! Thanks for being patient with me on this next OAN update. I have been dealing with a lot of family things this past week, but now we are able to move forward. I have been editing and writing this chapter throughout the week here and there, and here we are!

TOBIGEN <3 AHHHHHH.  I LOVE THEM.

Okay, that's all my fangirling that I will do. Remember to vote, comment, & share if you are willing!