make me stay.

twentysix

♜

"she just arrived," harry had knocked on the door before speaking, but he had seemed quite eager to get out his sentence. this meant that the information was said while he was still standing in the doorway, without moving into the office. 

north gestured with his hand, and he moved in closer. 

"should i show her to a room firstly, or would you like to see her before?" he questions, cocking his head to the side. 

north take in a deep breath. he had dreaded this for months on end. he simply couldn't stand her. 

"maeve solace, my king," a server announced suddenly, from the still open door of his office. north  looked up, and his eyes landed on her. 

harry shot his king a crocked smile, embarrassed that she slipped through his fingers so easily. she had just arrived and he had technically already lost her inside the castle walls. 

"my king," maeve bowed, deeply and respectfully towards me. she gripped the hems of her skirt and lifted them whilst bowing, her head following along. north nodded as confirmation. 

maeve solace seemed to have become a name that never crossed his mind anymore. he knew what had been done to her after he saw the treat she had become, but he had never given it much thought, not even before.

she wanted power, she wanted everything, but she stood without a title.

"we could rule. together." maeve had knocked on his door after midnight, at the beginning of her last week at the castle.

"not possible," he had told her, like every other time she had begun the exact same conversation. she seemed to believe that convincing him that a future with her could make him content would solve it all. but in reality, his happiness had no weight in much of anything in his entire reign.

"you'll lose me, north. who knows where i will end if you don't act?"

"you'll end up where your mark places you, maeve." north had responded, not caring to look up from the papers he had laying in front of him. his desk seemed to stand heavier for every single piece of paper that was put on it.

"my mark won't lead me anywhere." she had said.

north had looked up shortly. "i find it hard to believe you belong on the outter-ring," he chuckled lowly, signing a wage that had been corrected later that day by his general.

"i belong to you, king north. i am all yours, and i will do anything to live that fate out." she rushed around the desk, kneeling in front of him. she turned her head, looking behind her before lifting up her hair.

his eyes had widened at the sight. she had burned her mark into a horrible scar that hadn't close to healed properly. it was discoloured with chunks of skin and deep cuts spread out over a bigger area than what the mark would have covered.

"it was rather difficult to reach," she excused, turning back around to face the man before her. she placed a hand on his thigh, letting it move upwards as it had so many times before. "but it is done. my fate has been erased so we can create one together,"

he had been speechless. he could still feel how his hand had reached out, his fingers run through her hair and his fingertips touched the bumpy surface of what symboled the bottomless consequences she would take to be crowned.

"you are one of many, maeve. laying in my bed does not ensure you a title. a mark on your neck that does need to be burned, does." he had said, raising his chin to get his word into her mind. she needed to understand her actions and the future that would follow them.

it took her a minute of silence for tears to show up in her waterline. her hand was a close to him as it possible could be without touching anything of the destination, and her eyes showed the panic that rushes through her.

then, as did she shift completely, she blinked away the tears, letting them run down her cheeks to dry, and in the span of a second she stood up, pulling him close. their lips met in a pushed, but heating kiss. she pressed herself closer to him, knowing that this was exactly the action, and the only one, that would make him want her.

she had fully believed that satisfying his lusts and needs would evolve the feelings he had for her. but there were none. he had never actually understood why he had never felt a shift.

it had come to a dusin different faces he had had laying in his bed, some multiple times, and not once, even for a short moment, had he felt a change. he craved their bodies, their lips, their movements and moans, but their heart had always been irrelevant. 

and yet, here she stood, once again inside of his castle walls. he had thought he would never see her again. at least, he had wished to.