The scuffle was brief but to Mica it felt like forever.
She had tried to squirm away from him yet he seemed faster, reacting in preternatural ways as though knowing what she would do before she did.
Her breath escaped in a heavy oof as she was pressed back on her belly, heart thudding heavily on the ground. She could taste dirt and grime on her tongue.
The King was breathing heavily above her, his body vibrating in small seismic motions until she realized it was not his breath but… rumbling chuckles.
Huh.
Without hesitation his arm slid under her belly and lifted her off the ground briefly. Air whooshed in her ears as he rolled them over with an exasperated huff and she flopped above him.
Within the space of a few startled breaths and a small grunt, they had switched positions; him beneath and her atop, exhausted, breathless and gazing in a daze at the blanketed night sky dotted with stars twinkling in and out of sight.
The King's heavy arm rested around her belly, his heartbeat strong beneath the back of her head.
She froze, partially out of exhaustion but primarily because, trapped in the arms of a man that slaughtered a dozen women before her eyes, it seemed like the right move.
The King lifted his free hand from the ground and she watched it in her periphery as he rubbed it down his face then pushed back his hair. Contrary to the anger she thought would be on his face, he seemed… at ease.
More than that.
The man looked amused by all this.
His eyes were shut but his mouth had curled in a vague smile, dull as an unsharpened knife. "How did you escape?"
Mica blinked.
She turned back to the sky and sucked on her tongue.
"I will not punish you, little lamb."
Her thoughts turned over wearily. The growing awareness of his naked body beneath hers was beginning to niggle the back of her mind. His abdomen was hard and hot and sleek with sweat. She dared not think about the definition of his manhood pressing on the back of her thigh.
"... saw a door through the wall where the guards switched every six hours…" she muttered under her breath.
"And you found an opportune time to take advantage of it while I was gone."
"Basically."
They rested like that.
A gentle mournful breeze stirred through the trees and brushed over their skin. She shivered as her sweat began to cool and the adrenaline simmered to a low bubble in her gut.
The King shifted his arm around her belly but did not move.
"Can you see?" She asked finally. Casting him a sidelong glance, Mica watched as his long lashes fluttered and opened into slits, those pale irises gazing at nothing in particular.
"Do you doubt?"
"You act like you can see." She reasoned already reaching for her sleeves and tugging at the loosethreads. "In the cave… you were staring at them."
"I can sense where they are. My hearing is more attuned to vibrations and sounds such as this." His hand lifted and brushed at the curve of her jaw, tracing a finger down her neck like a matchstick striking the box, until it rested on her pulse.
It stayed there.
Mica tried to ignore the finger. "But you asked me what I could see… and you punished them for seeing something else. So how could you know if you're–"
"Because you see exactly what I see." His head turned in her direction and she recoiled reflexively. A lazy smile revealing rows of sharp teeth. "Nothing."
Nothing. Complete and utter darkness.
The realization dawned on her that the darkness was what he had been seeing all this time. Rather than feeling relieved by the revelation, a dull tug of pain loosed in her chest almost in sorrow.
He's a murderer.
Suddenly the King shifted and began to sit upright with her still cradled to his chest, he was tall even in this position casting a long ominous shadow over her. He bent low like a warped branch until his chin brushed her temple and reached for her legs.
"What are you–"
"I can smell your blood." He reasoned as large hands curled over her bare feet and gently drew them towards her chest.
He moved with a gentility that contrasted his vicious frame. Those hands which murdered not long ago now tended to her like she was a delicate garden he was pruning and watering; brushing away the leaves and grass wet with dew.
His fingers traced the curves and bumps on her feet slowly, using them to map out where everything was, pausing once when he brushed a thorn embedded deep and she inhaled unsteadily.
He stilled, then gently pinched the flesh around it, squeezing until the edge of the thorn resurfaced with a bead of blood. When he spoke his rough cheek brushed her own, "There is nothing out here in the woods."
Mica knew immediately what he meant. She blinked back the tears as he removed the thorns one at a time, "How would you know."
A dry chuckle. "I own all of this, little lamb."
There was something fascinating in how he worked through her mess of legs, and she hadn't realized just how much damage had been caused in her terror-run. His hands brushed over her toes thoughtfully and she watched in awkward wonder when he touched her pinky, threaded a finger between the spaces as though trying to visualize what her feet looked like.
"Return home with me."
"I'm not going back."
"Where will you go?"
"Somewhere that isn't here."
"And where would that be?"
Mica fell silent, her back was beginning to back due to the avoidance of leaning into him for support. Face downcast and staring at the broad hands still fiddling with her toes, she whispered so quiet it was a wonder he heard.
"You scare me."
"Do I?"
She considered glaring at him, then realized he couldn't see her expression, and did it anyway. "Ever since I met you my mind has been spiralling. I get these visions of darkness, I'm seeing things, I can't sleep at night with all the nightmares and supernatural stuff happening, I'm crying blood… I'm going crazy. I really am."
The King considered her outburst as his hands stilled.
"Your queen is terrifying, and I'm not sure what's the python doing wrapped around her neck but–"
"What would you like?"
Her mouth snapped shut. She blinked, bemused. "What?"
"Ask me anything and I will give it to you."
She barely considered her options, "I want to leave."
"No."
"You said–""Other than that."
"I want to leave." She tried again, much softer.
The King's head inclined towards her, resting his temple on hers carefully as if in a sighing motion. It was an intimate act that made her chest clench. She should have recoiled.
"There are things I wish to tell you to ease your burden, but as of now I cannot."
"So what are you saying? Return back and suffer for your sake while serving you?"
"No. My little one."
He turned his face and nose her hair line breathing in deep. "I am telling you to ask for the comforts you so desire to make it easier for you to be here with me."