"I took you home
Set you on the glass
I pulled off your wings
Then I laughed"
Change - Deftones

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Jimin

There have been better nights.

Trekking through the desert was definitely more exciting than sitting in a prison cell of his own making.

"You are a Dimidium. There is nothing better you can do than walk?" Aera complained, falling into another dip in the sand. She let out a frustrated shriek, piercing his ears.

"Well, Aera the all knowing, if I could just whisk us anywhere, do you not think I would have escaped from being held prisoner?" He used the mocking, old nickname he'd given her while tutoring as children.

Aera turned on him, her chest hollow with her breaths. The moonlight trailed across her skin, now tinged less pale with the color from the sun. It made her eyes an even brighter shade of green. Her hands were held to her hips in perpetual annoyance, her black hair now sticking to the elegant bend of her neck from the heat.

"I thought that wasn't you? Maybe your mother did not know how to use the full breadth of your powers, just like how she wouldn't be able to piss without sitting down."

His bark of laughter was entirely from shock. The imagery more crass than even he could muster.

It also left him speechless, because truly, he did not know how to answer. And sometimes the way her jade eyes trailed him, waiting to be disappointed, he did not wish to.

He had been asked the same thing, over and over.

The man did not know himself, if it had been his intention or not. It felt own discretion the entire time. Each feeling built on top of previous insecurities, and wants. It was not like he was not of his own mind, he could feel his thoughts. It was only at the night of the solstice did he realize someone was controlling his movements, heightening his emotions and warping them.

He never hated his best friend. He resented him.

And up until a few weeks ago, he had forgotten exactly why.

For two years, the spirit of his mother pretended to be Solis, the deity of the sun. That was when his resentment morphed from envy to a need for vengeance. His mind was filled with injustice enacted onto him. It mattered little that Taehyung was his brother, but that he took everything he was meant to claim for himself.

It was also at that time, that he had met Leila. How the first time he laid eyes on her his heart seized. It felt right, powerful. And already, she was destined for Taehyung.

But there was before Leila. Then there was after. Two timelines, separated by a single day. That was when everything changed.

There was something before that night that he was missing. All he felt when he set off for Persia was anger, and he couldn't remember why after meeting the daughter of the moon. That feeling was more than likely what made him susceptible to disloyalty.

"What, are you finished with false pretenses? Admit it. You knew what you were doing the entire time." Aera egged him on, even as he began walking.

Led by the moonlight, he tried to ignore her. He kept walking, letting his feet sink into the ground below him with each step.

Her voice reminded him exactly why, with each icy quip.

"I am breaking off my engagement with Aera."

Jimin stopped cold in the middle of the throne room, his back turned from his best friend. He had heard whispers around the castle about the change in the prince. Jimin had chalked it up to gossip.

But the bastard was truly ending their engagement? For fucks sake. Too little, too late.

"You're telling me why?" He gritted through his teeth, not wanting to have this conversation.

It was not like it would change anything. The damage had already been done.

"We are best friends. You cannot hide what you feel from me." Taehyung said, his hands behind his back.

Jimin bit back the things he wanted to say, all more vile and bitter than the last. Why did he offer an engagement to her in the first place if he knew how Jimin felt? Why did Aera like Taehyung and never him? Why did she say yes, when it seemed like she finally started to show some semblance of  interest?

"Why would you take her in the first place if you did not want her? Her entire life, she has been pining for you Taehyung. You are all she has ever wanted, all she has ever worked towards and you are going to cast her to the side? Why?"

Jimin shocked himself, speaking on Aera's behalf instead of on his own qualms. But it was a scary truth, that he was more enraged for her and what she may feel when she hears of this.

Taehyung was concerned, but not unfeeling. During their entire engagement, he had practically ignored the girl. Sleeping with other women, and only speaking to her on matters of the castle.

He had the most riveting person at his feet, and he barely cared. It was like a person stumbling across a mine of gold, and calling it a bed of rocks.

The prince had her. He had her, and he was going to throw it all away.

Taehyung held up his hands, feeling the anger pulse off of his friend in waves. He seemed shocked too by Jimin's outburst, though his sympathy won out, "Friend, it was never my choice. You know this. Our parents chose for us, though it was something I never wanted. I am not an idiot. I saw the way you looked at her, and that is what pained me the most. When my father told me of the engagement I fought to end it. Now I can."

Never his choice.

But what about Aera?

It did not even register to him that the woman who was meant to keep them sustained from hunger was found. Or that she could also be there ruin.

"Do you even care what this will do to her? You were to be married within six months." Jimin threw out his hand to the side, furious.

Taehyung lifted a cautious brow, "You both are so fucking blind, it's genuinely as amusing as it is infuriating."

That pissed Jimin off even more. "What the fuck does that mean?"

The prince steeled his expression, showing the man had reached the end of his patience. His nerves had been frayed ever since the massacre, and Jimin felt a twinge of guilt.

"Listen. I found correspondance between my father and another territory. They knew of the next daughter of the moon. Her location, her age, her name." Taehyung shook his head, "A promise of engagement to lure her here, in order to imprison her. I cannot be the same. I cannot—"

"You plan on marrying her instead." The words didn't sound real.

Taehyung pursed his lips, his eyes falling to the floor with shame. "Yes. Things will be different now."

Jimin locked his jaw, "Fine. Bring her here, keep her safe. Or keep her cozy in the dungeons. None of it matters to me, but do not cast Aera to the side."

"I am not casting her to the side Jimin. I am letting her free." Taehyung let out a swift breath, moving to his friend and grabbing his shoulder, "I hear you. As much as I believe you greatly overestimate her interest in me, and as much as I don't get along with her, she deserves to be with someone who sees the best in her. Who loves her."

Taehyung looked at him knowingly, his serious face taking on the form of excitement. Fuck. Fuck, fuck, and fuck. Jimin ripped himself out of Taehyung's grasp, more offended and panicked than before.

He felt a blow to his chest, practically knocking the wind out of him. He placed a hand on the region, making sure his chest still beat within its cage.

"Speak another word and you're dead to me."

Taehyung let his hand fall to his side. But he did not give up. "The law states if I break the engagement, I must find her a replacement of suitable stature and value. Jimin, you can finally be with her."

Was the man insane? Or just daft to think it could be that simple.

The engagement had been a terrible dream he could not wake up from. He had consulted the heavens of his misfortune many a night. Praying for it to end. Praying for her mind to change.

No that he finally gotten what he wished for, he felt nothing but dread.

"She would not want this. Let her choose herself." He said, immediately rejecting the idea so his heart could not grab hold of it.

"Jimin."  Taehyung said in that irritating manner, where he believed himself to be right above all others.

But Jimin could not let him do this. He wouldn't let him ruin her life further.

Even if it meant breaking himself into despair.

"I said no."

"You're not even listening. You've liked her for years. She sees in you what you see in her. For fucks sake you both can't shut the fuck up around each other. You can treat her well, better than I can."

I would treat her better.

Jimin would never get the chance to prove it. Not matter how much he desired it. It was the last thing Aera wanted.

"I listened, and I am saying no."

"Aera would appreciate and accept—"

"She doesn't want me! She never has." Jimin erupted, because the prince could not even pretend to know what she wanted. He did not take the time to learn about Aera in the way he had. Jimin knew the truth, "The least I can give her is peace. Giving her to me after breaking off the engagement is not an act of kindness to her. It is her greatest nightmare."

"That has never stopped you from making her life hell before."

"This isn't some childish game, or a jest. It is marriage. And eventually..." He felt bile rising in his throat as the word for bonded mates almost left his lips.

It cannot be me.

Aera would hate him then, truly.

It could be someone else.

Someone who did not prank her, or pull her hair to get her attention. Someone with a real title and wealth. Someone she would fall in love with one day.

"Ask Garnett." Jimin offered, his fingers cracking as he closed his fist. Tighter and tighter.

He walked away from his friend. Before receiving a letter that within a week, he would be shipped off to spy on the daughter of the moon.

"I like talking to myself. It's better company than you." Aera sing-songed, pulling up the skirts of her dress so she wouldn't trip.

It pulled him from his memory, leaving him disoriented.

Jimin couldn't catch his breath. He paused, making Aera halt just as quickly beside him. The man fell to the ground, waiting for the blood to stop rushing in his head.

It happened every time he tried to reconcile with his life.

He had loved Aera for as long as he could remember. Even when he hated her for her engagement, he had never stopped wanting her. Before his royal assignment, his mind had only been filled with her.He had felt maddened, crazy with his unrequited feelings. And then it all just stopped.

Then he is sent away, that very same day, forgetting she ever existed. Their shared childhood but a whisper in the back of his mind, as he was swallowed in moonlight. When he came back to the castle, the marriage to Garnett had already happened.

Aera did not greet him when he came back. He did not desire it. He did not congratulate her on her union, because he had been thinking of Leila.

"Jimin!" She called to him, and he wished her to stop.

Because if he felt what he felt now, he would've went back to the castle and dragged her from her marital bed.

Which meant for over three years, he had been without his mind.

He would have never planned to kill Leila. He would have never planned to usurp his brother and friend, Taehyung. He would have never used Lily to do it.

He grabbed at his silver tresses, hating it's color. One that reminded him that his mind and body had not been entirely his own.

What scared him the most was his feelings for Leila. Because that had been more real to him than his own life, his own sanity.

He believed himself to be made for her. That Aera had been a childhood crush. That Taehyung didn't deserve her, and that Leila was only confused by the curse.

Whether it was the curse or his mother's manipulation, that love was gone. At least, in the way stories right endless tales about.

Back then, he thought it must have been his way of healing. Or that Leila was truly meant for him. Now he knew it was divine intervention that made him forget Aera. There would be no other way to make him leave thoughts of his first love behind.

Leila had been a friend. A great friend. He felt his chest concave at every moment he had taken advantage of that, not knowing who to blame for it. Kissing her. Touching her, when she had been confused because she loved Taehyung dearly.

After the initial pain he felt at Taehyung bringing her to the castle and marrying her, they had formed a connection. One pure in some ways, as she had never had a friend before. Jimin had come to enjoy their time together, even with his ulterior motives. He couldn't help it. She was lovely, in all the ways any companion could wish for. She cared and protected others fiercely. She was loyal and honest. Most of all, she listened and kept every detail close to her heart. Intelligent and a little devious, she was a kindred spirit in most ways.

She will never forgive me. Jimin couldn't blame her, and it still did not lessen the blow.

He missed her, and regretted ever hurting her. It had snapped his mind into the light for a moment, when her body lay unconscious and covered in blood beneath him. He had started to slide the blood back into her neck, holding the wound.

He had believed in his love for Leila. He had been willing to kill her for it. He had been willing to betray his brother, and best friend, because of it.

Yet when the curse broke, it was like something in his mind locked back into place. After he killed his mother, his mind still felt disjointed. Thread after crossed thread weaving in too many patterns.

But when the sun arose, all the confusion melted away.

When he was brought to the throne room to speak with Taehyung and Leila, it was clear what had been a mirage. When the pair fussed over each other, his chest was hollow. Not in a way that was to numb the pain. He just felt no flicker of his previously inescapable devotion and need of her. And he couldn't accept that. Not because he hadn't felt that for someone before.

When Aera had entered after him, it confirmed his worse fears. Aera, no longer was she the phantom nuisance she had been for two years. Who, with his mind under the curse and his mother's hold, only saw her as an obstacle or an irritation.

Everything that had been suppressed before the day he met Leila came flooding back.

And with it, his devastation.

Because his feelings didn't benefit Nox did they? Aera had no part in the curse, and no use for those wishing to manipulate him.

Despite her murdering her own husband. Despite Taehyung being taken by Leila.

He had less of a chance with the woman he truly loved than ever before, and she had wanted nothing to do with him even then. This time, he deserved her exile.

I feel like a fucking idiot.

Jimin was overwhelmed and pained that he lost years that he could never make back. That he had without his own volition to make the decisions that changed his life.

So he chose silence over the truth. Or insults.

It would hurt less.

What even could he say?

My apologies Leila. I only thought I loved you because of the curse. Killing you went a little too far, I'll admit.

Oh, and Taehyung. Brother. I do resent you, but most of my life I loved you. The latter won out every time, until the mother that ruined your life took over my body. Forgive me?

Ah, Lily. I have protected you our entire lives. Turns out I was just a vessel for Nox and his blood to gain more control. My mistake.

Aera, last but not least. Is it completely inappropriate to confess my want for you just after the castle watched me obsess over Leila like a rabid animal? Do not worry, it was all the curse. And my dead mother's doing. I have wished to have you since we were children, it is why I acted like a prick. The last couple years where I ignored your existence we're not of my own doing. Give me a chance please.

"Fucking ridiculous!" Jimin exclaimed, startling Aera back. He started to laugh, his shoulders shaking from the sheer force of it.

His whole life was ruined.

"Um, do I need to drag Lily here and hold a knife to her throat again? The evil cackling is a bit unnerving." Aera called to him, slighting bending over and showing the delicate curve of her collar bones.

He had obsessed with how her braids fell over them when they were younger. How could he have forgotten? Every second had been lost in hours that he could have worshipped her longer. No one would even fucking believe him if they could hear his thoughts, as they had been hidden even before his mind was stolen from him. His eyes followed the line to her neck, and then to her downturned lips.

I'm a fucking wreck, and she is making it impossible to stay afloat.

It was not Lily being in danger that had wrestled away his possession.

It was almost killing Aera.

She hates me.

And I feel everything but hate for her.

And yet, our bitter exchanges are the only thing we have left that ties us together.

Jimin had lost everything. But he selfishly could not let this go. He scanned the horizon, looking for an escape.

"There is a cave up a bit further. I can see it in the mountain face." Aera answered instead, only prolonging the misery.

He had been wrong. Sitting in his cell would have been preferred.

Aera lifted herself, standing straight. The curve of her back visible even with the dress, and that was the last thing in the world he should be thinking about.

Alone.

In a cave.

In the dark.

With the woman he wanted nothing more than to take within his arms, and beg for retribution above all others.

If Jimin had never left for this territory like a coward instead of fighting for her, this would have never happened.

"If we must." Is all he said.

Because earning her animosity had always been an honor. Her groan of disdain made the back of his neck in sick delight.

It was all he had been ever able to make her feel.

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(A/N: AHHHHH A JIMIN CHAPTER? I feed YALL sooo Well.

Idk what it is about his character but he's just so naturally...attractive. He could like open a door and it would be hot. I know I like created the vibes but I honestly don't know how, he has a mind of his own.

This chapter was so much tea! You now have the background of how and why he offered Garnett as a match.

And...we see that his feelings for Aera suddenly disappeared the day he met Leila. Hmm.

Let me know your thoughts/comments/concerns/

And again...TROPES you would like to see in this book.

Thank you all ~