Page 24 of I Destroyed the Elf Prince's Harem

Well, that was too short and clearly meant yes.

“Why are you mad at me?” I pressed.

Nylian’s sword slashed through another branch with a great whoosh, and I winced. Probably not a good idea to poke at someone who was skilled at wielding a sword.

He jerked the new spear from the brush and stomped to the camp, his lips in a hard, thin line. “Are you disappointed to be stuck with me as your teammate?”

“What?” I croaked as I watched him pass me. That was out of left fucking field. What the hell was he talking about? I jogged to catch up with him and plopped on the ground beside him as we both worked on our spears.

Nylian didn’t lift his gaze from his spear as he worked his dagger along the pole, deftly removing the bark to get it to the smooth, bare wood. “You wanted to stay behind with Jasper. Is he your type?”

My knife slipped off the branch at his question, and I almost lost a finger. When my heart stopped racing, I drove the point of my blade into the dirt. It was safer to have this conversation without a sharp edge to eviscerate myself.

“Where the fuck did you get that? No, Jasper isn’t my type! Have you lost your mind?”

Nylian paused, his eyes not lifting to look at me, but the muscles in his jaw worked as if he were chewing on my words. “But you walk with him and have humorous conversations with him. You tried to hunt alone with him. Why not Adeline? Or me?”

A loud moan broke from my throat, and I dropped my face into my hand. “I’m not trying to get time alone with Jasper.” Lifting my head, I leaned in close to Nylian, who was watching me. “I’m trying to give you time alone with Adeline.”

“Why?”

Seriously? You had to be fucking kidding me. Did I really create a character so lost when it came to love? This couldn’t be the hero with a massive harem that I’d sketched out.

“Because she’s an attractive, smart, brave woman. She knows how to fight, and she’d be great on an adventure like this. I thought you might want to…” I let the rest of that sentence drift off, praying that he wasn’t a total lost cause and understood what I was getting at.

He wasn’t, and he did.

“She’s not my type,” Nylian announced, returning to working on his spear.

I was going to strangle him, story be damned. It didn’t matter if I was stuck in his world forever. I was going to strangle Nylian.

“What?” I screamed in his ear. “How is she not your type? She’s the perfect type for you. Adeline is sexy and funny. She can probably ride a horse and kill things a hell of a lot better than most people.”

For the first time since we’d sat, Nylian’s expression softened and a small smile even teased the corner of his mouth. There was a twinkle in his green eyes, as though something amused him. Not that I could figure out what the fuck it was.

“There is more to a person’s type than horseback riding and killing things,” Nylian stated.

It was on the tip of my tongue to ask what things attracted him, but I let it go. “Are you sure you’re not interested in Adeline? Not even a tiny bit?”

“Not at all.” He paused and looked at me from the corner of his eye. “And you’re not interested in her?”

I huffed and picked up my knife again, resuming my work on the spear. If I wanted to have fish for dinner tonight, I needed to get this done. “Nope. Not in the slightest.”

While it was reassuring that Nylian wouldn’t kill me if I made a move on “his” woman, I still didn’t have any interest in Adeline. Sure, she was hot and funny, but I was also afraid of her. I didn’t think I could sleep with someone who I was afraid would one day kill me. She was someone I would have liked to have as a friend, so long as I didn’t owe her money.

“And you’re not interested in Jasper?”

With a snarl, I waved the point of my knife at Nylian’s face, forcing a cackle from him. “No, I’m not interested in Jasper. Oh, my fucking God! He’s a teenager.” Time for a subject change or one of us was going to end up bleeding. “All right, enough of this nonsense talk. How are we supposed to catch fish like this? Have you done spearfishing?”

“I have.”

Nylian finished making a nice sharp point on the end of his makeshift spear and set it aside. He then stripped off his boots and socks before rolling up his pants to his knees. Now, I was not into men or feet, but I had to admit the guy had some nice feet. Just the right amount of vein-y. Good, strong-looking feet while his calves had a sprinkling of pale-blond hair.

I tore my gaze away and focused on whittling the end of my spear while smacking my brain. What the hell was I doing checking out his feet? I was losing my mind. Definitely not one of my saner days. It had to be Nylian’s fault. The elf was driving me crazy with his silliness.

He sat quietly at my side as I finished preparing my spear and removed the same garments as he did. Spears in hand, we waded out into the stream. The water was bitingly cold, squeezing a yelp out from my lips, but it was also kind of refreshing. The last couple of days had been warm, and I was feeling gritty from the dried sweat and road dust.

Sunlight sparkled across the stunningly clear water, revealing colored rocks under my feet and silver, blue, brown, and red fish as they darted past. A breeze danced through the valley, rustling my hair and carrying with it the scent of wildflowers. For a second, I balanced my spear across my shoulders and tipped my face up toward the sky, drinking in deep the clean air and the peace of the day. The only sounds were birdsong, the lap of the water against the bank, and the wind through the trees. No cars rushing by. No people on their cell phones. Nothing but nature.

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