Page 63 of I Destroyed the Elf Prince's Harem

“And you said something similar about Adeline, too.”

“True.”

His strange expression cleared into a soft smile that did funny things to my heart. I was probably still in the middle of a heart attack over what we’d done against the door. He cupped my cheeks with his hands and pressed a tender kiss to the corner of my mouth. “The only one I want in my bed is you. If you can arrange for that to happen each and every night, I will be perfectly happy. You are mine, Lockhart. Don’t forget that.” He released my face, snagged my non-cum-crusted hand, and pulled me to the bathroom. “Let’s get you cleaned up. But not too much. It’s good that you smell like me now. Let all those wretches out there know they can’t touch you.”

“What does that even mean, ‘You are mine’?”

He smirked as he pushed me to sit on the edge of the enormous bathtub. “Mine? You don’t have that word in your world?”

“Asshole,” I muttered. “Does that mean that I must be monogamous to you alone while you go off and add me and a dozen other men and women to your harem?”

“What harem?” Nylian laughed as he dampened a cloth and brought it over. “I don’t have a harem.”

I almost shouted in his face that he was supposed to be like twelve women deep in his harem, but I held those words in. Apparently, I was the reason he didn’t have a harem. “You’re going to have one. I’m sure you’re going to begin stocking it the minute your father is shown the truth and you’re welcomed home. Oh, wait. You’re not expecting me to be around that long. You just want to have some fun while you’re trapped outside of your home.”

I stood, wanting to get away from him…and myself. My head was a mess. This was supposed to be a subtle fact-finding conversation about what he thought about his one-day harem. But there was a strange tightness growing in my throat, and my chest hurt every time I thought about all those other women and men who would be falling over themselves to get close to him. I didn’t want to think about them or how it was only a matter of time before he’d forget me.

Nylian grabbed a fistful of my shirt and pulled downward, forcing me to sit. As soon as I did, he captured my lips in a slow, drugging kiss that helped to sweep aside the rampaging thoughts and emotions filling my brain. I kissed him back, my hands coming to rest on his hips, holding him close.

He broke off the kiss and pressed a second, lighter one to the center of my forehead. “Idiot,” he mumbled, but the word was full of warm affection. “I’ve lost my best friend and brother. Been accused of murdering him. Been exiled from my home. The only thing that should matter to me is catching the actual murderer and clearing my name. Yet, every day, my mind is full of you. What crazy thing is Lockhart going to say today? What can I do to make him smile at me? What can I do to convince him to see me as more than a friend?”

“Nylian…” I choked out, but stopped, unsure what to even say.

“I don’t know how long this is going to last. I expect to be killed long before I can present my proof to my father. However, if these are my last days, I want them filled with you. I want you with me when I find the truth, because when you’re near me, I don’t feel as if the task in front of me is impossible.”

“I’m not going anywhere without you,” I declared, and it had nothing to do with the damn book or my reckless plotting. This man, somewhere along this journey, had become my everything, and I wasn’t ready to let him go.

“As for others…” He paused and smirked. “You are my harem of one. My one and only. I need no one else, and that is how it will remain.”

I didn’t know how to respond to that. Everything felt too big, too overwhelming in that moment. Thankfully, Nylian didn’t seem to need a response. Smiling to himself, he helped me get cleaned up and pulled together so that I could at least fake being a normal human being and not some mindless creature who’d just had his entire world upended.

“While you were napping this afternoon, I discovered that King Beldroth’s offices are on this floor but in the opposite wing,” Nylian said as he walked toward our door.

That snapped me out of my fugue state. “Hey! You said you wouldn’t leave our rooms.” And I’d napped for barely an hour. The damn elf was sneaky and fast. If I tagged along, would I be holding him back? There was little question that he’d be able to move faster and quieter without me.

Nylian glanced over his shoulder at me and winked. “It was some preliminary sneaking.”

“Maybe I should stay here. We already caused a scene in the ballroom because you were jealous. I don’t want to get you caught now.”

The elf caught my hand and pulled me out the door. “But you have to come with me. If we get caught, we’re each other’s alibi.”

Yeah, I didn’t want to know more. The idea of sneaking into the king’s private offices and going through his papers was enough to send my stomach into knots.

“What about the party?” I whispered as we walked down what appeared to be an empty hallway. There was always a chance that servants or guards were hiding in some niche or alcove that I had yet to spot. “Are the king and queen going to be pissed that we left so early? You were the guest of honor.”

Nylian snorted, his grin growing wider. “They might have been if we didn’t give them the greatest gift of all as we left—something to gossip about.”

I rolled my eyes but didn’t argue with him. He was right. They had been happy to talk about me while I was standing right there. Now they had a chance to talk about Nylian and me.

As we strolled casually through the hall, Nylian made a show of wrapping an arm around me and holding me close. We kept up the show of being lovers, meandering through the corridors as though we were lost. The servants we passed were few, since everyone’s focus was on the hundreds of people who filled the ballroom below us. Once, he even spun me and pinned me to the wall. I opened my mouth to ask what the hell he was doing, only to have it filled with his tongue. I started to push him away, when I heard a surprised gasp followed by a low snicker.

A guard.

The asshole had spotted a guard on patrol, and he’d kissed me to throw the guy off our trail.

Nylian ended the kiss, and I scowled at him.

“You could have warned me,” I stated as I shoved away from the wall.

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