Page 55 of The Ballad of the Vampire Prince

“It’s all right. He was trying to help.” I hear her comforting the gnome and the brown boar.

“He was trying to eat you!” the tiny bearded creature accuses.

“No, he wasn’t. See for yourself.” She shows him her hand. The distal cut on her palm has fully healed from my venom. There is still some redness around the area, but it will dissipate soon enough.

The gnome empties his wineskin to clean the injury to be completely certain. True to her words, her wound has closed. Though the fae is still giving me a skeptical eye.

The little guy had it right. I lost complete control earlier.

It’s humiliating.

But that taste was an ambush I wasn’t ready for. And the memories… fuck.

What the hell happened to you in the past, little fawn?

Rhianelle’s gazes back and forth at the gnome and his boar. “Let’s get you back to the Red Road, all right?” she says, offering him her hand. He takes it and they thread through the woods together.

Shock jars within me for the things I had just seen. All I want to do right now is hold Rhianelle in my arms. But the girl is already walking away deeper into the faerie woods with two strangers. I trail behind them quickly before my wife is spirited away forever.

“Do they really grow to the sky?” she asks him.

I’m not sure if she’s talking to the gnome or the boar. They chatter about rowan berries, beard braids, and festivals, things I do not care about.

There are times when I want to interrupt them and ask Rhianelle about her past. But I haven’t seen that cheerful, genuine smile on her face in a while. My amusement tempers some of the anger and confusion running in my head.

We walk into dense thickets of a lush forest, deeper and deeper into Duskwood.

“Be nice. You’re scaring my new friends,” Rhianelle whispers to me after a while.

She should tell that to Ymir and Emyr. They are the ones still casting daggers in my direction. But these weaklings risked their lives to save Rhianelle from me. That earns them considerable respect, so I rein in the intimidation as much as I can.

“We’re here now,” the gnome says, pointing ahead to the crimson gravelly track ahead. The scarlet stones that make up the road seem to have fused together, making it easy for the movement of carriages and wagons.

In the past, the Red Road was used for the fae to bring in their annual tithe to the fae king. Now it is used as a trading route from Avalon to Darvan and Myrkheim.

Peculiar beasts from every forest, river, and marsh join the procession, some crawling, some slithering, others hopping. Rhianelle watches them in fascination, her eyes curious and wary.

My fangs burst spontaneously over the incoming threat. “Rhianelle,” I say her name in warning.

Two shadowed figures stand a short distance away from us. Dressed in light leather armor, cowls, and cloak, they look almost human in appearance except for the pointed ears.

People of Aelfheim call them the savage fae.

The name derived out fear of their ruthlessness, or perhaps the fact they are godless. Unlike the elves, orcs, and dwarves who bow to the seventy-seven deities, the fae worship no one but themselves.

Both fae carry identical dwarven-made swords strapped to their waist. Simple in its design, yet lethal. A fool might have mistaken the blades as the most threatening thing about the two warriors.

It doesn’t matter.

All I see are two dead bodies if they try to harm Rhianelle. They shoot their dark eyes at me. I hold each of their gazes, waiting for them to make a stupid move.

Go on, be stupid.

Rhianelle touches my hand. “It’s all right, Svenn. They’re the Red Road sentinels.”

Her lilac eyes train on them cautiously, but they remain unafraid.

The stare down goes on for a long beat until one of the sentinels motions with his hand for the gnome and the boar to move forward.

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