Page 7 of Rogue Elves of Ardani

“We need you upstairs. You can heal, can’t you?”

“Of course. Is it serious?”

“No. A prisoner has been injured. It happens.”

“Nothing life threatening, then?”

The corner of his lips tilted into a subtle, charming smile. “Not at all.”

Good. The fewer miracles she had to perform, the better. “I’ll get my coat.”

She shut the door behind her and didn’t lock it. Locking implied you had something to hide. At least, that was what Patros liked to tell her when she locked her bedroom door.

The guard led her down the hall. She couldn’t help but run her gaze along the back of him as he walked in front of her. She was pleased to find that it looked as good as the front of him.

“Have you worked here long?” she asked.

“A few years.”

“How do you like it?”

“It’s not bad, once you get used to the cold and dark of the building.”

“Not enough windows,” she said.

“Precisely.”

The building was made of dark stone blocks, and there was little contact with the outside, with the exception of a few rooms with windows like her own, and even those had wrought iron across them that were disguised as decoration but were clearly there for practical purposes.

Feeling bold, she smirked a little and said, “I imagine it’s more comfortable if you have a companion to keep you warm.”

The man looked over his shoulder, his blue eyes bright. “Companionship is difficult to come by here.”

“That’s unfortunate. One could get lonely in a place like this.”

His eyes held hers just long enough for the look to feel significant. “One certainly could.”

She didn’t often have the opportunity to flirt. It was a small, guilty pleasure. And why not? She’d be gone in a day or two and she’d never have to follow through on it.

Not that she wouldn’t have wanted to. A small part of her always wanted to. But the empathy made things difficult.

There weren’t many Ardanians who would willingly sleep with someone who would have access to the entirety of their mind, all their most secret thoughts and feelings, every time they so much as kissed.

Not to mention that she preferred to hide her heritage from people she didn’t know well. It was safer that way. And if you were close enough to kiss someone, you were close enough to notice they had pointed ears, and that would inevitably raise questions she didn’t want to answer.

“It’s just through there,” the handsome guard said, gesturing to a door down the hall with a pair of guards hovering near it. Callias appeared beside them with a bucket of water and a handful of rags, looking oddly nervous.

“Maybe I’ll see you again,” Crow said. “Sometime soon?”

“I’m certain you will.” He took her hand in one of his gloved ones and raised it to his lips. Crow blushed, taken by surprise.

“What’s your name?” she asked. She allowed herself to skim the edges of his mind as his lips touched her, hoping to find billowing attraction or kind warmth or lustful heat.

And instead, she found cold darkness. The attraction was there, unmistakably, but there was an ineffable unease—a subtle underlying wrongness pervading his spirit.

“I’m Alexei,” he said.

Crow blinked at him. “You’re—you’re the warden.”

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