Page 196 of Hidden Kingdoms

I missed that.

The temple on Mount Yrsil, where the secrets of the realm were spoken within its blizzards and lightning tore at its peaks.

I longed for that.

But a deal was a deal. I had promised King Conleth my service for forty years and that’s what he would get.

Though I now had my own tempest to contend with.

There was no denying Elodie’s presence had made things here a lot more interesting. The world had been knocked off its axis just a little. Enough that those in tune with it knew something had changed. While those who didn’t know where tolook, could continue with their lives until, one day, everything they knew fell around them.

I wouldn’t let the world fall around her, it would be easy enough to take her away. I would do it, break my bonds to this land if it came to that.

The winds had been whispering for a while that something was on its way, and I could feel the change in their currents as they spoke to me.

Zerua had warned me long ago something big would come. And like the unpredictable entity she was, I had no way of knowing what that something big would be. Right now, everything within me told me it came in the form of a small white-haired woman with a raging temper, and a mind that saw things others didn’t.

There was something that tied us together, it was what had me gravitating to wherever she was. It was why I was aware of every move, every breath, every blink she made in my presence.

I knew she was affected by me. I heard her heart-rate pick up when I stood too close, could smell the slickness between her legs when my magik brushed over her. I saw the blush that warmed her cheeks when I told her I’d been watching her.

I wanted to see how far I could make it spread.

I probably wouldn’t even need to touch her.

But fuck I ached to.

It was dark behind the curtains that obscured my view, she was probably asleep by now. The light of Lune the only illumination to the night I hid myself within. The cover of the tree-line I waited under, meant I was nothing more than a ghost to anyone who looked out of the palace’s many windows.

One day I would stalk her through these very trees. Let the thunder of her lust-frenzied heart be the guide I needed to hunt her down. Let her scent draw me in until my mouth watered for a taste.

Did I care I was staring at a window it was unlikely I was going to even catch a glimpse of her through? Not particularly.

It had become a compulsion that I didn’t care to fight against. Why should I? I wasn’t someone who held back on what I wanted, and I wasn’t going to start now.

I would have her. She would be mine.

Not just someone who crawled to my bed to take their pleasure beneath my whip and then be sent on their way. She wouldn’t be leaving.

She would be mine, and I would keep her.

“A nice night for a little peeping,” came a voice I knew belonged to a flame-haired, smart ass that had tried her absolute hardest to sneak up on me.

And failed.

“I don’t know what you mean.” A smirk,that she couldn’t see, curled my lips as I kept my eyes trained on the window I knew Elodie was behind.

“Of course not, Commander.”

---