Page 19 of His Dark Delights
I bolted, flinging myself toward the door. A jolt of terror carried me on the wind, moving me further awayfrom the certain death standing in my field.
A mistake.
A mistake. I’d made a dangerous mistake.
“Lilly, wait!” His plea chased me and echoed through the slamming door.
“Go away!” I locked the door with shaking fingers as hot tears burned my cheeks. A body hit the other side, rattling the hinges. I collapsed on the floor.
“Please, Lilly, let me explain,” the king—the Butcher—begged, slamming his weight against the door. They had horses, shields, and swords. Soren, or any of his knights, could burst through if they truly wanted to.
“No. You lied to me and used me.” I sniffled through my words.
His tone lowered as though he were leaning against the door and whispering for my ears alone. “Lilliana, I was going to tell you the truth. I didn’t intend to hurt you—”
“Just go away, back to your palace and your bloody war! I never want to see you again.” The words sliced at my heart on their way out before falling off my tongue like vomit.
“Sire, we really must—”
“Fuck!” A fist slammed against the door, and the wood vibrated on the edge of shattering apart. Heavy stomps crunched on the gravel path outside, boots turning and walking back to the gate. “Give me a horse.”
I almost didn’t hear the knights and their king beating the path and riding away. My sobbing muffled the scuffing of hooves on dirt tearing from the farm. Their departure tore a hole in my chest, but it brought strained relief with it.
While my heart actively broke into a million pieces,falling through my fingers, I was alive despite sharing a bed with a king who killed my kind. I continued heaving and sobbing until I struggled to breathe or stand. A quivering sickness coiled through my intestines, weighing me down and keeping me beaten on the floor.
I was half-nymph, and it was wrong to love a killer—a butcher of fae—yet I was afraid that I did, and that sickening realization would linger with me and haunt my soul.
Chapter Seven
Ren
The palace of Elleslan felt unseasonably cold upon my return, mirroring the frigid emptiness gnawing at the space between my ribs. Despite the luxuries of the palace, there was no comfort to be found within walls I struggled to call home. I hadn’t grown up in the castle’s opulence, and it provided no solace for me now. Not when my mind was a malevolent sea with tidal waves of longing crashing on the shores of my mind and threatening to drown me.
Each thought lead back to her, weaving a tangled web of regret and misery in her absence. Everything, from the carelessly cheerful sunrise to the perky flowers decorating the palace corridors, existed as a reminder of her—of Lilliana. The woman of divinity who saved my life and sent me away without a secondthought.
The flickering glow of the hearth in my chambers cast long shadows that danced across the sapphire stone walls like specters of ill-gotten memories. A heady concoction of burning wood and honeyed mead thickened the air, clinging to my senses and dulling the edges of anguish. Yet the crackling fire sang praises in my mind, and with each blink, her face appeared with haunting clarity.
Those eyes, that mesmerizing silvery blue, wide with disbelief and hurt. How they glistened with rising tears as the pieces fell into place and she realized the truth of my identity. Gods, those tears had trekked down her cheeks and gouged out my heart as she screamed the last words that drove me away.
“Just go away, back to your palace and your bloody war! I never want to see you again.”No amount of mead had washed the stain of those words from my consciousness.
The days on her farm echoed like dreams. A fleeting respite from the burdens of ruling a kingdom with no experience and indulging in the brutality of war. In those fleeting days, my world had narrowed to the comfortable confines of a cottage that reminded me of my true home, my first home. The scent of her favorite honey butter, herbs, and the spices roasted in her hearth trailed after me as a balm to my weary senses. And the addictive natural perfume of her skin called forth images of our night in the meadow—a night that would torture me forever.
There, among the simplicity, the peace, of farm life, I found a sanctuary from the chaos of war that afflicted me at all hours and inane politics I didn’t care for. Hergentle touches were a salve on the strife within me, her laughter a medicine that calmed the restless beast of vengeance howling in my spirit, and her kisses a drug.
I slumped into one of the high-backed chairs facing my chamber’s fireplace. Only in the quiet solitude of that room could I find a fleeting semblance of peace. A break from the squawking of nobles upon my return, from councilmen blathering about politics during my time on the front lines, from soldiers and knights recounting facts I already knew.
The reassuring, constant presence of my childhood friend lounged in the chair opposite mine. Rhydan Eaves had remained at my side through the tumultuous, ever-changing tapestry of my life. He lazily swirled a goblet in his hand, the many facets of the glass catching the firelight and reflecting it across the walls.
The amber liquid in our glasses promised foggy forgetfulness, and I took another long sip. My friend saluted and joined, watching me over the rim with a familiarity that reiterated our long years as friends and comrades in battle.
“So, old friend,” Rhydan began, and just like that, the fragile peace shattered, “tell me, what has you so glum?”
“Glum? I’m perfectly peachy.” I feigned ignorance, barely keeping my composure as the question pierced me with the precision of an arrow. “Never better.” He watched me swirl the mead in my goblet as if it were the most interesting thing in the world.
“Who was she?” Voice teasing and low.
A distant roll of thunder boomed around the palace so powerfully, I swore I felt it in my bones.
