Page 177 of The Shadow Fae Rhapsody
“No, you need to feel it again,” she says, before pulling me down and kissing me hard. Her mouth is warm, inviting, and perfect. Yes, the girl is perfectly mine. Every stroke of her tongue purges the doubts lurking in the corners of my damned heart.It’s telling me, Of course, I want you.She wants to dance with me. She wants to spend time with me. She wants to kiss me. She wants to fuck me. She wants me.
I fucking melt into that kiss, into her.I never want this to stop. It takes every strength in my fraying control to let her go when she breaks that kiss.
“Is that clear, Svenn?” she asks breathlessly.
I nod wordlessly.
The wintry air bites on her exposed skin and I feel her shivering in that ridiculous sundress. I remove my coat in one fluid motion and place it over her shoulders.
The cloak was heavy even on me and even more so on Rhianelle, it completely swallows her lithe body. She looks like a giant bat and I might laugh if I didn’t want to kiss her again so desperately right now.
She notices the look on my face and frowns. “Svenn, don’t laugh…”
I do the opposite. “But I have a new nickname for you, little bat—”
“Stop being mean!” Her brows furrow and she glares.
I take her hands and bring her trembling fingers to my mouth. Her cheeks darken and I swear I’ve never seen anything more fucking beautiful than this. I’m suddenly reminded of that time in the labyrinth when I first met her and she was warming my hands the same way.
My darling little fawn.
“I never got the chance to say this properly, but thank you,” I pause for a moment. Somehow words don’t feel enough to convey my feelings. “If it weren’t for you, I’d still be in that abandoned well.”
“Svenn…” Rhianelle simply stares back at me. Her lilac eyes say more than her pretty lips ever could. They are bright and warm and lovely all at the same time.
I remind myself this seemingly fragile girl is battling the strongest curse in the realm, the Rhunhraefn silently with little effort.
“Can you teach me how to fight those dark curses?” I ask her. This can’t keep happening to me. First with the Grimsbane armor and then yesterday with the dagger.
Nel looks up at me from beneath her beautiful lashes. “I don’t think I’ll be a good teacher, Svenn. You still can’t write the elven letterings up to now.”
Shit.
Another one of my lies is slowly catching up with me. Balthazar’s necklace lets me speak in six hundred nineteen languages and write in one hundred and ten of them. I’m just pretending to be a dumbass so she’ll sit on my lap to help me practice.
“Rhianelle, I lied to you this morning,” I quickly confess. “I wasn’t out looking out for truffles…”
“I figured as much,” she mutters, shoulders sagging. “They’re seasonal and there are not many oaks here.”
“But you can trust me from here on. I swear—”
My senses suddenly prickle. What the fuck is this?
I look around the camp. It’s just the Elven warriors, more and more of them have arrived, probably after a meal or latrine duties. My eyes snag to one group.
It’s just her uncle and his lackeys, the Grimsbane returning to camp. But this stench…
It’s fucking them.
I’ve found the bastards who hurt her. The scent of the six people I’m looking for is spread around all twenty-seven Grimsbanes. It’s even there on her uncle for fuck’s sake. These assassins of Tiamat share weapons and equipment with one another. Which one of them touched her…
No matter.
I’ll just kill all of them.
They need to pay with blood for what they did to her. I clench and unclench my fist, readying for the kill.
The veins on my arms bulge and darken like ink. I throw my head back and blast a roar that shatters the glasses and lampcrystals around the tents. Every fire and light in the camp is extinguished by my shadow.
