Page 96 of The Shadow Fae Rhapsody
Holy hell, he did it…
He fucking did it.
The bastard landed a critical hit on me. If I weren’t a Strigon, I would have been dead.I remove the blade from my gut, the sound causing the prince and the orkan assassin to wince.
I close my eyes and embrace the pain that goes through me. The agony soon turns into something ecstatic and exhilarating. Before I met Rhianelle I fucking live for moments like this.
Yes, yes, yes.
Finally.
A fucking challenge.
A maniacal laughter escapes my throat, courtesy of one of the unhinged beasts in me. We feast on the fear and the promise of bloodshed.
I take a fighting stance to face him again, but the orc prince tosses his remaining blade aside.
What the hell is he doing?
“Pick up your sword,” I command him.
“No.”
This fucker.
I finally found a decent match and he’s what? Forfeiting? I recognize now the strange ambience I felt earlier about him in the dungeon. It’s the same sort of air that flows around self-righteous pricks like Eyepatch.
“I don’t know if you’re familiar with the seventy-seven gods we worship,” he says with a faint rasp. “But I swear to you in the name of my honorable ancestors and The Mother, the Maiden of Arawynn is safe.”
I don’t care if this ungrateful bastard swears in the name of his grandmother or whoever the fuck. They’re all dead if I don’t get the girl.
“Blaire is my wife. The rebels cannot hurt her because we are newlyweds,” he tries again.
His wife?
Vayne Aeldrath Malgorth.
I remove a shrapnel from my vest while trying to recall where the fuck I have heard that name. Moments like this make me regret not remembering the names of the people important to my little fawn. The friend has a husband?
Shit.
Is he important? Can I kill him?
What was supposed to be a simple track-and-kill has turned into a complicated rescue mission.
I take another casual glance at the determined Orc Prince. I could torture him, but he doesn’t seem to be someone easily moved by pain. It can take days and I am in no mood to wait.
A breeze gently caresses my face, almost as soft as Nel’s touch. Her light is like a beacon, calling me to return.
The Orc Prince is muttering something but I’m barely listening. I study the blood underneath my claws, wondering if I can wash them in time and sit with Rhianelle at the breakfast table. There’s a chance I might miss her routine bird feeding.
Damn it.
I want to go back to her.
I want to go home.
The grim, gray-stoned tower in Windhaven is far from an ideal place I would call home. But it is a place where she will be waiting for me.
