Page 57 of A Serenade To The Elf Queen
But I remain kneeling on the forest floor in a daze of despair; like a rat paralyzed by the serpent’s eyes. This is a disaster of my own making. I freed this beast from that dark dungeon. Guilt twists my heart as I glance at the injured warriors and mages who tried to take him down. Not one of them can stop him.
And yet not one of them is dead…I blink slowly.
The monster could have killed them easily the way he fought Kheirall and Ragnar in the beginning. But after I screamed at him earlier, he has been showing…restraint.
My mind whirls frantically. Back in the crypt, this savage being could have devoured me twenty times already. But he didn’t. Hell, he even let me sleep in his arms in the cavern.
I lift my head to look at him again.
The creature is offering me his hand. A clear invitation.
Come to me.
Something tells me I should go to him.
My uncle shakes me awake to focus.
“Keep running in that direction. Don’t look back. Take the fastest Noctral and ride back to Aelfheim,” Rainer instructs, hishead falling forward with another bloody bout of cough. He gave it all on that last attack.
“I don’t think he means me any harm,” I whisper in a strange reverie. I wriggle myself from his grasp to rise to my feet.
“Rhianelle! What are you doing? Come back here!” he screams. I think Darstan and Aelfric must have been shouting my name too.
I run into the monster’s waiting arms. He slides his hand down my waist to pull me closer—the same hand that cracked open Ragnar’s jaw and tore through Kheirall’s wings. No fear rises in my heart, only a thrill.
“Rhianelle,” he utters my name. His voice is deep, foreign, and completely out of this world. Yet something in me finds a familiarity in it. I raise my hand to touch his face.
I know you,my soul seems to whisper as I run my fingers on the ridges of his face, his eyebrows. My trembling hand slides over the broad expanse of his chest where I buried the dagger. There’s no trace of a scar. In fact, he looks utterly untouched. His powerful chest heaves beneath my hand.
“Svenn…” I say softly. A rough laughter rumbles through him and I know that I got his name wrong.
He presses his forehead against mine. “Nel.”
Despite the fear, despite the confusion, I smile at him.
Svenn suddenly growls low and vicious, the wild look returning when he notices the person appearing from the bushes. Everything happens so fast it’s nearly a blur. One second, he is next to me and the next he is directly behind Jack, his teeth sinking deep into the human’s throat. The guy doesn’t even have a chance to scream when Svenn crushes his windpipe.
I snap from whatever spell that bound me. What was I thinking? This creature is insane. He is a bloodthirsty, cold-blooded monster through and through.
As if the blood draining is not cruel enough, he tears the human’s spine completely out like boning a fish. My fear reaches a new height when those strong shoulders turn to me again. I stare in mute horror as he presents the dangling column of bones to me like a trophy, laying it on the ground in all its bloody gore. Bile surges to my throat at the sight.
Darstan and Aelfric move in to rescue me.
“Wait! Leave him be!” Kheirall shouts. He moves closer towards us, dragging his broken wings behind his back.
Time stands still as the Demon Lord tries several ancient languages to reason with the monster. Svenn finally responds to a primordial, unusual one I don’t recognize.
A low growl rumbles from his throat. “Balthazar?”
“His grandson,” Kheirall replies with a strangled voice, finding the same word in the strange tongue to deliver to Svenn.
Their eyes lock for a long moment. I realize the two are assessing whether they should start killing each other again.
Svenn removes his gaze, seemingly unamused and uninterested. His attention lingers briefly on me before he concentrates on the boulder with the strange raven marking amongst the crumbling ruins. A chill runs down my back when he starts pummeling the stone with all his rage and might.
“What is he doing” Aelfric echoes my surprise out loud.
Garrett inhales a sharp breath, “I believe the bigger question would be, what in the world is he?”
