Page 80 of A Serenade To The Elf Queen
Rhianelle lies languid and sated beside me, her breath ragged as she gazes at me with those crystalline lilac eyes. The aftershock of pleasure is still rippling through her body.
If I thought she was beautiful earlier, she is completely devastating now. The girl is the most enchanting thing I have ever seen, and I have seen a lot in my long existence.
Neither of us speaks as we stare at each other; our raw emotion laid open. I am cursed. I shouldn’t be able to feel this way. But my heart is so whole and content. Rhianelle must have felt something too as she stares at me with those soft heavy-lidded eyes. “Svenn, that was…”
An unraveling of souls. There are no words for it. It’s something neither of us can come back from.
“I know,” I say hoarsely. I gather her closer to me until she’s lying on my arm. She snuggles her head to me with a satisfied grin on her lips.
Fucking adorable.
For now, I’m not going to think about the eternity I’ll spend in that crypt. I want to be here in this moment with her.
“Let’s do that again,” she purrs against my neck. I suppress a smile rising to my lips. The girl is so overwhelmed that she can barely move and she’s still asking for more.
I want to spoil her. But time isn’t on our side. I can already feel the curse pulling me into the dark depths of the dungeon.
If I have a soul, I’d trade it to any dark god who can grant me another night with her. I want all her nights, all her days, all of her.
“You’re beautiful,” I say, indulging myself at the sight of her.
Rhianelle blushes with a bashful smile as if she doesn’t believe the words in my mouth. It takes all of my willpower not to lick every inch of her skin to prove them. I tug the strange ribbon on her arm, obstructing my view from the entirety of her perfection. A small panic rises to her face as the strip falls from her skin.
The moon and the heavenly body in the sky stop moving in their orbit as the universe stands still. I blink at the purplish bruising on her arm, at the scarlet hue over the edges, at the clear demarcation of each finger that left the mark.
Utter rage; overpowering and devastating surges in my brain as my vision floods to red.
“Who did this to you?”
Chapter 21 Svenn
The monster slumbering in me breathes to life. Whoever did this to her needs to die a slow, painful death. I want to hear them scream, I want to shower in their blood, I want to savor their last bleating sound right before the reaper claims their soul.
“What happened?” I ask again.
“I fell down last week.” I catch the tremble in her voice.
I remember every single inch of her skin to every strand of her hair as she left the clearing. This bruise wasn’t there.
A guttural sound rips from the back of my throat. “You are a terrible liar. Someone laid a hand on you.”
I pull back from her and crawl off the mattress. I plant my feet on the floor and focus on every sense to detect the presences around us. Eighty-seven elves and two demons. It should be over in less than five minutes. There is no calming this wave of anger that floods through my veins.
“Come back to bed,” she pleads, fear creeping into her soft face.
The invitation is so sweet I almost keel over and jump in with her. If I wasn’t such a cold-hearted bastard, I might.
“It’s not as bad as it looks,” she assures me.
Another glance at the bruise has my power rallying. Every familiar answer to my dark call, screeching to stake their claim on a pound of flesh. The promise of violence and mayhem excites them. They can have their fix after I have mine.
My body cracks into one of my partial shifts as I head straight to the entrance. I hate for her to see me in this hideous state. Rhianelle chases after me, tears rimming her eyes. “Please, calm down.”
She is asking me the impossible. This beast can no longer be caged. It wants blood.
“You’ll hurt me if you go.”
I stiffen at the doorway over those words.
