Chapter 32 Svenn
“What do you mean ‘no’? She wrinkles her forehead. “I need to help them.”
The queen is a skilled fighter. That’s no surprise. Most elves I’ve met are. But I’m not taking any chances. I carry her away from the clash into the forest.
“Take me back!” She meets my gaze without flinching, her pupils dilating with anger. No one ever does that.
But instead of staring daggers, she can just order me with the curse. A single command from her and I will tear apart my own ribcage and lay my heart at her feet.
The Queen of Elves doesn’t even have to utter it aloud, Rhianelle Wiolant could simply wish it and whatever misfortune she desires would fall upon me. I am lower than a servant.
A slave in mind, body, and soul.
I braced myself for the lashing, for the guillotine to fall. But the pain never comes.
Rhianelle is scratching, clawing, and fighting me to go help the people who are supposed to be protecting her. Her spirited struggle means nothing against my firm grasp on her waist.
She shoots me a glare. “Let me go, Svenn.”
Never.
The girl tries to head-butt me. I evade it easily, but the swing must have still hurt her pretty little head.
“They’ve got this,” I say flatly. I honestly don’t give a damn about the rest of them.
She glances over my shoulder to check on her people. Something about the way she looks at her knights fills me with a murderous wrath. I almost want to kill them before the orcs do.
“Are you going to calm down?” I ask, ignoring her fists pounding against my chest.
“No.”
I hold my breath over the defiance in those eyes. She squeals when I all but lift her and hoist her over my shoulder.
Her fight pauses for a second.
“Svenn! You have arrows in your back!” She taps me repeatedly. Her struggle grows feistier than before. I fling her right back once we’re deep enough into the woods.
The tears clinging to her eyelids completely stun me. She’s crying her eyes out.
“Let me help you,” she says, her choked breaths filling the air.
Is she fucking with me?
Surely, the girl knows I have accelerated healing. The Rhunhraefn must have revealed every morsel of information it has on me. How best to use me, to torture me. If it’s a trick, then it’s working because that look on her face is getting to me.
“Svenn, please.” Her eyebrows scrunch with concern, her tiny frame shaking. “I can help you pull them out.”
A long breath leaves me. I abide by her request and stop by a giant elm tree. My body tenses, anticipating her to run as soon as I set her on the ground. But Rhianelle immediately rushes to tend to the wounds on my back. I feel her small, trembling hands on my skin, trying to heal me.
“I’ll try to be gentle, but this will still hurt,” she warns.
“Leave it. It’s nothing.” I grunt, settling over a raised root. My body will purge the foreign object from my flesh even without her intervention. Though I admit this one is taking a bit longer than usual, even after she removes the arrowheads.
“They’ve coated the tip with Heket’s saliva. It’s poisonous,” she says in a fluster of panic. An odd tingle spreads across my skin the moment her elven restorative magic flows into me.
It feels strange being cared for and looked after. But I know she’s too weak and fatigued for this. Her pulse rate is getting way too fast from the anxiety.
“Enough, Rhianelle. I will heal,” I say to her.
“It is instant death if you don’t have an antidote—”
I grip her shoulders to keep her in place. “Nothing bad is going to happen to me. Trust me.”
“Do you promise?” she asks, the moisture gathering in her eyes threatening to fall. It baffles the hell out of me that she cares for me.
“Yes,” I reply in a clipped tone. The girl settles quietly beside me. I can tell she’s not convinced, but at least she’s no longer wasting her energy fussing over me.
She casts a slow look at her surroundings warily.
“Where are we?” Her voice shakes, despite her attempts to sound brave. I can almost taste her fear in the air. The dark forest is making Rhianelle nervous like a scared bunny. She doesn’t realize the only real monster in this place is me.
“Why have you brought me here?” she asks again.
“I don’t know.”
All I know is that I needed to get her somewhere safe. Our strange connection demands it. It has turned me into someone irrational. A fucking caveman.
Her head suddenly whirls to a dark figure in the distant trees.
“There’s something over there,” Rhianelle warns me, drawing her sword. She steps in front of me as if she can shield me from that horror.
I narrow my gaze at her.
The girl is out of her mind afraid but she’s keeping me behind her small back. I shake my head in disbelief. This can never be Lilith or her heirs. My breathing grows harsher.
There is no deception.
She is truly Rhianelle Wiolant.
I reach to touch the smooth skin in between her shoulder blades. A small gasp leaves her accompanied by an involuntary shiver. This longing has become unbearable. I plant my forehead against her back because fuck it.
“It’s just some abandoned armor. The guy is dead,” I mutter to her skin.
The stiffness in her muscle subsides. “I thought I saw something,” she says, sheathing her sword.
A sudden chill constricts the air when she turns.
The girl suddenly jumps onto my lap, locking her arms around my neck.
Her act catches me completely by surprise.
I don’t even get the chance to register her emotion.
It doesn’t stop me from relishing the way her body molds to mine.
I wrap my arm around her back, burying my face in her hair.
She’s so soft and warm. It’s like breathing in spring and sunlight.
Her nose nuzzles on the bare skin of my neck. I feel the rapid beat of her heart thudding against her ribcage. The poor thing is afraid. I stroke her hair. “It’s just a shadow—”
A deep-throated groan rips from my throat the moment she sinks her teeth into my flesh.
I don’t understand what the hell she’s doing.
Whatever it is, she’s summoning the worst of my innermost desires.
I’m suddenly all too aware of her perfect ass settling on my thigh.
My thoughts spiral to the way her spine arches to meet every savage thrust—I close my eyes, summoning whatever control I can find.
“Rhianelle.”
She still won’t let go of me.
Any chance of suppressing the beast in me obliterates at the first stroke of her tongue against my skin. She’s licking and sucking my neck like a little vampire.
“Keep at that if you want to be fucked against this tree,” I growl.
I feel her body flinch. She pushes my chest and pulls away. Horror surges into her when she finally comes to her senses. “I’m—I’m sorry. I don’t know what came over me.”
That tremor in her voice forces me to calm down any carnal lust and focus on her. I try looking into her eyes.
A chaotic swirl of emotions fills that gaze; fear, hate, hurt, and strange enough; desire. I thought she was scared but I get it now. Rhianelle is suffering from this weird attraction too. Her soft hand touches the mark she made on my neck.
“I’ve hurt you,” she mutters with a brittle voice.
“You’ve stabbed me multiple times. I think I’ll survive a little bite.” I rasp a low chuckle. My attempt at comforting her just makes her more miserable. Sorrow covers her entire features and her ears droops.
“It’s fine,” I breathe.
“No, it’s not,” she insists, burying her fingers into her silver hair, tugging the roots. The sadness in her face turns into hopeless confusion.
“Something is wrong with me.” Her voice sounds so small that it cuts me.
I hate to see her this way.
“All I’ve ever wanted to do is run my hand on your skin from that first morning,” I confess some of my tamer thoughts.
“It’s the same for you?” she asks quietly.
Worse. But I just nod at her.
It’s not like I can tell her the number of times I’ve fantasized about having my cock between her parted lips.
“Can I just hold you? I promise I won’t bite again.” Her cheeks turn bright red.
“Come here,” I say, pulling her closer to me.
Waves of her silver hair spill down my chest as she rests her head on my shoulder. She feels so perfect and right in my arms.
“Somehow I just feel so much better like this,” she whispers, her shallow breaths brushing my skin. Life seems to return to her face. This proximity and the touch, it’s good for both of us.
“Maybe this strange link has something to do with the Arawynn bond,” she suggests.
It has nothing to do with the strange Elven contract on our wrist or the Rhunhraefn. This is something else entirely.
A strange sense of contentment courses through me.
It would have been easy if this connection was just pure lust, but I missed her.
It’s been three days, four nights. Too fucking long.
I’m not letting her out of my sight again.
We remain like that for what seems like forever.
Neither of us willing to part from one another.
The weak sunlight fails to penetrate the denseness of this forest. There’s still dew clinging to the spiderwebs and branches.
This is what I’ve been waiting for, isn’t it? The perfect opportunity to kill her. There will be no interference from the demons or her knights.
Rhianelle is still nestling comfortably in my arms, soaking in my warmth. I remind myself she is the Rhunhraefn’s vessel. Taking her life is the only certain way I can escape the clutches of the evil witch. I’ve killed people for far less, burned down villages, and tore down cities to ruin.
Why should this one matter? She’s just another girl. My hand morphs into sharpened claws, as hideous as the thought running through my head.
Rhianelle has a small look of surprise on her face, as if the reality of what I am is finally sinking in. But there’s no fear in her eyes. I’m not sure if I should be in awe or irritated by her reaction.
She’s easy prey leaning on my chest. I run my fingers over the throbbing pulse in her throat.
Come on.
One quick movement and she is gone. I’ll return to that dungeon and that’ll be the end of it.
My fingers track higher to her face, trailing every soft line. Two seconds ago, I was ready to take her life; I don’t know how I ended up caressing her cheek instead.
Her delicate hand brushes my clenched jaw to imitate whatever I’m doing to her.
That soft touch sends a deep ache spiraling through me.
Everything goes completely mute and tranquil.
Even the constant chaos in my mind is drowning.
I find myself enjoying the quiet reprieve. I close my eyes, lost in the sensation.
“Svenn.”
It’s hard for me to concentrate with her hand stroking my face like this but I make an effort to open my eyes.
“I think I was meant to find you. I heard your call.” Her voice is sweet and low. “Don’t you recognize me?”
She reaches for my hand, placing her palm awkwardly against the large talons. The act is familiar, like a distant memory.
It’s vague but yes, I remember.
My breathing grows harsher. “It’s you.”
Little fawn.
I thought the meeting was just another dream.
After years of pleading in the dark, the universe finally answered me. But I didn’t ask to be released from my tomb. I prayed for an end to this suffering. I waited for the divine to send a great warrior or some fell beast to finally slay me.
I wanted salvation.
I stare down at the girl in my arms. This is the answer to my prayers?
This small and docile elf…
No.
It’s a cruel joke. This can’t be true. I have to kill her now before it’s too late. It’s now or never.
Her eyelids flutter softly, revealing her pure and clear eyes. I hate how there is no color on the pallet to describe her irises. I’ve settled on calling them lilac but that doesn’t do them justice. It’s so damn irritating and frustrating.
I force myself to take a deep breath to finish her. One strike and let us be done with it, I command myself. The hand that has brought down countless men without conscience starts shaking madly the moment I raise it. It’s so simple and easy.
But I can’t do it.
I blame those eyes. They’re so frustrating. Yet they’re the most wondrous thing I’ve ever seen.
Perhaps later tonight when she’s asleep.
“The fight is almost over,” I tell her to distract myself. “None of your men— elves are killed.”
I feel her small nod on my chest.
She still has her arms weaved around my neck. The bond’s hold on Rhianelle must be as strong as mine because she doesn’t let go. I rise and carry her with one arm easily. It’s the least I can do before I take her life tonight.
I move towards the thing she feared earlier.
“Don’t go that way,” she says with alarm, hiding her face in my neck. “It’s dangerous.”
“Open your eyes,” I coax her softly. “There’s no monster. It’s just a dead knight.”
The girl peeks slowly to look down.
“Hmm.” She merely nods, scrunching her nose.
The tree looks as if it had burst out from the dead knight’s chest cavity. Now that I think about it maybe I shouldn’t have shown her such a gruesome sight.
“Something feels wrong. I don’t like it.” She clings to me tighter, her long waves of hair tickling my skin. As much as I love having her soft curves pressed to me, I don’t enjoy her distress.
I almost turn away to leave but that’s damn good armor. What a waste for it to lay there in the vines to rust.
“The metal is rare.” I marvel at the strange thing.
“It’s dwarven made. But it’s wrong to loot from the dead.” I can hear the frown in her voice.
“Good thing I’m one of them.” I yank the black armor from its resting place. I make sure to take a longer road and detour as we stroll back through the woods.
The elves are still in the midst of battle by the time we arrive. I refuse to let her go until the last scream of the raiders fades. After a long protest, I release her from my embrace. I step into the shadows the moment her handmaidens and knights rush to check on her.
Her twinkling eyes return to look at me for a moment. A faint smile graces her lips.
Just like that, I am struck with a yearning so deep it feels like someone notched an arrow in my wing and I’m free-falling to the ground.
No, Rhianelle Wiolant is not my salvation.
She will be my doom.