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He stayed silent for what felt like an eternity, then replied, “I’m just looking.”
Whose voice was that?
It wasn’t his. It was too cold, detached. It was so devoid of warmth, of its arrogant streak.
Slowly, he turned to me. “For now,” he added.
Where had he gotten those black clothes? It was a color my people never wore, not even during mourning. Frowning more deeply, I studied the intricate obsidian patterns on his matte tunic: Placed on his forearms, shoulders, and chest, they resembled the plates of refined armor.
“How did you find this place?” I asked, advancing cautiously down the aisle, my gaze flicking from one side to the other in search of the evil presence I had sensed when I was with my parents. “Only the oldest of the faithful knew of its existence before it was sealed.”
He didn’t answer, limiting himself to peering at me so strangely.
There was something off with him. Something different. Something wrong. Something that made me stop halfway.
“How did you get in?” I asked again, trying to read his expression. “I am the only one who can access it, as the temple is protected by a spell tied to my blood.”
A subtle half-smile dawned on his lips, the fires casting an eerie play of light and shadow across his face. “And your blood runs through me as well, Elf.”
I had heard him say that nickname countless times—with malice, anger, passion, or frustration.
But what I now sensed in his tone was repugnance.
“It’s . . . it’s not possible,” I replied, dazed by his attitude and his appearance and his words. “We . . . we have not yet celebrated the union ceremony. We have . . . we have just—”
“Fucked,” he said in a stark tone. He put his hands behind his back and started walking toward me.
“Did you really think I was just washing your wounds in that tub to look after you?” His eyes gleamed with perversion.
“Day after day, bit by bit, I merged your blood with mine.” He paused about three feet from me, scanning me with superiority. “And mine with yours.”
My heart started kicking against my ribs, and my breathing grew louder and louder, and my memory recalled all those moments.
Recalled that suspicious warmth I had felt whenever he touched me.
“You couldn’t have,” I replied, my voice small, as if I were talking to myself. “Magic doesn’t work in the Lands of the West.”
“Your magic, Elf. Not mine.” He lifted his chin with pride. “Mine knows no boundaries.”
Silence stretched endlessly between us.
My mind was trying to process something important, but my heart was shouting so loudly that I couldn’t get my own thoughts in order.
And then, suddenly, I heard it.
That monstrous cry I had carried inside me for a thousand years burst out once more in my ears, as vivid and powerful as that dreadful day, and my soul cried out in despair.
My eyes gradually widened, filling with tears. Panic and disbelief spread through me like billions of icy streams, leaving me paralyzed.
It couldn’t be real.
It. Couldn’t. Be. Real.
But when he taunted me with a smirk, all my hopes shattered, and a weeping I dared not show tore through me from inside.
Pleased with my destruction, he turned away and headed back toward the Crystal with deliberate slowness.
“I spent centuries searching for it, but all I could sense was you. Now, at last, I feel his power again.” He stopped before the holder, his broad shoulders rising and falling as he let out a disgruntled sigh.
“If only I hadn’t been so stubborn about not binding myself to you a thousand years ago, I would already be sitting on the throne of my new world by now. ”
I pressed one hand to my chest, gasping from the pain and feeling like I was running out of oxygen in my burning lungs.
Gasping in fear.
I had to move, move, move.
I had to raise the alarm.
He gave a half-laugh heavy with resentment. “But I suppose she had foreseen all this. Isn’t that right, Calien?”
Hearing him say my grandmother’s name felt like a whip that snapped me out of that state of paralyzing terror.
It brought me back to my senses.
I blinked fast to clear the last of my tears before shifting my gaze from him to the statues along the circular perimeter of the room. Gingerly, I began moving toward the ones on my right.
“You can’t take it,” I declared in Elvish, drawing the elaborate gold sword from the scabbard of one of the sculptures.
“Yes, Elf,” he said in the common tongue, a hint of annoyance in his voice. “I clearly recall the spell you cast when you pulled it from my armor.”
With adrenaline surging through my veins, I kept the sword behind me as I moved until I was to his right, close enough to strike a fatal blow.
Close enough for every fiber of my being to be magnetized by his presence.
“It must be given,” I said in a furious hiss.
His head canted toward me so slowly and sinisterly that I shuddered. “And you will give it to me, Nauriel.”
He said my name as he had done all night, as if it were the most erotic word there was, rolling his tongue around the last syllable as he had done when he had stuck it into my sex.
I felt like throwing up, the hilt suddenly slippery in my palm.
His vulturine gaze pierced me like a blade as he turned fully to face me. “You, and you alone.”
A scorching wrath skewered me like lightning.
In a quick motion, I seized the sword’s hilt with my other hand as well, spun on the spot, and swung a horizontal blow aimed to decapitate him.
He raised one hand.
The sword hit an invisible barrier.
But that wasn’t what startled me.
It was his fingers.
They were dreadfully black, as if he had dipped them in coal dust.
Fingers that knew me by heart. Fingers I had squeezed with all my being. Fingers that had comforted, saved, and loved me.
Fingers that had lied to me.
Slowly, my eyes returned to his, and a lacerating pain twisted my face when I realized there was no humanity left in them.
They were the eyes of evil.
And they were so intense that they wore out my spirit and crushed my willpower.
They made me his slave.
Tears got stuck between my lashes as I continued pushing against his invisible shield, whispering hotly, “ Why?”
He looked at me as if he was enjoying watching my heart breaking apart piece by piece. He opened his mouth to answer me and . . .
“Nauriel!”
We both whipped our heads toward the temple entrance.
“Araton!” I screamed.
But before my brother could even appear at the threshold with the soldiers I heard him running with, the heavy doors magically closed with a resounding thud.
In the next instant, an invisible force slammed me against the wall behind me, holding me against the cold stone as the one who controlled it approached me with eerie calm.
“Drop it,” he ordered.
I felt his power forcing me to open the fingers with which I was still gripping the sword, but I gritted my teeth and resisted.
He barely raised his left hand, and as he slowly closed it, his invisible grasp tightened. “ Drop. It,” he repeated in a monstrous hiss.
The pain became unbearable, and with a suffering, enraged grunt, I let the hilt go.
The weapon clanged to the floor. Araton started shoulder-pushing the door alongside the soldiers, roaring my name over and over.
However, I could barely hear his voice because my world had shrunk to the terrible person who towered over me in all his invincibility.
I couldn’t tolerate the sight of him.
Still, I couldn’t drag my eyes away from him.
“You know, I’m almost regretting not being able to wait a bit longer before coming to the Crystal,” he said softly.
I despised the way he looked at me— all of me.
I despised the way my body trembled.
“We could have had so much more fun . . .” he added, trailing the back of his index finger along the curve of my breast.
I tried to move, but his invisible power restrained me completely. “Don’t you dare touch me,” I snarled.
His expression darkened further as, to my horror, he moved two fingers from bottom to top, creating a deep slit in my skirt. “Don’t you dare push me away,” he hissed.
And he slid his index and middle fingers inside me.
I hated myself for the moan I made and punished myself by hitting my head against the wall. He spread my arousal over my clit, pressing so hard I had to bite my lip to stop any more shameful sounds of pleasure from spilling out of my mouth, turning my head to the side to avoid his gaze.
Trying to disappear.
He grasped my chin with his other hand and forced me to turn my face toward him. “Look at me, Nauriel.” I refused. “Look at me.” He penetrated me again, with such force that my eyes widened at the blend of pain and pleasure he had taught me to crave. “ Always.”
Hearing him repeat the exact words he had spoken to me last night, as he possessed me for the first time, devastated me.
“Nauriel!” shouted my father from outside the temple.
The enemy’s mouth twisted cruelly to one side. “Imagine if I let him in now . . .” He traced my upper lip with his tongue. “Imagine if he saw you like this . . . If he saw how much you’re enjoying getting off on my hand.”
“Please, no,” I gasped in fear between my moans.
He quickened the pace of his fingers, with the heel of his hand pressing steadily against my clit. “Then come,” he ordered.
I suffered from not being able to ride his fingers. From not being able to run. “No,” I replied, clenching the walls of my sex to try to stop him from reaching the point that would make me explode.
He slammed my head against the wall so hard that the edges of my vision darkened for an instant.
“Come on my fucking hand, Elf,” he hissed, tightening his hold on my jaw.
Swiftly, I lowered my chin to bite the space between his thumb and forefinger. He promptly pulled back his hand, and my teeth’s snap caused his eyes to shine with a sadistic excitement.
“Never again,” I growled.
His lips crashed on mine.
At first, I tried to resist him, but his tongue caressed mine in a way that made my knees shake, and I surrendered to the vehemence of his kiss. I panted and moaned into his mouth, his fingers bringing me close to the edge.
And suddenly I felt his power loosen until I could move my arms.
Yet, instead of hitting him or pushing him away, I ran my hands through his hair, pulling to elicit that deep sound of pleasure he had been pouring into my mouth all night.
But then.
Then I whispered his name.
No, I whispered the name he had given me.
Not his true name.
In a flash, he pressed one hand to my lips and regained control of his invisible force, locking my arms against the wall again.
The murderous look he gave me made me realize how much it had upset him that I had called him by that name.
The stare I gave him back made him realize how betrayed I felt, and a muscle in his clenched jaw fired.
His fingers curled inside me, touching the right spot. I cried out against his palm, my gaze at the mercy of his as ecstasy invaded me in ever more intense waves.
However, just before I reached the climax, a powerful explosion shook the structure, prompting us to turn toward the entrance doors.
The witches.
They were trying to break down the enemy’s magic.
He removed his hand from my mouth with a furious snort and withdrew his fingers from my vagina.
The sense of abandonment and incompleteness that swept over me was so traumatic that I found myself gasping, “Wait—”
He stuck his arousal-slick fingers in my mouth, silencing me, not at all worried I might bite them off.
I tasted myself with a moan, then he abruptly pulled his hand back and sucked his two phalanges as well, casting another glower at the entrance when a second detonation almost knocked the double doors open.
Finally, he returned his focus to me. “It’s time for you to see what you’ve become,” he announced grimly.
He held up his right hand before my face and, beginning with his little finger, closed each finger in turn.
I felt a strange burning sensation around my eyes, then it was as if an impalpable veil slipped off my face.
Uncovering me.
Revealing something so dark that a surge of panic gushed within me.
“What did you just do to me?” I asked under my breath.
He gave a hint of a smirk. “See you soon, Elf,” he said mockingly.
He let the temple doors swing open with a blast-like thud, and as my brother, father, and soldiers rushed in, he vanished into a swirl of black flames rising from the floor beneath his boots.