Chapter 13 Rhianelle
I plunge deeper into the cave system beyond. My lungs burn as I sprint through the darkness, using my hands to guide me along the rough walls. This is foolish and I know it.
Svenn’s a predator perfected by centuries of hunting.
I’ve just made myself prey.
What was I thinking? I shouldn't have provoked him and told him about the fae. Now the bond itself is chasing me through the darkness and I have nowhere to go.
A shadow moves in my peripheral vision. I spin but nothing's there.
"Why are you running, little fawn?" His voice bounces off the cave walls, making it impossible to tell where he is. "You wanted to see the monster. Don't you want to play?"
I press against a wall, trying to calm my ragged breathing. This is Svenn, I remind myself desperately.
Svenn loves me. He would never truly hurt me.
But this version of his is something else entirely.
“I can hear your heartbeat,” he calls, closer this time. “It’s pounding so loudly I could follow it blind.”
I duck into a narrow passage, pressing myself flat against the wall to catch my breath. My heart is indeed racing from running and the fear.
His voice is closer now. “Come out now.”
A silhouette passes the entrance to my passage. I hold my breath, pressing harder against the stone until I feel like I’m part of the wall itself.
The shadow moves on.
I wait until I'm sure he's gone. Then I slip out and run in the opposite direction. But the caves are a maze. Every passage looks the same in the dim phosphorescent light.
"Are we playing chase?" His voice carries dark amusement. "I always win this game."
I find a small alcove hidden behind a jutting rock formation and squeeze inside. It's barely big enough for me but maybe if I stay perfectly still—
"You can't hide from me, Rhianelle."
His voice is right outside my hiding spot. My breath catches. I clamp my hand over my mouth.
"I know exactly where you are," he murmurs. "I can smell your fear, your arousal and that frantic pulse when I'm near.”
He's so close I can feel the temperature drop from his presence. Frost forms on the stone near the alcove entrance. One wrong breath and he'll find me.
“Do you know what happens when I catch you?" His voice drops to something dark and hungry. "I'll show you why running was a mistake. Then I'll make sure you never forget who you belong to."
I should run. Every instinct screams it. But some treacherous part of me wants to know what happens when he catches me.
He stops moving. The silence stretches out, “Found you.”
I bolt from my hiding spot before his hand can grab me. He’s gaining on me. I race down another passage with my heart in my throat.
"You can't run forever, little fawn."
I burst into a larger cavern with multiple exits and choose one at random. My mistake is immediate. It’s a dead end. I spin around quickly.
But Svenn’s already there, filling the entrance and blocking my escape.
"There you are." The dark satisfaction in his voice makes my knees weak.
He doesn't move closer yet, just stands there watching me with those burning crimson eyes. I can see him clearly for the first time since the chains broke. He's magnificent and terrifying. His face is still Svenn's but sharper and more predatory.
"Nowhere left to run," he observes, taking one slow step forward.
I back up until I hit the cave wall. “Svenn—"
"I told you. Not Svenn." His eyes blaze brighter and he takes another step. "I'm the thing he pretends doesn't exist. The hunger he locks away."
"You won't hurt me." I'm trying to sound confident but my voice shakes, betraying me.
"Hurt you? No." He's close enough now that I have to tilt my head back to meet his eyes. "But I'm going to make you understand why Svenn keeps me caged. Why he was so afraid of letting me out."
What have I unleashed?
My mind races. I'm trapped in a dead end with something that wears my husband's face but isn't him. Not entirely. My heart pounds so hard I can hear it in my ears. Think, Rhianelle. Think.
I remember the wolf god in Astefar. How I'd held out my hand and that massive, terrifying creature had given me his paw. I had tamed something wild and dangerous through nothing but trust and will.
I try the same now, holding out my hand to the bond. "Come back."
Svenn stares at it for a moment. He then laughs, low, dark and amused. “What the fuck are you doing, little fawn."
He takes my hand but instead of gentling, he pins it above my head.
I lift my chin and meet his eyes. Defiance instead of fear.
"I'm not afraid of you."
He reaches out, his hand gently grasping my chin. His thumb traces my jaw, then slides down to my throat. He leans in and his tongue drags slowly up the column of my neck, tasting.
"Your pulse says otherwise." He pulls back to look at me. "But here's the interesting thing. It's not just fear, is it?"
I try to deny it, but the words won't come.
His smile is all predator, all hunger. "You think you can tell me another male claimed you and I'll just accept it?"
"I'm not property—"
"You're so much more than that." He cages me against the wall, arms on either side of my head, trapping me completely. “You are the only light I have known in a thousand years. And you think I will let anyone else touch what is mine?”
His hand moves to my throat, feeling my pulse race frantically beneath his fingers.
"Do you know what the bond wants me to do right now?" His voice is seductive and dangerous. "It wants to mark you so thoroughly that every fae, every elf, every being in existence will know you belong to me."
I gasp.
He leans closer, breath cold against my ear. "But I'm starting to think you knew that when you came here. When you told me about the fae commander. You wanted this reaction, didn't you?"
"I wanted you to understand that I chose you," I whisper.
He pulls back to look at me. Something flickers in those crimson eyes. I reach up carefully to touch his face. He goes completely still under my hand. “I want all of you."
His hand covers mine, pressing it harder against his cheek. "You want me?”
Svenn’s eyes burn brighter and suddenly I'm pressed harder against the cave wall, his body covering mine completely.
"Careful what you wish for." His mouth is at my throat now. "Once I start, I won't stop. Not until you're so thoroughly claimed that you'll feel me in every breath, every heartbeat, every moment for eternity."
He pulls back to meet my eyes. “Last chance, Rhianelle. I’ll let call for Svenn and beg him to come back. Tell him to fight me and lock me away again. Because if you don't—"
I silence him by pulling his mouth down to mine.
He removes his lips from me and leaves me gasping for air.
He kisses me again, deeper this time and I feel myself melting into him. This is still the monster Svenn warned me about.
"Did you know that I might keep you here?" His rough voice is the sound of dark lullabies. "Lock you in these caves where you'd be mine and only mine forever?"
I bite my inner cheek and say nothing. The answer is written all over my face.
"And you still came?"
He lifts me effortlessly over his shoulder and carries me back through the tunnels.
“Put me down.” I thump a useless fist against his back.
He doesn’t so much as break stride. I keep trying to wriggle free. An arm tightens around my thighs in silent warning. There’s no breaking that hold. The fight drains from me in a slow exhale. I bury my face against warm skin instead, breathing him in despite myself.
The main den opens before us. Svenn doesn’t stop until we reach the bed piled high with wolf pelts. He tosses me onto the mound. I back away instinctively toward the head of the bed. He follows, stalking over me on hands and knees.
“Svenn has been kind.” He smiles without warmth. “I won’t go as easy on you, sweetheart.”
The nickname is a mockery on his tongue.
His hand slides between my thighs. I know what he’ll find even before his fingers slip beneath the silk band. A whimper still escapes me when he feathers his knuckles over my intimate part.
He makes a low sound of satisfaction.
"Look at you," he murmurs. "You’re so wet for me.”
His fingers slide inside me. I gasp and my back arches off the furs. He works me with devastating precision, thumb circling while his fingers curl and stroke. The pleasure builds impossibly fast.
"That's it," he says softly. "Let me feel you."
I shatter around his fingers, crying out.
Before I've recovered, he settles over me and pins me to the furs. He enters me and I arch off the bed with the force of it. The stretch is almost too much.
He braces one hand against the wall above the bed. The other grips my hip. Then he starts moving. The bed slams against the wall in a rhythmic thump that matches the pounding in my heart. His hips thrust hard against mine and he buries himself to the hilt.
His face tenses as I touch him. I trace his features, trying to ground myself in sensation. "You need to stop that, Rhianelle," he warns.
But I don't stop.
I see him now.
This isn't the Svenn who tries to restrain himself, who holds back out of fear of hurting me. This is my husband in his most unhinged form. The bond itself given flesh and terrible hunger.
The rhythm he sets is relentless. Each strokes drives me higher. I stare into those punishing dark eyes, unable to look away. I can't get enough of the intense way he's staring down at me, like I'm the only thing that exists in his entire world.
"You wanted this to happen," he says, voice rough. “Remember that.”
The pleasure builds overwhelmingly. My vision starts to white at the edges. I'm going to break apart.
I do.
The orgasm crashes through me so intensely I see stars. My whole body convulses. I can't breathe or think. I can't do anything but feel.
He doesn't stop moving. My body spikes with pleasure so intense I instinctively tried to pull away. I crawl toward the edge of the bed. He catches my ankle easily and drags me back with a dark laugh.
"Where do you think you're going?"
"Please—"