Page 17 of Taken By the Lord of the Nocturne Court

The prince opens the folded piece of paper and for a moment just stares at it. His eyelids lower, his long lashes make his eyes almost black, and he looks up at me with a face carved in ice.

I’m fucked.

So fucked.

Chapter 8

Luke

Dread sinks its icy claws into my flesh as Kyranis’s features freeze into a half-smiling mask. Not a muscle stirs in his handsome face, but his eyes darken from the soot of the anger burning inside him.

With a sharp gesture, Kyranis shoves a tiered stand with food off the table, sending the dainty canapes and nibbles to the floor.

“I think you’ve had enough food,” he says in a voice made of steel.

“The soup was very nice…” I try, not daring to glance at Reiner who didn’t even attempt to save the food. I’m feeling like that time BBB’s regional manager came to visit our branch only to find out we’d broken the ice cream machine on purpose. Too bad it’s my life on the line this time, not just my job.

Reiner takes half a step closer, his hands briefly rising, but he’s smart enough not to utter a word and remains in the background, letting me bear the brunt of the Shadow Lord’s anger.

“Oh, did you want to take it with you?” Kyranis asks, towering over me like a personification of fury.

“No, I—”What to do?I need to appease him, so I do the same thing I did when confronted by the regional manager. I lie. “Maybe I didn’t choose the right words. I wanted her to help me prepare for the wedding, since all this is so new to me.” It sounds fake even to myears. Fuck.

Kyranis leans closer, and his hair becomes bushier, as if he were a bristling animal. I prepare myself for a punch, but he grabs my arm and drags me across the floor scattered with remains of food, and out into the hallway.

“I’m sorry!” My pitch rises, and I hold onto the cloak around me as if it can shield me from Kyranis’s wrath. I acted too hastily. I was building a connection with him and should have gone downthatroute instead.

But is it really my fault that I panicked? It’s not every day that you’re abducted by an elven prince and taken to the Nightmare Realm. I’d say I’m freaking out less than the average person.

Kyranis’s lips remain sealed as he leads me farther down the majestic corridor with golden and silver decoration, all the way to a tall, arched door at the very end. He makes an impatient gesture, and it opens before us, like the gates of hell.

“Didn’t you promise the other… elves,” I find it hard to say that out loud, “that we’ll see them?” Not that I want to, but at least then I wouldn’t be alone with Kyranis. Right now, he’s as angry as he is beautiful, so I’d rather have company who might dissuade him from doing anything drastic.

It seems I won’t be getting a choice, because he shoves me inside.

I can’t help it, I yelp at the sudden pain in my back.

“Watch it!” I growl at him despite my better judgment. Sometimes, my rebellious side gets the better of me regardless of consequences, and he’s pushing me to my limit.

Kyranis’s tall form fills the door, so very dark against the illumination farther down the corridor, but then he flicks his hand against the wall, and the interior fills with a greenish light.

I spin around, looking for a way out, and when I spot a divider shaped like vines crawling up to the ceiling along poles made of a shimmering metal, I dash through the doorway in the latticed partition.

I know I’ve made a mistake when Kyranis chuckles and follows me without hurry. I don’t have the time to take everything in, but there’s a bed with a grand headboard, and red flower petals scattered over the silky black sheets.

I grab something off a dainty table nearby and hold it in front of me like a knife, but it turns out to be a hairbrush, which makes this ordeal all the more humiliating, but I stick to my guns.

“Stay back!” I yell, though I don’t know what I’m threatening him with. That I’ll brush his already perfect hair?

Kyranis enters through the door, and then... locks it, with a key, which he stuffs into his breast pocket.

My brain buzzes in alarm, and when I spot another door nearby, I dash for it, but instead of another corridor, it reveals a massive bathing suite.

I am locked up with a predator. And I’ve not only earned his wrath but also entered the cage on my own. No wonder he laughed.

I stand taller, even though I’m nowhere near his height.

“This isn’t fair! You can’t hold me to a promise I made when I was fourteen!” I try, feeling helpless and as trapped as the first time I tried to run away from boarding school, only to be caught crossing the fence.