Page 127 of The Nymph Prince

Her milky-white eyes widened and the black around them made her resemble a walking corpse. She was too disintegrated; too horrifying. I wondered how she was even alive. She laughed as the dagger shot out of my hand. Black seeped from her mouth and coated her yellow teeth.

“Enough,” a male voice commanded. “Step away from the king’s body, witch. You’re getting your filth on him.”

The seer released me and backed away, bowing her head and making a gurgling noise in the back of her throat.

I looked toward the men in robes, finding all but one had removed their hood.

Their faces were ghastly. Black goop was in the corners of their mouths and veins showed beneath their pale skin. However, the small glimpse of skin I saw on the one who’d spoken wasn’t decayed or rotted. The hood blocked most of his face, but his chin and mouth were visible. There was no cracked skin and no sickly veins.

No longer blocked by the seer, I retrieved my dagger from the grass and continued toward him. I knew not why I approached him when I’d been desperate to escape the clutches of the others. But my feet carried me forward, step by step, until I stood only feet away.

“Who are you?” I asked, holding my dagger tighter.

“You do not know me,” he answered.

His voice. There was familiarity to it, how it touched my ears like velvet, soft and smooth. Only one other voice had ever affected me in such a way, yet it wasn’t Lorcan under the hood.

“Show yourself.”

“Is that an order?” His mouth curved with a smile.

“More like common decency,” I retorted, keeping my eyes on him but also watching the other cloaked men from my peripherals. “You shouldn’t hide behind a hood when you meet someone.”

“As you wish.”

His hands weren’t bony like a dead man’s. Although pale, his skin looked more like porcelain. Long fingers and beautiful fingernails. He gripped the side of his hood and lowered it.

I gaped.

He wasn’t Lorcan…but he looked so much like him.

His pale hair fell to his shoulders in soft waves and the shape of his face brought forth the image of my mate: same high cheekbones and sharp jawline. Same lips. His brow even furrowed the same way. But his eyes were all wrong. Instead of the green I loved, the man’s eyes were crimson. Swirling red around black pupils.

“What’s the matter, Aleksander?” he asked, tilting his head toward me. “You look as if you’ve seen a ghost.”

He touched the middle of my forehead, and in an instant, my muscles turned to mush. It was hard to stay upright.

“You…I…” I stammered as my head started to spin. Something was wrong. So very wrong. A dizzy wave crashed over me and the man in front of me blinked in and out of my vision. My eyelids fluttered. “What’s happenin’ to me?”

“Relax, Aleksander.” He leaned in and slipped his hand around my waist. I knew I should be fighting him off, but my arms wouldn’t budge. I was a prisoner in my own body. “You’re only going to sleep for a while.” His lips touched my jaw. “Sleep, my king.”

***

A fire was burning nearby. I felt the warmth on my skin and heard the popping as the flames consumed the wood. With the smell of fire and musty air also came a flowery aroma that tickled my nose. A soft murmuring reached my ears.

When I opened my eyes, I found myself in the underground chamber of the temple.

“You wake at last.” The man who looked so much like my nymph crouched beside me. He wore a dark tunic with a leather chest plate over it. His pale hair was pulled back out of his face. “The hour is nearly upon us.”

Already? No! I’ve accomplished nothing. How long was I sleeping?

I tried to speak, but my throat was dry and I coughed.

“Here. Drink.” He placed a mug to my lips.

I jerked my head away, thinking it was another trick. With just a simple touch to my head earlier, he’d made me pass out. I wasn’t foolish enough to trust him.

“Calm yourself, dearest Aleksander,” he said with an amused snort before lifting the mug to his own lips and taking a drink. His crimson eyes brightened just like Lorcan’s green ones did. “It is only water. If I wished you dead, I would’ve slit your throat while you slept.”