Page 26 of The Shadow Fae Rhapsody (Elven Fantasy Romance #3)

Chapter 25 Svenn

T all One is silent as he leads me to the slammer. The guy manages to find a cloak large enough to cover my battered body. Stench of the rotting dead fills my nostrils on our trail. The bandits didn’t bother pulling down their comrades I’d nailed to the wall days ago. Vultures and crows will have a feast tonight with the fresh additions from today.

The knight takes me to a temporary holding cell instead of the dreadful underground dungeon.

“Darstan,” I call out to him. My voice is a cold, emotionless void. An exact representation of how I feel inside.

He turns, fully facing me with his eyebrows raised.

“Tell my wife—Rhianelle I need to see her. Please.” I have never begged in my long existence. But I don’t mind getting on my fucking knees if it means I get to see her again.

The knight merely nods before leaving me in the prison. He doesn’t bother locking me in.

I slump down on the hard granite floor. The wounds over my body are beginning to heal. I wish they will not. Not after what I did to her.

Last night, I thought I was going to be the one to give her the key to this fortress. I was going to make her smile.

Instead of that, I shifted into one of the worst monsters and tried to betray Rhianelle. I remember the horror in Red’s eyes when I morphed into Wendy in front of him to look at the knight’s stalker.

That was a partial shift.

I revealed the Fallen’s full feature to little fawn earlier. I can’t seem to wash that last look on her face out of my mind. What was it? Fear? Disappointment?

I didn’t mean to show myself, Wendy whispers over at the dark corner of my heart. Have we truly lost the girl?

I don’t fucking know.

Probably.

But even at my worst, Rhianelle did not use the Rhunhraefn to subdue me. She doesn’t have to. Her powers had far surpassed Lilith’s and her vile curse.

I’ve been a bastard to her from the start. She kept throwing me a line and I had refused it every time.

I want to hammer my head to a wall over and over. There are so many things I do not know of Rhianelle and her past. Now I may never get the chance to understand her. The guilt threatens to swallow me with every passing second.

I thought I had a perfect clarity of what pain is after years of torture. Lilith once burned me alive, flogged and whip me until my spine broke. Hell, she once poured melted silver down my throat to seal my mouth shut. But all those sufferings seem almost nothing compared to the pain reigning over me at this moment.

The air rattles with chaotic screaming, turmoil, and the sound of life leaving one’s body. I let my mind drift some place dark and quiet until the upheaval soon shifts into a celebration.

The elves have won the fortress.

Whatever comes next is something that always arrives after a conquest.

Plunder.

The sound of heavy footsteps carries to my ears. I lift my head to the commotion. Five armed elves are rounding up against one dwarf.

“Where do you hide the gold?” one of the hired swords asks, his features hidden underneath his cowl.

“I have none! I’m a prisoner here,” the dwarf exclaims desperately.

The creature bears little resemblance to the diminutive beings described in human fairytales. Shorter than humans, yes. But whatever the dwarf lacks in height, he makes for in breadth. Most of his ginger hair is hidden beneath his work cap. He appears like someone well into his fifties if he is human, though his face is not harshly wrinkled, covered mostly by a thick beard the same color as his hair.

“Liar!” One of the elves seethes, and they start kicking their victim to the ground. The unfair fight is an ugly thing to watch. They somehow herd the creature into my cage.

“You give me that gold, you little—” The words vanish from the mercenary’s throat when he sees me in the dark corner.

All five of them become as pale as a ghost. The sight of my cloaked figure, with metals, weapons jutting all over my body will bring them nightmares for years to come.

Good.

My presence deters them from going an inch further. One of them locks the door and turns to the dwarf. “We’ll get you later.”

I raise my brows at their promise of return. I guess these mercenaries value gold more than their lives. Silence ensues over their departure.

“There must be something really bad behind me for those guys to take flight,” the dwarf mutters a nervous joke as he turns around.

Horror creeps into his features, accompanied by the quickening of his pulse the moment our eyes lock.

To my surprise, the fear does not last long.

“What the hell happened to you?” His chest heaves with several deep breaths before he scoots closer to me.

I don’t answer him.

“Do you need help, son?” he asks earnestly.

I become even more bewildered when he bends down to help me remove the weapons from my body. The act punches a hole in my gut because it reminds me so much of my wife, always keen to help a stranger in need.

“Leave it,” I say, leaning back on the cell. “It’s not like I can die a second death.”

He doesn’t listen as he pulls a wooden shaft from my shin. His eyes widen at the way my wound rapidly heals after the removal of the arrow.

“A vampire, huh?” he mutters, wiping blood off his broken nose. “It must have been you then who stormed this fortress days ago?”

I merely nod at his question.

“I get bits and pieces of news from my jailors,” he says casually. The male takes off his vest to protect me from the dwindling light of day. I’m too bemused by his act to tell him that the sun doesn’t affect me. “So how did the elves force you to serve them?”

“I do it willingly,” I admit.

He arches a brow over my answer.

“I married one of them.”

The dwarf barks out a laugh. It’s warm, hearty, and it lights up his eyes. “I guess that makes it all worth it then. But why are you imprisoned here?”

The familiar ache surges in my chest at the question. It must have shown on my face because the dwarf doesn’t wait for my answer.

“A fight with her then, I see,” he surmises on his own. “A little marriage tip, lad. Whatever it is that happened, just tell her you’re sorry.”

Not a terrible advice, but what I did to Nel warrants more than a simple apology.

He continues removing the shrapnels embedded in my body. “You need special tools for some of these,” he mutters grimly.

I’m not one who likes to make small talk, but something about the dwarf intrigues me. I look at the scarring over his calloused hand, one earned from spending hours and days in a forge. “You’re a blacksmith?”

“Yes, the best in Dunrovin,” he replies, beaming with pride. “It’s the reason the orcs let me stay up here. To forge them their weapons. The rest of my people are trapped in their dungeon.”

“They’re over at the west wing,” I inform, relaying to him what I gathered over my last visit to Tavan. “But you can’t go there. The elves would be all over that place by now.”

“I have to try,” he says, his eyes growing serious, haunted. “You don’t know the unspeakable things the elves will do to my kind.”

They will?

A small part of me regrets that I didn’t bother freeing his brethren days ago when I stormed the fortress.

“Things are different now. The elves have a different queen,” I say, certain that Rhianelle will never allow for such injustice.

“The one with the same name as the vile one before her?” He quirks an eyebrow.

I won’t have it if the guy starts mocking my Nel. But he doesn’t. The dwarf merely slumps his shoulders, exhaustion laying heavy upon him. “Maybe things are different. The tight-ass elves of Aelfheim have never mingled well with other kinds before, yet here you are, married to one.”

I hear the clanking sound of boots echoing from a distance. The mercenaries are returning with more forces, adamant to get their gold from this dwarf. I shouldn’t intervene. The strong will always devour the weak. Such is the nature of life.

But Rhianelle’s soft voice filters through my mind.

‘Help me protect the innocent.’

She didn’t just say elves or one of her own.

The innocent.

I glance at the helpful dwarf, still tending to my wounds, completely oblivious to the incoming threat.

“Hrólfr…” I mutter the name carved on the empty scabbard on his belt.

The male gazes at me, mildly surprise at the mention of his name. “You can read dwarven letterings?”

It’s all thanks to Kheirall’s stupid necklace, but I don’t have time to get into that.

The male grins at me, all teeth. “You continue to surprise me, vampire. Call me Rollo.”

“They’re coming back for you,” I warn him swiftly.

“Well, let them come. I’m going down fighting,” he says, cracking his knuckles.

This blacksmith may have a warrior’s spirit in him, but he won’t stand a chance against thirteen elven soldiers out for blood.

I reach out and bend the metallic bars of the holding cell to give a wide enough room for the dwarf to escape. “Go.”

His mouth drops as he stares at me and my bizarre strength. Survival instinct quickly kicks in him and he moves to the opening.

Rollo suddenly pauses. “You’re not coming?”

“No.” I extend my arm to the selection of weapons jutting from the flesh over my arm. “Take one.”

He hesitates at my offer. Well, technically, anyone would balk if a gift is presented to them in this grotesque manner. I pull the stupid dwarven dagger that fucked everything for me today. It’s harmless now.

“This one may suit you best.” I offer the beautiful, smooth blade to him.

The dwarf’s eyes bulges at the sight of the thing in my hand. His knees crashes to the ground as shock and horror flash upon his face.

“How did you have this in your possession?” he asks, his deep voice breaking. He backs away from the weapon as if expecting it to grow teeth.

“It comes with a powerful curse,” the male says, finally taking another breath.

I know, I almost tell him.

A long beat passes when he finally gathers his wits. The dwarf takes the weapon with shaky hands, inspecting it closely. “But it’s completely purified now.”

My wife did that.

Yes, Nel cleansed that thing from all its evil. Pride soars in my chest amongst the pieces of my shredded heart.

“Are you sure you want me to have it?” Rollo asks again.

I merely nod in dismissal.

“I will never forget this kindness.” He taps my shoulder. “You’re a good man.”

The words shouldn’t have meant anything. I’m a vampire for fuck’s sake, but my chest tightens at the remark.

I’m a better person because of Nel.

The dwarf sneaks through the opening and disappears into the shadows.

Pain explodes in my knee from a spear embedded there. I ignore it. The wait is excruciating. I can’t stand another second knowing that she hates me, or worse, she’s afraid of me.

You’re my mate.

She told me yesterday, before everything went to hell. I want to hear her voice once again, calling my name, asking me of my day, and the books I read.

I want to see her. I want to hold her.

God, I just need her.

I miss the evenings we spent together. I crave for more of it in our future. The world slowly darkens to black the longer I am apart from her. It can’t end this way… There are so many things left unspoken between us.

I can’t lose her.