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

Chapter 2 Rhianelle

I feel his power beckoning to me long before I see him walking towards us. The stagnant air in the tunnel trembles at his presence, becoming charged. I can’t fight the silly smile rising to my face as I call his name. “Svenn!”

My heart leaps at the sight of him, kicking and jumping in my chest. The joy vanishes the moment the rat demons arrive at the end of the tunnel right behind him.

Hundreds of them.

Running, swimming, crawling the walls like cockroaches.

Heavens above…

The fastest one draws close enough to strike him from the back. I get up to protect him but my stupid ankle fails me—just as the rat fails to bury its claw into Svenn.

Shadow coats the vampire’s body like armor. The same darkness now envelops me, protecting my body from harm.

Svenn levels a cool, unimpressed glare at the incoming threat. Everything happens so fast I barely register it. He snaps his fingers and flames dance before my eyes.

The beasts balk from him too little too late. A sea of fire surges from Svenn.

“Oh gods!”

The lethal inferno spreads, wiping out everything in its path. Heat fills every particle, every space between them as it blazes through the tunnel.

I lay myself on top of Shade to cover him since he has no protective barrier. Hopefully the assassin’s Grimsbane attire can shield him from this fury of hell. One second I hear the shrieking of hundreds of those dark beasts, the next nothing. Still the fire burns, like the wrath of an angry god.

When it finally smothers, I tilt my head up, opening my eyes. Embers float around us kissing my skin. They would have burned me if it weren’t for this swirling shadow, faithfully protecting me to the very end. I can hardly inhale a single breath. The air is too hot, sizzling. Each breath sends fire scorching through my lungs.

I run my hands over my body. Everything is intact but my throat feels raw, parched.

Water in the sewer route below hisses with a steam. It’s completely dried out. The rat demons—beast, every one of them has perished into nothingness.

A man stands amidst the ashes and smoke. Unconquerable and eternally powerful.

I take in a shaky breath. “Svenn…?”

The vampire turns to my voice. Just a glimpse of him and my heart sparks to life.

“Hello there, I was hoping to see you,” the sorcerer greets him. That merry, high-pitched tone is stained with success and triumph despite the death of his rat creatures. Dread coils in me at the possibility that this is a trap. Maybe his plan was always to get Svenn here.

“I welcome you fellow shadow tamer. We share the same power, for I too have killed a Yseldral in the past—”

Svenn walks past the eyeball to kneel at my side. The darkness in his eyes lightens and I see the relief coloring his features. “There you are, sweetheart.”

He pulls me close and I gasp. I lean into his steadying warmth and inhale his cool, ocean breeze scent deep into my lungs. His arm slips around me, stroking my hair over and over. I like it here.

It’s so safe.

I listen to the pounding in his chest, the beating in there is almost as loud as mine. Just as I am about to memorize the melody of that beat, he pulls away. He snatches my chin and tilts my face, forcing me to look at him.

Heat burns my cheeks, hotter than the flames from earlier. I love the attention. I love it when he touches my hair. I love it when he touches me everywhere.

Svenn strokes my bruised arm with his knuckles. “What’s this?”

“It’s just a graze,” I dismiss quickly so he will keep touching me.

Hug me again. Hug me again.

“They hurt you?” he asks. His voice is unruffled but his eyes scream violence and chaos.

“No—”

“That thing… tried to kill your wife,” Shade coughs out with the last remnants of his consciousness.

Svenn lowers his gaze to the assassin beside me as if he had just noticed the Grimsbane’s presence. When those smoldering dark eyes lift again, I see the danger in them.

The eyes of a true predator.

Some primal part of me, the survival instinct that has helped me survived Astefar, tells me to run and hide.

I freeze when he rises to his imposing height.

“There is no place for you among the elves.” The chilling voice of the sorcerer assaults my ear. “Leave those lesser beings and join us.”

The eyeball goes as still as death the moment Svenn arrives in front of it. I see the reflection of my husband’s handsome features on the gleaming watery surface.

“I shall grant you powers beyond your imagining,” the sorcerer pledges in the same lark and light-hearted tone.

Svenn’s expression remains unreadable. I can’t tell if he is angry or curious.

It doesn’t matter. That eyeball is just a monitor, a way for its user to see us.

He’s a sorcerer, Svenn. I want to tell him.

We need to get away from this place before he uses another spell. But my husband just stands there in the dark, staring at the giant eyeball.

What is he doing?

My stomach flips. I hope he’s not considering the sorcerer’s vile promise.

Make me human.

I know I’ve taken too long to fulfill my promise to Svenn. Perhaps, he got tired of waiting for me.

The world slows to a stop when Svenn slams his fist into the eye vortex. Smoke and vapors rise from the contact.

“What the hell are you doing?” the sorcerer’s scream echoes in the walls, scratching my ears.

Scarlet energy surrounds the vampire as he keeps his hand buried inside the eyeball. The maelstrom of power is palpable, I feel the tremor deep in my bones.

“Unhand me! Let go!” That shrilling sound of that voice sounds closer now. It’s almost like we’re in the same chamber.

By the gods…

He’s trying to pull the sorcerer out from the eyeball. But—but it’s impossible…

A loud ripping sound shreds through the air, like the tearing of a fabric… Svenn is tearing the fabric of the realm itself. I cover my ears from the loud noise.

Svenn’s impassive expression does not change. His eyes remain unfeeling despite the violence he unleashed. The tunnel shakes under the force of his calm wrath.

“Please, please…” The proud voice from the eyeball starts pleading. “Here me out—”

“I will not,” Svenn grits out. “Pray to whoever you do and die.”

The force of his power turns volcanic, seismic. Pebbles from the ceiling rain to the ground. This passage will collapse on us before Svenn can pull the sorcerer’s entire body out. I cradle Shade’s head in my lap, doing my best to protect him from the crumbling walls around us.

The sewer lights up with a flash of blinding light, brighter than my lamp crystal.

“No! You can’t do this!” Hands flail from the lens, desperately trying to push Svenn from dragging him out. It’s the last thing I see before the glare from the energy becomes too unbearable for my eyes.

“Svenn…” I murmur. My heart thunders in fright as the earth trembles beneath my feet.

The quaking gradually ceases. I open my eyes, squinting at the buzzing energy still whipping the tunnel.

A huge crater had replaced over what had once been the giant eyeball. I find Svenn standing with a remnant of half of the sorcerer’s body in his grip. A spike of fear goes through me at the sight of this person, the Shadow Fae—face charred, limbs torn, vessels shedding blood from a still pumping heart.

Svenn plucks the beating heart, smashes it, and tosses it aside like garbage.

Heavens above…

He closes the distance between us once again.

“Are you hurt, Nel?” he asks softly.

I shake my head.

“What were you thinking?” His voice suddenly turns rough, chilling.

Before I can answer him, Shade suffers through a bout of coughs in my lap.

“Shade, can you hear me?” I shake the assassin.

A broken sound of pain rips from him.

“We need to get him to the healers,” I say quickly.

Svenn pays no mind to the dying Grimsbane. His eyes are trained on me. He is enraged, but I need to focus on saving Shade. I gather whatever blessings I can find to pass Anastarros’s healing to Shade.

“Give me that.” Svenn snatches the Grimsbane’s hand from me. His fangs glint in the soft crystal’s light before he sinks them into Shade’s wrist.

I blanch at the savagery of that rough bite but the venom will heal Shade like it did with my palm in the forest. The assassin’s hands instinctively shoot up to shove the vampire. His body starts jerking violently and I’m not sure if I should hold him down or push Svenn away.

“What’s happening to him?” I panic.

Only the silence of the tunnel and the gulping sound of the vampire’s throat answer me.

Oh gods…

He is drinking on Shade… by the mouthful. I don’t know what to do. Svenn is always in control and he never takes from me.

“Enough Svenn,” I jerk his arm.

He doesn’t budge.

Shade’s body grows weaker, his pulse growing slower and slower until I can barely hear it in my ear. Just before his heartbeat stops, Svenn peels his mouth from the assassin’s wrist, casting it away in disgust.

“Is he going to be all right?” I move closer.

Svenn doesn’t answer me, wiping blood from his mouth. His eyes continue glaring at me, his body taut with rage.

I check the Grimsbane for myself. All his bleeding has stopped, even the internal ones. He is barely conscious but his pulse is regular again, thudding firmly in his vessel. My heart doesn’t get to celebrate this relief because Svenn is looking angry enough to rip a new hole in Shade’s body.

I will listen to his ire once we are out of this place. I drag Shade’s leather vest to lift him but Svenn is faster. He drapes Grimsbane’s hand over his shoulders and hoists him up.

“Be gentle with him,” I tremble in the cold.

He ignores the request and seizes my wrist with his free hand. I teetered on my feet as he drags me along the tunnel.

The sound of our boots echoes the tunnel as we amble silently in the dark. I wonder if Shade is awake through our rough journey. I can feel Svenn seething from his march. That wrath is like a living, breathing thing looming over us.

“Are you angry with me?” I ask after a while.

He doesn’t answer.

I press my lips together and stay quiet after that. Fresh air greets us as soon as we’re out of the sewers but Svenn’s fury doesn’t fade.

“I figured out that the murderer—the monsters are using the sewers.” I try explaining myself.

“So you decide to enter the belly of the beast in the middle of the night,” he snaps.

I once climb from the gut of an actual monster in Astefar… I’m a survivor.

He narrows his eyes to me. “You just had to do it alone, by yourself.”

I have Shade, I almost say to him. But looking at the half-head assassin on his shoulder, I know I will lose this argument.

He dumps the Grimsbane on the entrance of the healing house. The acolytes and Hlaryan elves rush to help the fallen assassin. A wave of relief washes over me, knowing that Shade will be safe in their expert hands.

Thank the heavens.

Thank my husband.

But I don’t dare utter my gratitude to the man, not when he is still brimming with rage. His piercing gaze is drawing a hole in my chest.

I exhale slowly. “I was just trying to do the right thing.”

Silent, black wrath gleams in his ochre eyes. “The foolish thing.”

I ignore the barb in his words as it pierces my heart. Svenn doesn’t get to speak to me like this. I wrench my hand from his hold. His grip on me tightens.

He’s far too strong for me to fight off physically. I should be scared of him. This vampire had just ripped a sorcerer from the safety of his domain, slaughter countless of beasts with just a simple gesture of his hand.

But instead of fear I find myself angry at the dismissal in his voice.

“I want you to let go,” I tell him sharply.

“Say it again and mean it.” His tone darkening like quiet thunder.

I lost the last grain of my calm. “Let me go.”

He looks hurt for a split second before he releases me.

“You can’t stop for two seconds and tell me of your plan?” he asks. There is a rare edge in his voice, one he never uses on me.

I didn’t have time. They’re planning to lock him after that meeting.

“If you needed those rats to be dead, I would have done it for you ages ago,” he rasps, shaking his head like he’s disappointed in me.

I slowly arrange my retort to bite back at him—but wait.

A sharp pain digs into my chest when his words slowly sink in.

“You knew about the monsters in sewer?” I ask with a shaky breath.

Something dangerous flickers in his eyes. “The same way I know a spider is about to devour a fly in an alley five streets from here, a pair of swans are cruising in the nearby lake. Of course I know.”

My heart crashes, burns and dies in my chest. The glimpse of the corpses and poor souls who died in the sorcerer’s hand flashes in my mind.

Svenn knew all along.

All those deaths… and he did nothing.

“If you have the power to help, then why didn’t you use it to save those people?” I fight the tears in my voice.

A crease forms between his brows. Svenn stares at me for a long moment, as though he can’t make sense of what I just said. All the anger on his face has drained, replaced by confusion.

He removes his dismayed gaze from mine and retreats a step back. Wings sprout behind his back, dark membranes with sharp edges arching towards the heavens.

“Wait, Svenn—”

In a whisper of the wind, he is gone.

“I didn’t mean it like that!” I scream to the cloudless night.

My throat constricts and I can’t breathe.

Oh gods. Oh gods. He left…

“Svenn…” I squeak to the night air. “Come back…”

I can scarcely breathe.

I find myself the object of blank and puzzled stares of the folks in the town’s square. They chatter around me but I tune them out.

“Give her some room!” I hear Lord Wesley’s voice among the people. “Get her a blanket!”

After relaying the incident briefly to him, my mind shuts down.

I barely hear Aelfric’s nagging as he escorts me to my tower. The room seems to be too wide, too empty without Svenn’s constant presence.

I catch a glimpse of myself in the gilded mirror across the room. My disarrayed hair looks like something had made a nest in it. I quickly take a hot shower to rid myself of the blood and dirt. I sit numbly in the bathtub, replaying what I said to Svenn right before he took off into the night.

“If you have the power to help, then why didn’t you use it to save those people?”

I’m terrified that I might have hit some kind of nerve.

It’s completely unfair for me to ask him of that. Did I scare him off with my desperation? I know he has no obligation to help.

I stay still in the quietness and dimness of the room, waiting for him to come back. Hours pass and he doesn’t return. Despair begins creeping down my spine, constricting every nerve. I wish I can crawl back into his arms the same way I did this morning.

Wings ruffle by the window.

Hope soars in my chest, spreading through my body at a dazzling speed, bringing me back to life. I scramble to my feet as quickly as I can.

“Svenn?”

My eyes lock with a pair of dazzling round eyes.

Yellow instead of Red.

A bird’s eyes instead instead of my husband’s.

I stroke the feathers of the confused barn owl and it flies away. Tears prick my eyes as disappointment sinks in my guts.

I try taking a deep breath, but it doesn’t ease the burn inside my chest. It’s like there’s a hole in there that can never be filled.

Svenn is gone

He is actually gone.

That final look on his face scalds me.

I’ve pushed him too far. What if he never comes back? My blood runs cold. I’m suddenly struck with the fear that Svenn might have left for good.

Calm down.

Svenn can’t just leave me right? He’ll come back… he has to.

I feel hollow. Like some beast had ripped my inside out, leaving me to bleed to my death. I settle on the empty bed, letting the darkness of the room swallow me whole.