Forged in Spirit by A. F. Dery

Author:A. F. Dery
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: fated mate romance, beauty and the beast, fantasy romance series for adults, romantic sword and sorcery fantasy, elves witch romance, clean fantasy romance
Publisher: Ring Drop Press LLC
Published: 2015-09-25T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER SEVEN

“What the hell did you do?”

Graunt’s voice was shrill enough to make Thane wince, and he moved quickly to stand between his Graunt and his wife, whose brown skin had turned ashen where she stood by one wall.

They were in one of the rooms in the same corridor where the elven prisoner had been kept, this one mostly empty aside from a round wooden table and some chairs. The last rays of late afternoon sun bathed the stone walls and pale marble floor of the room in an incongruously cheerful shade of gold.

In stark contrast was Kesara, who was anything but cheerful. She was pale and shivering, her eyes very big. Graunt didn’t look much happier, her face folds taut and quivering with her indignation, her eyes pinpricks of barely restrained malice. Her hood was fully down and the tufts of hair on her pointy head were standing straight up in her fury.

She shot a glare at him like a spear for interfering with her view of his Lady, but he was already braced for it, his face schooled into neutrality, his shoulders stiff, his head respectfully bowed to receive the brunt of the attack.

“Perhaps you don’t understand what’s just happened, Lord Eladria,” she suggested, her tone turning alarmingly sweet. “Your prisoner—that is, quite probably the only one of your prisoners actually capable of providing any assistance with your other little issues at the moment—is very near to death. Even your old Graunt can’t say whether she’ll ever wake again. And your other prisoner is nigh unto hysterical, which is understandable, I suppose, since he apparently doesn’t know the difference between mating and tearing out your mate’s throat. Granted, I don’t know all that much about treekin mating behavior. Maybe this is normal for them. Beats me how they make little treekin if all the females bleed out in the act, though, so I tend to think that maybe this one is just stupid.”

Thane could hear the man in question howling from the next room over, the stone walls doing precious little to dim the roar. His blood ran cold at the inhuman sound, and he felt a wholly involuntary sense of pity rise up in him. A less sensitive man than he would have been unable to mistake the anguish there; he doubted even Malachi could have missed it.

He didn’t need any kind of sorcery to divine that whatever had happened, it hadn’t been some deliberate attempt at suicide-by-murder. The elf had clearly been in shock when Thane had first arrived, barely able to form a clear sentence, blood still wet on his mouth and dripping down his chin, his body shaking like he was on the verge of a fit.

He had looked as stunned and bewildered as Thane had felt to see him that way, and then again when Thane had seen the victim. The wounds had looked very clean for an outright mauling, but the elf, whether by instinct or education, had tapped into an artery.

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