Stay strong,” she hissed as she slipped gracefully in the water with a flick of her pearly tail.
Diana stared after her, mulling over the vegoia’s parting words as the door swung open with a groan. She didn’t move from her place until a large hand gripped her shoulder and turned her roughly. Raskyuil stared down at her, relief on his face.
“Thank the gods you survived and are well.”
“Indeed, the female is. Now I wonder why that is,” a dark voice purred from the staircase.
Excitement surged in her chest, and Diana searched the shadows until she found her mate. That feeling withered, replaced by dread. The pearly eyes that glowed down at her in a menacing stare were that of a stranger.
He descended the steps, and she made out smaller secondary horns that curved out from his brow between the rack of his antlers, and little protrusions that pushed down from the corner of his jaw at either side. A long spike jutted out from each of his forearms. His tail whipped behind him as he walked, a cruel smile tugging on his lips.
“Silvas?” she whispered as she felt Raskyuil tense behind her, his hand gripping hard on her shoulder.
Chapter 36
Selvans stared at the female standing in front of him. She seemed so familiar. He could feel an awareness of her pulsing through him as desire licked through his body. The surge of lust he had felt toward the nymph paled in comparison to what he was experiencing now. It made his body tremble and filled his mind with desperate longing.
He knew her, but why didn’t he remember her?
At first glance, the female was unremarkable. She possessed little of the refined beauty of the immortal ones. So why did he yearn for her like no other? It was disconcerting and suspicious. She was pale and bruised, dark circles beneath eyes that appeared a deep green sparked with flecks of gold. Her hair hung in a tangled mass over shoulder, and he watched as she pushed it back with one hand, her eyes imploring him.
Whoever she was, she recognized him and seemed just as perplexed that he did not know her. The common tongue name that he had taken refuge behind fell from her lips, the sound sweet as it twined through him. It thrummed along the edges of the bond that was sealed off from him. He was certain that his reaction had something to do with the purpose of the barrier in his mind, but knowing that did not comfort him. He had to have had a reason to have blocked her out. He could not trust her. Even less knowing that she should not have survived the appetite of Cacus.
His eyes narrowed on the small human as he weighed the matter before him. Arx was in shambles, great swathes of trees were destroyed, and corpses littered the palace grounds. He had seen the remains. The crystalline skeletons of nymphs suspended in agony as their beings were consumed, the remains of satyrs and fauns curled up on themselves. He had witnessed what was left of goblins killed by the masses as they attempted to flee, and a field of orc and troll corpses bleeding freely over the earth where they made their last stand, their bodies ravaged and withered from their souls being torn out.
Even the majority of his crocotta clan lay broken in the inner courtyard. Keech and a few of the older pups had survived. He was relieved to see that Keena had also made it. It was a small gift in light of the horror he had witnessed among the broken stones of Arx and the blackened and broken trees of the hamadryads. Everywhere he had looked as he landed within the courtyard was stained with death.
Through that destruction, this soft female had survived. The possibility of her being involved was not something he could risk being in error. He had to preserve the forest. If he could not trust her, what was he to do with her? He had no stomach for killing vulnerable humans. He inhaled, his brow furrowing.
She didn’t smell like a human. He bristled as he backed away from her, his cock swelling with a painful, raging need. He couldn’t identify what she smelled like, and that disturbed him, even more since his body surged eagerly, demanding that he pin her beneath him as her perfume danced over his scent receptors.
Selvans growled and shook his head to clear it. She had to be