especially those that fed on human emotion. Lust was just as potent as fear to their palate. It was rare, however, for possessiveness or attachment to develop, and unthinkable for them to occur instantaneously.
It was also dangerous. He could not forget about that, no matter how much he was caught up in the female. He saw what it did. It made the powerful weak. Humans were even able to capture a gatekeeper of the underworld due to that weakness, and bound him in enchanted chains before he was able to break free. Silvas refused to allow that to happen to him, but he was also not in the habit of denying himself anything that he wanted.
One of the troll guards, his body as coarse as the rocky earth, rose to his feet at Silvas’s approach, his dark green eyes filled with interest. “What delicacy do you have there, my king?”
The human in his arms stiffened and then began to squirm as she turned to get a look at the male speaking. Silvas knew the minute that she caught sight of the troll by her startled gasp. Her delicate human fingers gripped his hair, and her weak claws dug into his back.
Silvas snarled in the male’s direction, his power flaring around him, an oppressive shroud crackling and billowing around him in an aggressive threat. Vines snapped free from the palace walls, whipping at the troll, and the room darkened as the trees bowed closer together, blocking out what little remained of the light. The guard stumbled back as he turned his head away.
“Not yours,” Silvas hissed.
“Yes,” the troll uttered with a raspy croak. “Apologies, lucomo.”
Silvas strode through the throne room. The eyes of his court were on him, but he refused to acknowledge them as long as they stayed out of his way. He was the lucomo of the Eternal Woods. It was his domain, and the huntress was under his protection. He was well aware that the denizens of his kingdom were watching the human with expressions varying from lustful to suspicious to curious. If none of them attempted to touch or approach her in a manner that insulted him or harmed her, he did not care what they thought. Order was all that was important in the Eternal Forest, and even that order compelled a chaotic alliance between all the forces and beings dwelling within. It was never peaceful or agreeable. Such things did not belong to the wilds of the Eternal Forest, where even those of the fair courts did not tread.
Silvas’s eyes narrowed on the hall, the stone walls that he had raised from the ground etched with roots and vines that had become imbedded over the ages. Glowing pods bulged out in many places, providing illumination. Flowers sagged from many of them, hidden among foliage, bearing a heady perfume meant to lure the senses. A shudder ran through his body, and he tried to ignore the seductive scents that made him ache with desire. Arx was a living thing as much as the trees of his woods, and set out snares to heighten passions that grew clustered around bedchambers. The palace was sustained by the inhabitants as much as they sustained themselves on other beings.
He respected the symbiotic relationship, but he had no time to indulge such things with his huntress. Not yet, anyway. First, he needed to visit the oracle of the cavern and speak to the ancient one who dwelled there. Silvas needed to know with absolute certainty that it was the most ancient and terrible children of the Earth that awoke. If Cacus indeed prowled the Eternal Forest and its outlying woods that breached the mortal world, Silvas would need to prepare.
Arm tightening around the human, he scowled as he ducked inside of his chamber. At his entrance, the glow pods lit up, and he glanced around speculatively. He would need to hide her somewhere that none would expect, and where none from his court could tamper with her until he returned.
At his hesitation, the huntress began to writhe, attempting to break from his hold. With one large hand, he swatted at her ass, catching her upper thigh, and she sucked in a breath between her teeth. He noted that the sound bore some semblance to an angry serpent stirred from the grass and wondered at what fighting spirit she might possess once she was released from his embrace. Tightening his hand around her thigh, he snarled a low reprimand until she stilled