much for him.
“Do you feel her?” Fuery whispered as he crouched before him, as he gently placed a hand on his left shoulder. “She has not turned her back on you.”
Hartt couldn’t believe it. All elves shared a powerful connection with nature, and it was something they all cherished, and if the darkness in their blood became too much and began to taint them, it was something they all began to crave. He felt lighter as he clung to the ground, as nature embraced him rather than rejected him, and the shadows in his soul began to writhe and hiss, baring fangs at the light that filled him.
“I feel her.” He choked on those words, his throat too tight to speak without revealing the emotions running rampant inside him.
Had Fuery brought him here, to this oasis of nature, to help him purge the darkness, or had it been for a reason he didn’t want to contemplate, one he could sense rushing towards him as a door burst open off to his left?
“Oh, mother earth!” The bright female voice held a wealth of horror and disbelief that brought out her English accent, and Hartt could almost picture how wide her large blue eyes would be as she bounded towards them, her ash-blonde hair bouncing against her slight shoulders.
The witch halted beside him in the middle of the lawn of her cottage’s rear garden.
“Look at the bloody state of him.”
The air shifted close to him and tremendous power rolled over him. He wearily lifted his head and gazed at the elf who towered a foot taller than the petite blonde witch, his eyes warm with concern but holding a corona of darkness around his violet irises.
Prince Vail.
Hartt lowered his head, shame sweeping through him together with a need to teleport. He didn’t want his prince to see him like this, even when Vail had been lost to the darkness for millennia, was clawing his way back from it just as Fuery was. The male knew what he was going through, was liable to be sympathetic and supportive about it, helping him in the way he was helping Fuery.
But Hartt still wanted to run, as if that would erase the knowledge of this weakness that infested him from his prince’s mind.
“What happened to him?” Vail’s deep voice curled around him, holding only warmth, worry that touched Hartt but failed to alleviate the sudden feeling of vulnerability that swept through him, swirled and tried to pull him back towards the darkness.
Hartt dug his fingers into the dirt, needing to anchor himself, refusing to let the darkness steal command of him again.
“There is a spell,” Fuery said.
“No,” Hartt barked and whipped his head up, shook it as his eyes locked on his friend. He softened his tone as fear blasted through him, born of a deep awareness of what Fuery meant to do. “No. It is too dangerous.”
If Fuery used the spell that bound them to take some of the darkness from him, it would tip his friend back towards the abyss. He wouldn’t let that happen. This darkness, this corruption, was his to bear.
“Spell. Enchantment. Curse. I don’t care.” Rosalind stomped over to him, shouldering Fuery out of the way, something that had Vail growling and baring fangs at him, as if Fuery had touched his mate and not the other way around. She stopped before Hartt and frowned down at him, a mulish twist to her lips as she assessed his injuries. “I’m going to heal him and then we’ll talk when he looks a little less like minced meat.”
She reached out to grab him.
Vail seized her hand, a desperate and wild look on his face as he leaned towards her.
She stilled and looked at her mate, the hard lines of her face softening as her blue eyes locked with his violet ones. Rather than touching Hartt, she straightened and turned towards Vail, lifted her free hand and brushed her knuckles across his cheek, and then tunnelled her fingers through his wild blue-black hair. He leaned into her palm as she cupped his face, his eyes slipping shut as he tilted his mouth towards her wrist and pressed a soft kiss to it.
“I…” Vail’s eyebrows knitted hard, his mouth flattening.
“I know,” she whispered, as soft as the first flakes of snow that swirled around Hartt, dancing down from a thick blanket of clouds. “I should have thought before I acted. You know me—always leaping before looking.”
“I wish you would not,” Vail mumbled, a