steps forward, passing through the gate. I’m aware of a flash of light from the pillars, and the dark forest behind us fades away until suddenly there is nothing but a beautiful, moonlit forest all around us.
“Welcome to Lorandral,” the elf says in a quiet voice as he passes us.
Chapter 27
Eliph
The sting of the magic released at the tip of my horn still burns, but I carry on as if it doesn’t bother me. Instead, I surround myself with the warm memory of the way she attempted to protect me with her objection to what is actually, among unicorns, a reasonable request. Even now, as she sits on my back, she is grumbling in her mind, cursing the elf to every direction of the winds.
How can a male possibly adore his mate more?
My hooves clop on a cobblestoned path that twines through the trees. Unlike the oppressive forest we left behind, these trees are more like those in my grotto, their branches spread wide with the light of the rising moon shining down through the leaves. Every now and then I catch the scent of the familiar perfume of night-blooming flowers, and the trees all lightly glow, bathing the path before us with their luminescence.
The elf who guides us does so silently, almost a shadow as he walks. I do not like this male. I do not like the way he treated my mate, nor the way he forced his magic upon her. I suppose the latter was inevitable dealing with elves since few of them will bend even a little to convenience another species, but it still infuriates me as I recall her panic. I doubt I will ever forget how helpless I felt at that moment—or forgive myself for not insisting that the male show her proper courtesy.
“I can practically hear you seething,” Steph whispers as she gives my neck a pat. “Quit stewing. We both know that what happened back there couldn’t really be avoided.”
I’ll stop if you quit fussing about my horn, I retort.
Her soft laughter makes me smile within my fetch form.
“I suppose we’re a pair then. Neither one of us is able to resist grumbling to ourselves about shit we can’t control.”
I rumble in agreement, my anger fleeing in the face of her amusement.
With a light prance that makes her giggle at my antics, I pick up my pace so that I draw up close behind the elf. He looks at us out of the corner of his eye but makes no attempt to offer my mate polite conversation. I flatten my ears as I stare at his profile. He doesn’t know just how close he is to his own demise. I want to cream him into the dirt beneath my hooves, and the fact that he’s ignoring us despite acting as our escort is not helping any.
Worse, he’s disappointing my mate. I was under no illusions over elf decorum, but I can feel my mate’s displeasure as acutely as I felt her excitement earlier. While I can’t pretend to understand her interest in the elves—and might be more than a little jealous over the idea of a male potentially drawing her interest—I know she was looking forward to this encounter.
While the elf does not tell us how far we have to travel to reach the palatial halls, I’m fairly certain that it is close. Although many elves make their home in regal woodlands, more than half of them take the opportunity to build their estates by bodies of water within their territory. As I can hear the loud, rushing babble of a river up ahead, I am certain we will see the Lorandral kingdom soon.
The moon ascends higher, making the entire forest shine silver, and it is because of the moonlight that I can clearly see the sweeping stone turrets standing out from above the trees. Standing outside of the tree cover, they gleam like the moon itself. It makes my modest keep by my well—which I had always considered quite luxurious and comfortable—seem like nothing more than a humble cottage in comparison. My mate gasps from where she’s seated on my back, and so I know she sees it too.
“Lorandral Palace,” our guide says unnecessarily, his voice flat.
“It’s gorgeous,” Steph whispers.
“Of course it is. It is made by elvish magic, not crude human hands,” he sneers.
He cuts her a mocking look that instantly makes me bare my teeth in warning. I would be all too happy to bite him and wipe that