Free Web NovelChapter 25: Chapter 25: The Devouring
Yue-Senn POV
The temporary quarters Ki-ri had secured for me at the inn still smelled faintly of sawdust, and candle wax contrast to the cloying rose perfume that had poisoned my previous room. I sat at the wooden desk, aggressively slashing my signature across the final trade agreements for the northern border. My mind, however, wasn’t on commerce. It was entirely trapped in the memory of the previous night the breathless, desperate way Ryophlira had kissed me, the fierce scratch of her fingernails on my shoulders.
The door didn’t just open, it flew off the latch, banging against the wall.
Ki-ri rushed into the room, his breath coming in ragged, uncharacteristic gasps. His face was entirely devoid of color. "My lord... the princess. Princess Ryophlira was just carried out of the palace. She was unconscious, covered in blood, and loaded into the car."
A physical shockwave hit my chest. My heart didn’t just skip a beat, it felt like it stopped entirely.
Before my mind could even process the words, power coiled deep within my veins erupted. My eyes glowed blinding emerald glare. A sudden, unnatural weight dropped over the room as the shadows in the corners detached themselves from the walls. Like a rapidly spreading ink stain, pure, suffocating darkness surged outward, swallowing the mid-morning sunlight bleeding through the windows. Within seconds, the room was cast into a pitch-black, the temperature plummeting until my own breath misted in the air.
"Where is she right now?" I demanded. My voice didn’t sound human it was a low, layered growl that vibrated through the floor.
Panic a sickening, suffocating sensation I had never allowed myself to feel in my entire life clawed at my throat. Someone had touched her. Someone had made her bleed. A raging, monstrous fire consumed my sanity, a blinding urge to march back into that palace and tear down every stone, to butcher every living soul until I found whoever had dared to put their hands on what belonged to me.
But beneath the fury, a terrifying question mark slashed through my mind. Why did I care this much? Was it love? The word felt entirely foreign, too soft for a man like me. Was it a dark, psychotic obsession? A passing curiosity for a Vhaelor princess? Or was it just a primal, ravenous sexual desire that I hadn’t managed to quench yet? I didn’t know the answer, and right now, I didn’t care. All I knew was that if she died, the world would burn with her.
Ki-ri swallowed hard, his voice shaking in the pitch-black room. "I was told... I was told they are heading into the heart of the capital for her official wedding dress fitting."
Without a single word, I grabbed a dark silk shirt, shoving my arms through the sleeves but not even bothering to button it fully. I stormed out the door, the devouring shadows snapping back into the corners behind me as I left the inn, Ki-ri scrambling frantically to keep pace.
"I will fetch the car, my lord!" Ki-ri shouted, breaking into a sprint toward the alleyway.
"Don’t bother," I snarled.
I didn’t have minutes to spare. Closing my eyes, I let the darkness under the street awnings swallow me whole. My physical body dissolved, melting into the network of shadows weaving through the capital. I tore across town at a terrifying, supernatural speed, jumping from one patch of darkness to the next, checking every bridal boutique along the grand avenue until my vision caught the unmistakable gold-and-crimson crest of the royal car parked outside a limestone boutique.
I violently pulled myself free from the shadows, stepping onto the sunlit stones directly in front of the carriage.
Two royal guards instantly stepped forward, their hands flying to the hilts of their swords. "Hold!"
I didn’t let them finish. Moving with a blinding speed, I lashed out, slamming my palms flat against their chests. A surge of pure, liquid darkness bled from my fingertips. The moment my power made contact, the guards didn’t just fall, their bodies completely dissolved, liquefying into bubbling, ink-black puddles of shadow that spilled across the stone street.
Gasps and horrified shrieks erupted from the surrounding pedestrians, but I was completely losing my mind. The world was spinning.
I hooked my fingers into the iron seam of the car door and pulled. The heavy metal hinges shrieked, tearing completely out of the frame with a rip as I tossed the door aside.
I looked inside. It was empty. She wasn’t there.
"Shit" the word escaped my lips. I spun on my heel, marching directly through the glass doors of the bridal shop. Inside, the air smelled of lace and expensive perfumes, completely wrong for the humming in my blood.
"Ryophlira!" I called out, my voice shattering the quiet elegance of the shop.
I scanned the rows of white, pink and gold silk, my emerald eyes burning. Suddenly, a door at the back of the boutique clicked open, and she stepped out into the light.
She was wearing a magnificent, sun-spun gold lace gown, but everything else was wrong. The dark marks I had left on her neck were completely hidden beneath a heavy layer of powder. The heavy emerald crescent ring was gone from her finger. And there, staining the center of the pristine cream lace on her bodice, was a vivid, sickening smear of drying blood. Her eyes were puffy, her face flushed from crying.
The sight of her blood broke the final tether on my sanity.
Before anyone in the shop could react, I lunged forward. I grabbed her by the arm, aggressively pulling her inside the nearest empty dressing room. I slammed the heavy door shut, locking it with a sharp click, and backed her straight against the wall. Without a word, I threw my arms around her, burying my face into her hair, holding her so tightly I thought I might crack her ribs. My heart was racing like a war drum against her chest. I needed to feel her breathing. I needed to know she was alive.
"Get off of me!" Ryophlira screamed, her hands instantly slamming into my bare chest, pushing against me with a desperate, furious strength.
I fought her resistance, tightening my grip, refusing to let her slide away from me. "Ryophlira, stop—"
"I said get off!" she shrieked, pushing me even harder, her voice cracking with a devastating mixture of anger and raw betrayal. She looked up at me, her eyes flashing with a dangerous, unstable fire. "You don’t get to come in here after what you did and hug me!"
I froze, my hands still locked around her waist. "What happened? Why is there blood on your dress?"
"Fuck off, please!", a bitter tear escaping her eye as she twisted her body, trying to tear herself out of my hold. "I don’t want to see you. I don’t want to look at you until the wedding. Let me go!"
She tried to storm past me toward the door. I grabbed her arm again, spinning her back into my chest. Before she could push me away, before she could utter another furious word, I slammed my mouth down onto hers. freёwebnovel.com
I kissed her hard, a punishing, breathless, passionate claim that tasted of desperation and fire.
Ryophlira gasped against my lips, her hand instantly flying up, her palm open to deliver a blinding slap across my face. Without breaking the kiss, I caught her wrist mid-air, my fingers locking around her hand, pinning it safely out of the way while my other arm remained securely wrapped around her waist, holding her flushed body flush against mine.
For a single, agonizing second, she fought it. Then, with a soft, defeated whimper, she completely melted into the kiss.
The anger between us dissolved into a volcanic, dizzying heat. I slowly let go of her wrist, and the moment her hand was free, she didn’t strike me. Instead, her fingers tangled into the fabric of my open shirt, her hand tracing a path up my forearm, up over my bicep, until her fingers locked tightly around my shoulder.
The kiss grew deeper, desperately wet, hot, and breathless. Freeing her from the restraint of my other arm, I slid my hand down to the heavy gold lace of her skirt. With one smooth, powerful sweep, I lifted her completely off the floor.
Ryophlira let out a ragged breath against my mouth, instinctively wrapping her legs tightly around my waist as I held her suspended against the dressing room wall. It was a reckless, sexy, chaotic collision of our bodies, the sheer friction of her gold gown against my skin driving me to the brink of madness. I was starting to get hard.
Slowly, agonizingly, I pulled my lips back a fraction of an inch, I looked down at her. Her face was completely flushed, her lips swollen from the force of our kiss, and tears were spilling silently from her eyes. She looked entirely broken, and I still didn’t know who to kill for it.
"Ryophlira? Ryophlira, where did you go?!"
The sharp, echoing voice of her mother cut through the heavy silence of the boutique, followed closely by the hurried, clicking footsteps of Ari approaching our hallway.
"Princess? We don’t have time for games!" Ari’s voice called out, her footsteps stopping directly outside our dressing room door.
Both of our heads snapped toward the locked wooden panel, our breaths catching in our throats. Ryophlira’s legs tightened around my waist in sudden panic. I looked down at my unbuttoned shirt, my glowing green eyes, and the blood on her bodice, and a grim reality settled over me.
If her mother and the royal guard caught me in here with her right now, under these conditions... I was definitely going to die.
