Page 32 of A Requiem of Fire and Ice

The cab drives off when the red light turns green.

Feeling bold, I sneak a glance out the window. My throat tightens as Prince Walkyer stares at the cab, watching us drive off

Shit.

Sara leans against my shoulder and shows me the photos she snapped of Prince Walkyer. In every shot she took, he maintained his focus on us, and she definitely caught his attention. Good on her. Not so good for me.

A few minutes pass when we reach the castle entrance. As I step out of the cab, I turn to Sara, who wants to show me more photos, while many things are happening simultaneously. Kylie points to the nearby florist's shop. Sara waves the phone in my face, and Xavier drops to his knees, crying out in agony.

Kylie and Sara move towards him, and I take a moment longer to realise I should do the same. I kneel beside him, and my focus settles on the tight grip he has on his arm before someone nearby cries in pain as well. A woman clutches her arm and kicks her feet as she lashes out. Then, as if in sync, Xavier and the woman stop crying. Silence fills the air as Xavier touches the black ink marking its way onto his skin.

Holy fuck, it happened!

My gaze darts to the woman. Tears swell in her eyes, and her attention is fixed solely on Xavier Clark.

A twitch of a smirk settles on my face after I cover my mouth with my hand. He fucking tethered with her.

Chapter 15

Reen Kyong, July 8th

The castle grows quieter at night as the sun sinks behind the tall city buildings, and darkness without stars swarms like a veil in its place.

Workers rest in their homes or in little nooks hidden away in the castle. Alad clocked off work and likely hides in his room to read his romance novels filled with sexual tension and vibrating dildos. The king fucks whores in his throne room, then stares with no light in his eyes at a room filled with ash, blood and emptiness. Emmerton is out, leaving me with no irritable distractions while he fucks women, hoping to scratch that itch he hasn’t felt since Typha Hart. Astin waits for my beck and call, likely slaughtering elemny he considers better than him.

I feel more at peace when the sun sets and darkness covers the sky. The dense smoke is like a cloak. Some elemny would struggle to breathe as if someone wrapped a blanket around their face until it was hard to breathe—the constant constricting of breaths struggling to escape elemny until they’re choking on air.

I sit on the steps leading to the foyer and stare at the bent, dead trees in the garden and the decayed bushes bereft of leaves. Ash floats down from the sky, settling on bones, broken branches, and a water fountain that hasn’t flowed since it was built. Often, King Ragan would gaze at the fountain, telling me how beautiful it would look if the water flowed red from her heart and bled down the river.

I turn away before more bitter memories overwhelm my senses. I’m already bothered as is. The last thing I want is the desire to kill the king without thinking of who he’s tethered to. So, instead, my thoughts drift to my latest hunt.

Wherever I go, I can’t help but think of how much I want to kill that woman. I want to hunt her until the panic sets into her pores, prickles across the hairs on her arms, and the sweat filled with fright beads down her forehead.

I want to hunt her until she knows there is nowhere to run. I want to play with my food, but can’t because I lack information about her. It wouldn’t be satisfying enough. Stalking also won’t do me any good without a cause. I might frighten the poor little flat-chested lamb before I have a sniff of evidence to play my games with her.

I need entertainment.

Sure, if King Ragan lets me kill the smugglers he’s putting on display tomorrow morning, I’d finally be able to scratch my itch. But he wants to put on a show to prove he’s still this fearless king, yet he looks deranged. It’s a stupid way to go about it, considering many believe he’s going absolutely mad. Still, as much as it disgusts me, he’s the king and can do whatever he wants.

Fear and power go hand in hand. When they do, there’s no stopping the ego trip the elemny has when they possess it. Look at me. I have both, and the fright is clear in their wavering, weakening eyes whenever I meet someone’s gaze.

Shit. Who is this woman posing like an innocent poster girl in a teenage magazine but has a mouth like a bloody sailor? And what did she do for me to hunger to kill her with this much conviction?

Since purging the Kingdom of Crystal, I haven’t felt this way about killing. The way the fright trembled through their bones as I prowled behind the elemny who knew I was stalking them. There was so much killing to choose from whenever someone got in my way.

Perhaps it’s the unknown about her. Once I learn more about this Pandora Averis—if that’s her name—I will judge whether I deem her worthy to hunt and kill. I will let her be if she’s a common thief or some pathetic fucking cutthroat that gets off on cheap thrills.

Yet, if she’s tied to this Old Wolf, I will torture her after quenching my satisfying need for a hunt. The thought of seeing the absolute fear in her wide brown eyes. Or the way her plump, full lips will split and crack when I starve her into submission.

Fuck, get it under control, Reen. If you keep thinking about her, you will snap her neck before you can play games.

Resting my elbows on my knees, I gaze out as Walkyer enters the garden. A vibrant smile reaches his lips, and it screams with the excitement of a man who will probably have his heart torn in two when the woman fucks Emmerton.

He makes his thoughts disappointingly obvious, and when he gets in this mood, it all goes downhill from there. The spring in his step, the beaming smile of a man seeing a woman for the first time, and a flutter in his eyes, like the virgin sock fucker that he is.

As I stand, I ask, “What’s gotten you in a jovial mood?”

“Nothing,” Walkyer says evasively.