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“Let’s talk in the living room,” my dad said.

“We don’t have time for this,” Vaughn protested. “We’ve already wasted enough time here.”

Absolutely. Silvanus needed us to step our shit up.

Now.

The front door flung open, taking everyone by surprise.

“Well, hello there!” Aidan greeted us cheerfully.

Dammit. His head was back in place already after Vaughn cut it off.

He lunged at me so quickly, no one had time to react. Before I knew it, I was teleported out of there and tossed into the streets of Oreflame City where screams and violence tore at my eardrums.

Oh, shit.

Chapter Two

Silvanus

“Iam a gift, a delightful consequence.”

The words of my goddess echoed in my mind as a healing warmth coursed through my body, my skin shimmering with the kiss of moonlight. It helped keep some of the cold of my icy prison at bay.

“Be patient, give me some time,” she’d also said. “But know you will be free, and you will have your war with my power coursing through your veins.”

War. Yes. I craved war, my capacity for violence was more fervent than ever. Far too dormant of late, but it was ready to devour.

To protect my people.

To protect the elf I loved, even if he did not love me back.

Selene. Deity of the vampires, creator of my lost home-world of Selene Haven, currently possessing my body, much like the elf deity Caer possessed Paris.

Paris Raine.

My heart.

My spark in the dark.

A realization I never expected, born from hate, leading to obsession and then love. It wasn’t a foolish infatuation, but actual love. It clouded my mind, the mere thought of him enough to awaken every one of my senses, to force my lips into a smile.

Beyond sex. Beyond anything I’d known before. A pure thing beneath the complications, a compulsion to be near him now, tomorrow, and forever.

I wanted all of him.

He doesn’t want you…

Rejection weighed heavy on me. Waiting inside this cocoon of glacial blue frostbrood ice floating in the East Ocean estuary around Hurlock Island allowed me to think about the hurt.

Being free of it would allow me to fight away these aches, these wants. Be a king, not a pining disaster.

He doesn’t want you…

“Patience, darling king,” Selene spoke in my head.

“Are you listening to me think?” I retorted.