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Then, her eyes opened for a moment, and her gaze seemed to focus on Lucan’s strained face.

“Pl-please, Lucan,” she whispered before closing her eyes again.

A deep, wretched feeling inside him twisted until Lucan gasped for air. He pulled out of Elarian, her limp body falling to the mattress as her whimpers slowly faded. His gaze raked over her body, still shuddering with the soft waves of bliss. Without thought, he began stroking himself again even as that ugly feeling consumed his every sense.

He was not gentle—tearing at the skin, not caring as his trembling fingers caught on the metal and wrenched the golden rungs he fucking hated almost as much as himself. Elarian’s wetness, sticky against his fingers, intoxicated him. Reaching out, he dipped a finger inside her, then brought it back to his mouth and tasted her salty sweetness.

Fucking divine.

Fucking damning.

As if he deserved any better.

Her gentle sweetness lingered, and the fires raging in his stomach flared into a supernova. He stroked himself one more time.

“F-fuck—oh fucking damn you, Elarian!”

Lucan’s thoughts vanished as his hot seed spurt forth, landing on the black silks just in front of Elarian’s still-trembling form. He shut his eyes, vision white behind his closed lids.

Peace.

Fucking peace.

She was ruined; as was he.

But at least now he could kill the vile elf, even if she was the best godsdamned thing that had ever happened to him.

When Lucan stirred again, he calmly stood and donned a pair of silk sleep pants, then strode to the chains newly installed in the wall opposite his bed. Though he had inspected them once, then a second time that morning, and finally a third time before leaving for the masquerade, he did not entirely trust they would truly hold the elf. She was a slippery thing, after all.

Three sets of chains waited in the black stone wall. Two lay coiled near the floor, each ending in paired cuffs. Above them hung a heavier chain, its iron collar large enough to lock around an elf’s slender neck.

He told himself he would slay the elf when she fell into his trap the previous day, but he made the chains anyway. A perfect prison before her head decorated his wall.

And after tonight…Godsdamn his stupidity! After tonight, he wasn’t entirely sure he’d ever kill the wretched woman.

The elf stirred on the bed, eyelids fluttering as a stifled moan escaped her lips. She had been drifting in and out of lucidity for some time. Each time her breathing slowed and her eyes turned into a sea of glass, Lucan let her slip back beneath the haze. He would much rather she remembered every torturous, blaspheming touch she willingly gave him. Even so, the temptation lingering at the edge of his bloodlust proved hard to ignore. Shadows still coiled around her ankles; the godsdamned things practically seemed to have a mind of their own around her.

Lucan strode to the side of the bed where the elf writhed and reached for a goblet of bloodwine still untouched on the nightstand. The crimson liquid swirled around the golden metal before he downed it in one gulp. Blood hummed in his veins.

“So, are you still glad you left your sacred Grove?”

Her pale crimson eyes fluttered open at his words. Warmth filled her gaze as if she was slowly remembering the face of a long-lost lover. It quickly melted into blazing fury. The frantic beating of her heart seemed to jolt her from her reverie. Scrambling away, she jerked the black silks to hide her naked form as if Lucan had not already memorized every inch of it.

“Was this your plan? Infiltrate my court, kill my courtiers, and hide at a masquerade all so you could come against my cock? Darling, if that was what you wanted, you only had to ask the last time we danced in the Evermist.”

“My name isn’t darling.”

The elf’s lips pursed; a moment later, a thick glob of spit mixed with her silvery blood landed on Lucan’s cheek. He laughed darkly, flicking the warm liquid aside with one finger as if it were a fly.

“That was unwise, darling,” he sneered. “Or perhaps it’s greedy little whore.”

Shadows unfurled from Lucan’s hands and smothered the elf. She jerked forward under their embrace, exposing all of her. Bruises already flowered around her nipples, another at her hips where his shadows bound her tight—a masterpiece in progress. Raising his open hand, Lucan brought his palm down hard against the side of the elf’s face. She whimpered but did not cry out for mercy.

“I’d sooner step into the sun than use your name, elf.”

Lucan’s muscles tensed as he spoke, the sound of her name forming on his tongue even as the hatred flared in his chest.

Elarian.