Kissed by a Dark Prince(86)

She wore one of the rich purple sheets from the bed wrapped around her like a long dress and the early morning light caught her chestnut hair and threaded it with gold. She turned her head slightly, her beautiful dark gaze on the world stretching out below them.

Her world now.

Her kingdom.

She would be a good princess for his people, her compassion and caring nature driving her to find ways to protect them. They would adore her, just as he did.

Loren felt drawn to her as she stared out at their world, her beauty hitting him hard and stealing his breath. He didn’t resist the pull of her, never would be able to, and drifted towards her, coming to stand behind her.

He wrapped his arms around her and an incredible sense of bliss and contentment filled him, tugging a sigh up from his heart.

He had lost faith that he would ever find his fated female and now his ki’ara was in his arms, her back nestling softly against his front, warming him.

Loren lowered his head and pressed a kiss to her throat, on the marks he had made last night during their bonding.

Olivia reached over her shoulder and fondly tangled her fingers in his hair, and then dropped her hand to the left side of his neck and stroked the marks there. Marks she had made to take his blood into her body, completing their bond and triggering a change in her that would make her immortal like him, granting them an eternity together.

Loren sighed again, feeling at peace for the first time in countless centuries. Whole at last.

“Can I see your world, when all this is over?” She stroked the nape of his neck, sending a shiver down his spine that turned from hot to cold as her words sank in.

They brought him down, reality closing in again to crush the peace inside him, setting him on edge. He had to deal with Vail, because he couldn’t let his brother take Olivia from him. His brother’s revenge would be brutal, unbearable. He couldn’t lose Olivia.

Loren kissed her cheek and drew her closer, needing to feel her in his arms and know she was safe for now at least. “Our world... and I will show this realm to you, when all this is over.”

She smiled. “It’s beautiful here.”

He could hear the wonder in her voice and feel it inside her. He looked out at the vista before them. The grounds extended for almost a mile, dotted with dark stone garrisons for the section of the army stationed permanently at the castle, but leafy and green too, with pale stone paths running between all of the buildings and the main gates. The dark stone walls were high, designed to protect everyone within the grounds. He and Vail had wanted a fortress that would prove difficult to penetrate in a battle, and that could house all of the elves from the nearby villages beyond the walls.

His gaze drifted there, to the collections of buildings scattered around the undulating landscape, paler patches in a sea of green and bright jewel colours. Beyond the walls were farms and woods, and rivers of crystal clear water that fed the land and were as necessary to its life as the sun filtering down from the darkness above.

Olivia leaned into his chest and he could feel her desire simmering in her veins, her need to explore this world and see everything with her own eyes. She wanted to explore it with him, studying it like the scientist she was. He could easily imagine her poring over every plant and animal, and marvelling at their use of what she probably deemed magic.

Loren tipped his head back and stared up at the dazzling light that shone down on his realm.

“There’s darkness in the distance, but your world is full of beauty and light. How is it possible?” She turned in his arms, her gaze on his face.

Loren looked down at her and then beyond her to the distance. The reach of his lands were limited in several directions, and he could see the black lands beyond, glowing orange from the rivers of lava that flowed through them.

“You know how I travel via portals?” he said, trying to find a way to explain what they had done without making it either too complicated or too simple. If he went too simple, she would be angry with him, feeling as though he was treating her like a child when she had a brilliant mind. She nodded and looked up, and his gaze dropped to the marks on her throat, a bolt of heat striking like lightning in his veins. Her lips curled into a smile.

“I can feel you staring.” There was a teasing note in her voice that he liked. His female knew him well. She caught his chin and raised his head, bringing his eyes away from her throat and up to the artificial sky. “Back to the portals.”

“It is possible for us to project portals away from our bodies, but it uses a vast amount of energy to do such a thing. We constructed a permanent portal to bring light to our land from above... from your world. Every elf in my kingdom works in cycles to keep it functional, focusing all of their power on it from a special room within the west tower of the castle, the highest point in my lands.” He glanced towards that tower, barely able to make out the top of the conical roof through the blossoming flowers shading the balcony. “When they tire, new elves take their place. The cycle allows for everyone to have long periods of rest between the times when they must help with the portal, meaning they can live their lives and attend to their farms or their businesses. All of the kingdom works to bring light into the darkness of Hell, so our land can thrive and grow, bearing life as our lands back in the mortal world had before we had to leave. We do the same to bring clean water into the land. It flows in via one portal and then out via another, re-joining the same undiscovered river in the mortal world.”