Taken by the Dark Elf King : Monstrous Mates Book One (Monstrous Mates Series 1)

IT IS NEVER A GOOD thing when the castle is quiet.

The last time the throne room was this silent was when Lord Elowyn had been found guilty of abusing his tenants. He had treated the farmers inside of his domain as chattel, useful only for working the land to line his pockets with more gold. How many humans had dropped dead before word had spread to my father? Hundreds by some estimates.

My father, the king, had Elowyn’s legs broken and tossed him on a boat to the Shadowkeep Bay, home to countless bloodthirsty pirates.

Elowyn’s son rules now, and he is of a much milder nature. He’s hopeful the fate that befell his father never lands on him. As light elves, we may view ourselves as the more civilized of the two, but we are not spotless. Our soft faces just hide what we really are.

Unlike the hulking figure that stands in the middle of the throne room now. There is no hiding what he is. The height. The snow-white hair and skin the color of soot. Eyes that glow red with a burning fire. He is a dark elf. Our monstrous brethren from the north. A royal guard from the King of Myrkorvin himself.

You would think a wild beast had found its way into the palace. Servants rushing from rooms, heads bowed low, moving on silent feet. Mothers and nannies keeping their children close to their side. Still holding on to those old tales that dark elves snatch children to feed to the horned beasts they keep under Blackfire Castle.

There is no truth to those tales, my nanny once told me; but looking at this figure standing in front of us, it is hard to not believe it.

As the only princess of Lysan, my place is to stand on the left side of my mother when we receive important guests. My brothers mirror my position on the opposite side of my father. My brother Garren is scowling so intensely I fear his eyes may pop from his skull. A most embarrassing event to occur in front of our guest.

My other brother, Briar, looks as if he cannot be bothered. He regards our visitor with as much interest as he paid our royal tutors. Disdain and boredom written all over his face. Like this is more of an inconvenience than an act of diplomacy.

Me? Well, I am not quite sure how I look standing up here. My gown is the color of Lysan gold; it mirrors my mother’s. Rich as the first rays of morning sun, glimmering in the light filtering in from the glass ceiling above us. Perhaps I look discontented, as I have not mastered my mother’s perfect look of severe serenity.

My mother tells me I have storm clouds in my eyes. A reflection of the curiosity brewing in my mind, wanting to find any means of escape. When I was younger, I wanted nothing more than to have her warm golden eyes. Now, at twenty-three, I am well past my first blood and have fully settled into my elven form. Silver eyes and all.

Perhaps our visitor sees the curiosity on my face as his ruby gaze rakes over me and turns to my parents.

“Your Majesties,” the visitor says in a voice as cold as steel.

My father is staring down at him. Even though the king’s throne is perched on a dais, the dark elf in front of us does not even need to raise his chin to make eye contact with my father. My parents sit on the throne of Lysan, a massive golden tree trunk with two seats forged into it. The second seat was added the day my father met my mother, knowing her to be his queen the instant he saw her. And there she has sat ruling beside him for the last five and a half centuries.

Before the war, visits from Myrkorvin were commonplace. The old dark elf king did not let his people live as secluded as their new king has. Garren says that after the Orc Wars, their new king used the death of his parents to consolidate power. Removing the light elves from their ancestral lands as punishment for not assisting enough during the war.

My brother was there the day the old king fell. He watched as the new king rose from the blood and decimated the Orc hordes in one evening of carnage. The dark elves had always been animals, but this new king was nothing short of a demon.

“To what do we owe this visit from Myrkorvin? We trust that your king is in good health,” my father replies evenly.

“Our king is very well; he is the reason for my visiting you here today, Your Grace.” The visitor digs into the satchel at his waist, the black of his armor looking like spilled ink in the morning sun. He hands an envelope to one of my father’s guards, a blood-red seal stamped on the front, and my father regards it carefully before snapping the wax.

His eyes scan the parchment and then widen, his head snapping up.

“A ball? The king wishes to throw a ball? After years of separation he is allowing our people to reunite for a night of…dancing?” My father is in disbelief. To be fair, he is not the only one. Garren’s face remains twisted in disgust. A few of the lords and ladies in attendance cover their mouths with gloved hands. As my eyes continue to scan the crowd, they land on a figure in the back.

Lucien’s pale green eyes light when ours connect. He is handsome, tall and lean as most of our elven males are. A crop of dark hair that was soft when I had held it in my hand. Unfortunately, that had been the only aspect of our coupling that deserved praise. He had been too eager, too clumsy, too excited to be lying with the princess of Lysan.

A word to males, the last thing a female wants to be reminded of when they are fucking is their noble and long-lasting lineage.

I quickly avert my eyes from his. Lucien had been in the right place during the summer’s harvest last month where I had partaken in a few too many glasses of berry wine. A mistake that I will be diligent never to make again. Elven males are too capricious. Human men at least feel grateful just for the chance to touch an elf.

I smile at the memory of my first human lover. A beautiful boy who had come to us as an apprentice in our royal stables. He had been so in awe of our kind and even though we had been the same sixteen years, there was always a maturity to him. Better to bed him than some four hundred-year-old male claiming me on my wedding day, producing the bloody sheets in an archaic tradition, signifying his male veracity.

Most of our kind had parted ways with those values but some still held firm to them.

“Not just for dancing. King Arkain is opening his gate to you and your people so that they may have the chance to participate in The Night of a Hundred Faces. Surely, you remember when that was a common Myrkorvin tradition, King Orvian?”

My mother shakes her head, answering instead. “The last time one of those was held was when I was a girl over five centuries ago. The old king was mated to his queen. His son, we were under the impression, was resigned to finding his mate as well. We assumed this tradition was lost to time. Or that the king was simply to live without a bride.”

There is unease in her tone. The Night of a Hundred Faces? I’ve never heard of this before. It is certainly not a tradition we have in Lysan.

“Our king has been advised that he has lived in solitude for too long. And in that spirit, he too believes our two people have been separated long enough—”

“And whose fault is that? Not ours,” Garren grounds out. My father cuts him a sharp, silencing look.

“Yes,” the visitor continues, “the War and those infernal Orcs who claimed the lives of our king’s beloved parents blinded him. He knows now that it was grief and loss that caused him to be so harsh. He wishes to use this night as the first step in repairing bonds between our two kingdoms.”

“Seems like a trick. As is common for your kind,” my brother sneers. “How can we trust that once we are over the bridge the king does not have assassins waiting for us.”

“We know you are wary of our kind. That we have always been at odds with each other but should the Orcs rise again it will take all of us to defeat them.” The visitor pauses. “Besides, this land holds no great appeal for our kind. Killing you would create a hostile people, keeping the throne would be near impossible for our king.”

Garren opens his mouth to argue further but my father holds up a hand.

“Does King Arkain believe the Orcs are mounting an offensive?”

The visitor inclines his head, that red stare seeming to glow brighter.

“At this point we do not know, but the king would rather have us on our way to a united front than wait until it is too late to act.” The visitor removes his helmet. There are audible gasps at the sight he makes. Gruesome in this unforgiving light, there are claw marks marring the left side of his face. Raised and puckered white skin, stark against his ashy gray complexion.

“You were there, King Orvian, when the Orcs first attacked. Your son was there when the old king fell, when his widowed queen perished in grief right alongside him. I was there for every battle. If the Orcs rise again, they will not stop at Myrkorvin, and without us there to help you, Lysan will fall to them.”

“We could destroy the bridge,” Garren counters.

The visitor turns his disfigured face towards my brother’s smooth one. How two males could have lived through the same event, one scared forever and one untouched, seemed like an unjust contrast. With a smirk curving his dark gray lips, white teeth with fangs sharper than our own, the visitor shakes his head.

“Orcs are marvelous swimmers, Prince.”

My brother’s face turns a deep shade of purple, his hand grasping for the sword at his waist. Ridiculous. Like a child throwing a temper tantrum. My brother and I do not often see eye to eye. My mother likes to remind me that out of all her children he was the calmest baby. Now? That temper is going to be what gets him killed one day.

“It says here that the ball is in two weeks time?” my father asks.

The visitor turns his gaze away from my brother and stows his helmet.

“Yes, Your Majesty. Royal escorts will be posted on both sides of the bridge. The king is offering safe passage to anyone who wishes to attend the festivities.” The visitor turns to look at the surrounding room of nobles. “Blackfire Castle and its surrounding grounds will be warded to protect against any beasts who may come sniffing. The king guarantees your safety for the entirety of the event.”

The visitor bows his head and my father nods.

“Tell your king that my family and I will attend.” Garren lets out a strangled gasp and I smirk, knowing my father will take him to task over this later.

I feel something tickling my stomach. Excitement? Nervousness? I’ve never left Lysan. To be able to see somewhere new beyond the castle grounds and the human villages to the south…

I try to suppress my squeal of delight.

“I will relay this message at once, the king will be most pleased. Thank you, Your Majesties.” With another bow he turns to leave the throne room, the great oak doors groaning as they are pulled apart. His black armor clanking with each step, until he pauses just outside the threshold of the door.

“One last thing the king wanted me to impart to all of you.” The visitor turns his head; at this distance I can just make out the glow of his red eyes.

“While this night is in the spirit of unity do not mistake us for fools. Anyone found lurking without invitation after the ball finishes will be dealt with by the king personally.” A dark chuckle sounds from the stranger’s chest.

“Or if you’re lucky, one of the beasts that roam Myrkorvin will find you first.”