Elfin (36 page)

“Cassie, wait,” Flora’s voice was urgent. “Listen to her, if only for a second.”

“No,” Cassie told her firmly.

“Why? Just tell me why?”

“IT HURTS!” Cassie yelled. “It hurts to listen to her. I don’t remember him, but he hurt me, he didn’t want me and I don’t want to hurt anymore.”

“You would rather feel nothing?” Flora asked.

“
Nothing can’t hurt me, nothing can’t break me.” Cassie answered coldly.

“It can’t love you either.”

Cassie ignored her words and pulled the door open.

“It’s time.” The tall
elf who had carried her to her room stood at the threshold. He was handsome. He was strong and tall and he wanted her. He held out his hand to her and she placed her small one in it. His fingers wrapped around hers and she fought not to pull her hand away and recoil at his touch.

He led her to a small room. It wa
s lit in soft candlelight and a large bed took up over half of the space. She quickly darted her eyes from the bed, not wanting to even consider what might happen there. She turned to the opposite wall and saw Lorsan standing there with his Chosen next to him. They were the only ones in the room with them.

“
Andaer,” Lorsan motioned for them to come stand in front of him.

Cassie shivered as she walked beside the
elf who she now knew was named Andaer. She wasn’t sure how it was spelled but it sounded like and-dire and in that moment it struck her as slightly funny that she hadn’t known the name of the man that she was about to essentially marry. She tried to stifle a hysterical giggle and turned it into a cough. Three sets of eyes landed on her and she blushed.

“Sorry,” she whispered.
“Just a little nervous.”

Andaer squeezed her hand in what she was sure was supposed to be a comforting gesture but it made her skin crawl and again she felt the pushing, the warring soul inside her.

“My King,” Andaer spoke. “This is the woman I’ve chosen for my Union and I ask your blessing.”

Lorsan nodded and held out his hand to his Queen. She placed a shiny, very sharp dagger in his hand. Cassie took an involuntary step back but Andaer wrapped an arm around her waist and pulled her close to him.

“A blood sacrifice must be made,” Lorsan told her holding out his hand. Andaer took Cassie’s hand and held it out to Lorsan. She didn’t want to watch but like a bad car wreck she couldn’t tear her eyes away. She sucked in a breath as Lorsan ran the dagger across her palm. Blood welled up from the wound and Cassie fought to keep her hand open. Lorsan made the same cut across Andaer’s palm and then he turned their palms so that they would meet.

“I, Lorsan, King
of the Dark Elves, bless this Union. A sacrifice of blood has been made and the Union will be complete once consummated.” He pressed Andaer’s hand to hers and her first thought was that it could not be sanitary to be swapping blood with an elf she didn’t know. Again that made her laugh but she swallowed it down when Lorsan frowned at her and Andaer’s frown matched that of the King’s.

It seemed like they were waiting for something and when nothing happen Lorsan finally released their hands. She pulled her palm away from the elf—her now, what? Mate, husband? She stared down at the blood smeared there. Whether it was the sight of the blood or the screaming in her head that she could no longer pacify, she didn’t know but she felt darkness engulf her as she fell.

Andaer caught Cassandra as her body crumbled. She was pale and her skin felt clammy. He picked her up and took her to the large bed and laid her down.

“What is wrong?” He asked Lorsan, though his eyes did not leave Cassandra’s still form.

“Perhaps she doesn’t like the sight of blood,”
Ilyrana suggested.

Andaer nodded
, but his gut told him that that was not why his Bound had fallen. He heard the door close behind him and knew that the King and Queen had left him to be with his mate. There was a knock at the door and he called out gruffly. “Enter.”

There was a squeak behind
him and he turned to find the she-elf who had been Cassandra’s handmaiden staring wide-eyed at the human.

“What happened?” She rushed over to the side of the bed and placed a cool towel on Cassandra’s forehead.

“She passed out after the Union,” he explained.

The s
he-elf tsked at him. She muttered under her breath as she wiped Cassandra’s face and positioned her hands on her stomach.

“Will she be alright?” Andaer asked her.

She glared up at him. “Yes,” she snapped, “she will be fine. But when she wakes you will want to give her this.” She held out a small bottle of Rapture.

Andaer snarled. “NO! I will not have her drunk on that any longer.”

“Then you will lose her.”

“What? What are you saying?”

“She threatened to kill herself if she did not get the Rapture. She needs it; you have your King to thank for that.”

Andaer stared down at the human girl who had claimed his heart the moment he had seen her dance for the first time. She was so graceful, so uninhibited. He knew that she was Triktapic’s Chosen, but he had heard that Trik had discarded her and would not claim her. Andaer counted the assassin a fool to give up such a creature. So he had gone to Lorsan and petitioned the King for the girl. Lorsan had made him swear a blood oath to protect him should Triktapic come for him. Andaer had known Trik a very long time, knew of his fighting ability, his cruelty, and power to bring others to their knees. Still he couldn’t say no because he wanted Cassandra, at any cost.

“Will she always need it?” He asked.

“You have taken that which is not yours. Her soul cries out for another and the only thing that quiets that voice inside her is the red devil—Rapture. She will always need it if you don’t want her to crawl into a hole and wither away, which will still happen, only more slowly if she is smashed on the drink and dead inside.”

“This i
s not my fault!” Andaer shouted. “Triktapic, the fool, left her. He did not protect her, claim her. He is to blame for this. I only want to care for her.”

“Then take her to him. That would be truly caring for her.”

Andaer shook his head. “I can’t do that,” his voice was a whisper as he brushed Cassandra’s hair from her beautiful face. “I can’t give her up.”

“Then you are just as much as a fool as Trik and you both are causing the girl’s death. You both have stuck a knife in her and are slowly turning it ripping her insides to shreds until her organs will no longer work.”

Cassandra began to stir and Andaer moved closer to her. “Leave us,” he told the she-elf.

She looked one last time at the human before she hurried from the room. Andaer heard stifle d weeping as the door closed behind her.

He leaned down closer to Cassandra as her eyes fluttered open.

“Hi beautiful,” he whispered to her.

“Please don’t call me that.”

“What would you like me to call you?” Andaer couldn’t stop touching her. She was here, in his bed, Bound to him.

“Anything but that.”
Cassie tried hard not to shrink from his touch. She began to shake as his hands roamed and though he didn’t touch her anywhere that she hadn’t been touched before, she felt naked before him.

He leaned down and buried his face in her neck. She squeezed her eyes closed and bit back a whimper.

His hand slid up to the tie that held the dress she wore on either
shoulder and she felt him pull the strings loose. Cassie tasted blood as she bit harder into her lip. He began to pull the dress down and she could not stop herself any longer. Her hand grabbed the dress and held it in place.

Andaer pulled back and looked down at her. He didn’t look angry, but his brow furrowed at her.

“You are mine and I will have all of you.”

Cassie swallowed hard. “Um, I’ve never, uh, I haven’t been with a man before, or been touched anywhere that would normally cause me to knee a guy in the jewels.” She shivered nervously and watched a slow smile slide across his lips.

“You are pure?” He asked.

“Of course I’m pure, what did you think I was, dirty snow?” She snapped at him, her fear slipping just a little at the surprise in his eyes.

“You dance as one with much more experience,” he told her as he traced her lips with a finger.

“I watch Dancing with the Stars, and I’m a quick study,” she told him as she stalled for time. She looked around the room and saw the small bottle on the table beside the bed.
Jackpot, she thought.

“Can I have some of that?” She nodded towards the bottle.

Andaer looked from the bottle to her and the she-elf’s words echoed in his mind. He reached for the bottle and opened it for her. He helped hold her head up so that she could drink the liquid and his eyes were drawn to her throat as he watched it move with each swallow. He leaned down and traced her throat with the tip of his tongue and he heard her moan. He smiled against her skin and took the sound as submission. His hand wondered up to the dress and just as it would have exposed her smooth, untouched skin he heard a voice and he froze.

~

Trik knew
that only the protection of the Forest Lords had gotten him inside the Dark King’s castle. Once inside he had opened himself and allowed his soul to seek out their Chosen. He made it to the room where he had heard her voice. He tried the door handle and it was locked. Just as he was about to kick it in, a little she-elf came around the corner. She squeaked in surprise and then her face lit up.

“Praise t
he Forest Lords, you’re here,” she told him as she hurried to the door. She pulled out a key and slipped it into the lock and turned it quietly.

“You must get in there. Lorsan
has already bound her to him with a blood sacrifice and now he plans to consummate it.”

Trik felt his blood begin to boil but he knew
that he had to keep his calm. He had centuries of experience masking his true emotions. He drew on this experience and cloaked himself in the cold sensation.

“Thank you,” he told the woman.

She clucked her tongue at him and pushed him forward. “Quit thanking me and go save your Chosen.”

He didn’t have to be told twice. He pushed the door open silently and stepped into the room.

Chapter 18

Don’t ever tell yourself that you aren’t capable of murder. Under the right circumstances , anyone can become a killer. Under the wrong circumstances, the killer becomes the one capable of torture, anguish, cruelty, and all manner of unspeakable things. I am one such killer and the wrong circumstances have happened to my beloved. Death will be a mercy to those who have earned my wrath; it will be a mercy they will not receive.

~
Triktapic, King of the Elves

Trik bit back a growl as he saw his mate, his love, lying on a bed with Andaer, a warrior he had fought beside many times, leaning over her body, pulling her dress down.

He leaned casually back against the wall and pulled out the dagger from his sheath on his thigh. He flipped it in the air nonchalantly as he spoke.

“If you pull that material any lower I will cut your hands off.”

Andaer froze and then in a rush of movement was on his feet blocking Cassie from his view.

“Trik,” Andaer growled, “how kind of you to come and wish me blessings on my Union.”

Trik laughed humorlessly.
“I’ve come to bless you brother, but it will be over your cold corpse as I push you over the cliff and into the oblivion.” Trik continued to flip the dagger up and catch it, blade, then handle, blade then handle, never losing his rhythm as he spoke.

“You knew she
was my Chosen, and yet you dared to touch her.” Slowly the boiling anger began to rise to the top and the calm façade slipped. “You put your hands on my mate and for that your life is forfeit.”

“Not only my hands Triktapic?
” Andaer wished immediately that he could take those words back.

Trik pulled on his power, the R
oyal power in his blood, bestowed upon him by the Forest Lords and he dropped the cloak that kept his kingship hidden. He stood before Andaer in his true form, the King of the Elven race. His radiance filled the room and Andaer fought to stay on his feet. His eyes widened as he looked at Trik and swallowing became difficult.

“You shouldn’t be, you are gone, you left,”
he stuttered.

“I have returned,” Trik’s voice rumbled in the room
. “I am no longer the King I once was, tolerant of your selfishness. We are a people of many blessings, magic being chief among them and we have wielded it with wicked intent. I am tired of living in that darkness. Cassie, my Chosen, has broken the hold that it had over me. I am your King, your rightful King, and I have spoken your sentence.”

“I didn’t
know it was you,” Andaer argued. “I would have never claimed her.”

“Does it matter who I am?
She is the Chosen of another. You know what that means, you know how sacred that is and yet you attempted to defile and seduce her. You attempted to take that which was made for me, that which completes my soul. You acted out of lust and selfish desire without thought to what it would do to her.”