Claimed by the Elven Brothers: Decision (An Elven King Novella Book 1) (4 page)

As I watched the two figures in the distance approach, I couldn’t take my
eyes off the smaller of the two, especially when they were only a few yards
away and I could see her face more clearly. It was hard to believe that this
woman was human. The way she looked, the eerie green of her eyes, the dark hair
that shimmered even in the dull light like threads of silk, and the impossible
smoothness of her skin just seemed to scream “other.” Hell, she even
moved
like them, with a kind of effortless grace that even if I lived to be a
hundred, I could never hope to copy.

Was this what Seren meant when he said that “steps” would have to be
taken in order for me to be able to enter the elven realm? It was obvious that
the elves had somehow changed her physically. That seemed awfully—
permanent
.

Before I could freak myself out even more, Seren was suddenly at my
side, urging me to stand. I complied almost as though I were in a daze as I
continued to stare at her like an idiot gawking at a celebrity.

A smile lit up her face, radiating a genuine friendliness that had me
relaxing just a little bit.

“Hi,” she said, offering me her hand. “I’m Emily. It’s nice to meet
you.”

It was such an ordinary, casual greeting that I felt the rest of my
tension melt away and even managed to smile back at her as I reached over to
shake her hand. “Megan Reyes,” I said, relieved that my voice sounded
completely normal. “It’s nice to meet you, too.”

“We shall take our leave for today,” Seren said, and I looked up at him
questionably. “Remember that time flows more slowly here, so stay and talk as
long as you need. Locien and I shall be here waiting for you tomorrow should
you decide to return.”

Emily sighed. “You’re still so proper, Seren. You and Locien both.”

Seren grinned. “Force of habit.”

“I look forward to talking with you tomorrow,” Locien said to me,
ignoring the others’ banter.

He had said that the last time I left as well. Maybe it was just a
polite phrase elves always said when they left, but I wondered if he was trying
to sway my decision just a little bit by saying it in a way that left me little
choice but to nod agreement rather than seem rude.

I was a little discomfited when I turned my attention back to Emily and
found her already studying me.

“Um, please don’t take this the wrong way, but I find it hard to
believe that you’re really human,” I said before I could stop myself.

Her smile was self-deprecating. “That’s because I’m not—at least not
anymore.”

“Because they changed you?” I prompted.

“More than that,” she said with a nod. “Let’s sit down. It’s a long
story, and I’m sure you’ll have tons of questions.”

“Seren said that you’re married to the king,” I said once we were
settled.

Emily had chosen to sit cross-legged facing me. It looked really weird
to see someone wearing one of those medieval-type gowns with a bodice and
everything that you would only see in a movie sitting so informally. It made me
wonder if she was going out of her way to be informal in order to put me at
ease or if this was her true nature.

“Yes,” she replied simply.

I shook my head. “How in the world did you ever meet an elven king in
our world? Did you fall into his trap, too?”

Her brow furrowed. “Trap?”

I gestured towards the twin trees in the distance. “A doorway like
that.”

She laughed. “I see what you mean. No, my case was unique. I had no
idea at the time, but he had been watching me for months. He says he first saw
me out on the balcony of my apartment. You see, I was a graduate student at the
time, studying for my PhD in astrophysics so I was outside a lot at night to
stargaze. Did Seren and Locien tell you why you three must meet here in the
Inbetween?”

I blinked in confusion at her sudden shift in topics. “Just that we
can’t enter each other’s world without some kind of help.”

“You can, just not completely,” she corrected. “The first time I saw an
elf, they looked like a bunch of shadows that had suddenly come to life. It was
pretty scary.”

My eyes widened. “Really? I would’ve peed my pants if I saw something
like that!”

“Believe me, if I hadn’t been half-asleep, I would’ve done more than
wet the bed—but I’m getting ahead of myself. The point I wanted to make was
that Sethian came into the human realm just like that, looking no more
substantial than a shadow, and was easily able to blend into the night. He literally
became my shadow.”

“That has got to be the creepiest thing I have ever heard,” I said with
a shudder, “and here I thought I was having a really great dream when a couple
of hot, pointy-eared men suddenly popped up.”

“I still think I’m dreaming sometimes, so I can totally relate,” Emily
said.

“So did the king talk to you when he was like that?” I asked curiously.

“No, and I’m eternally grateful that he didn’t,” she replied with a
grimace. “I would’ve had nightmares for years. When he decided that I was the
one he wanted for his bride, he sent a group of elves to steal me away from my
bedroom in the middle of the night.”

“You’re kidding me!” I exclaimed in utter disbelief. And to think I had
started to feel a little guilty about being so suspicious! I really needed to
start listening to my subconscious a lot more.

“I’m not telling you this to scare you,” she said firmly. “As I said
before, my situation was unique. Had I asked to go home, he would have allowed
it. He simply knew after all those months of observing me that I wouldn’t.”

“But—suddenly disappearing like that. Your family—” I instantly snapped
my big mouth shut when I saw the flash of pain in her eyes.

“My parents were both long dead before the elves came for me,” she said
softly before I could apologize. “Sethian’s never flat out told me, but I know
he would have never taken me if I hadn’t been so alone. At the time, I shared
an apartment with my best friend. I think I may have seen her at the most twice
on any given month. She was a nurse working the graveyard shift, and all of my
time was eaten up by school and work.” The pain in her eyes suddenly turned
wistful. “She would be almost fifty now, maybe even a grandmother.”

I was about to offer to look her up, but then the friend’s age suddenly
registered,  freezing the words on my tongue.
Fifty
? I stared hard at
the young woman before me. There was no way she was older than her early
twenties.

“Fifty?” I asked, hoping she would understand my confusion and wouldn’t
make me spell it out.

She sighed. “I would have thought they would have at least told you
about the lifespan of the
Sidhe
.”

Come to think of it, Seren had mentioned something about thousands of
years earlier…

“They might have. Did they tell you about my sudden memory loss?”

“Yes, and you can bet we’ll get to the bottom of it, so don’t worry,”
she said, a hint of anger coloring her words.

“Do you think they’re right?” I asked anxiously. “Did another elf
really mess with my brain?”

She nodded hesitantly. “Locien said that he found a suggestion
implanted within your mind, so there’s no doubt about it.” She paused, her eyes
looking at me pensively for a brief moment, before she continued, “The thing
you must understand about the elven society, particularly the elven court, is
that many see the fact that they must take a human bride in order to have
children as a disgrace. Some believe that it is better for their entire race to
eventually die out rather than mix their blood with us lowly humans. It is a
small minority, but one that can never be ignored, nor underestimated.”

“You sound as if you speak from experience,” I said with a frown.

“Too much so,” she said with a sad smile. “Just know that if you do
decide to accept Seren and Locien’s proposal, it is inevitable that you will
run into those kinds of prejudices eventually.”

“You don’t think it’s weird? Asking me to be a lover to both of them?”

“No weirder than my own situation,” Emily replied with a shrug. “The
only thing that really matters here is whether or not it’s a relationship
you
are comfortable with, as well as being comfortable with its potential outcome.”

I made a face. “Yes, a baby. Have you had any kids yet?”

Her face lit up. “Four so far—two boys and two girls. My oldest,
Thaylan, is twenty-two, and my youngest, Arra, just turned fourteen.”

“Seriously? And I was just thinking that you couldn’t be older than
early twenties!”

“That’s right—I never did finish telling you about their lifespan. An
elf can live for thousands of years. Sethian says that his father was nearly
ten thousand years old when he died. Sethian, himself, is over two thousand
years old. As for me, when Sethian’s mage transmuted my body in order for me to
be able to enter the elven realm completely, the change somehow granted me the
same longevity. I was twenty-three when I was brought to the elven realm. I’ll
look more or less like this for the rest of my life. If you decide to come to
the elven realm, the same will be true for you.”

“That’s—” I shook my head, unable to articulate what I was feeling.

“—a lot to take in, I know,” Emily finished sympathetically. “Things were
hard for me my first few months here. There was a lot that I didn’t understand
about the nature of elves or elven society in general. Their sense of time is
totally alien from a human’s perspective. They can leave home for a year and no
one will think anything of it no more than they would if they had been gone
only for a day. After these last twenty-three years living in the elven realm,
the most important lesson I learned was that as a human, no matter how many
centuries may pass, I’ll never truly become one of the
Sidhe
. You’ll
always be the outsider, and it’s something you’ll just have to accept if you
decide to marry into the House of Elerren.”

“You’re actually not pleading their case very well, you know,” I said
dryly.

“I’m not here to persuade you,” Emily said firmly. “Nor has either of
the brothers asked me to. Whenever a suitor comes to me and asks that I speak
with their potential bride, I come with only one purpose—to tell you the
realities of this unique life choice as seen from a human’s perspective.

“I will say this, though. Both Seren and Locien are good men, and Locien’s
wife, Hilde, is a sweet, gentle woman. I don’t expect you would face the same
difficulties I did should you end up bearing Locien’s child. The need for a
child can be a powerful factor, or as in my case, the reality of actually
holding your baby for the first time can shift everything in ways you never
expected.”

“That’s just the thing,” I said uncomfortably. “I’ve never wanted to
have children. I—well, let’s just say that a lot of things that happened in my shitty
childhood, not only to me, but to the grandmother who raised me, pretty much
ruined for me any desire to be a mother.”

“Then why do you keep coming back here?” she asked pointedly. “If you
truly feel that motherhood isn’t for you, then it would be better for everyone
involved to just move on before things become more serious on Seren and
Locien’s end.”

“Exactly,” I said, throwing my hands up in frustration. “Yet, it seems
every time I turn around, even in my dreams, I’m looking at those damn pine trees.”

Emily looked at me sharply. “Would you say it’s strong enough that
you’re being compelled to come here against your will?” she demanded.

I sighed noisily. “No, it’s probably just because I’m neurotic and too
damn nosy for my own good. I come here, and just talking with Seren and Locien
excites me. I think I felt like this
before
someone screwed with my
memories. I mean, I came to meet them for seven days in a row. Maybe I just
want to know why. Maybe my life’s been too boring, lately. I just don’t know at
this point, and that’s what drives me crazy.”

“But is it enough? Enough to make you reconsider your stance on
children?” Her lips curved up into a self-deprecating smile. “Lord knows that I
went into this scared out of my mind when I found out exactly why I had been
brought here. I had been so busy with school that the thought of having
children hadn’t even entered my mind at all. Then I got pregnant within my
first month here, and terrifying doesn’t quite describe what I felt. Looking
back now, there was absolutely nothing unique about what I was feeling. What
first-time mother isn’t scared? It took actually becoming a mother to show me
my true feelings about the matter. Now, I couldn’t imagine my life without my
kids when before Sethian came into my life, I couldn’t imagine them at all.”

The more she talked, the more I just wanted to start pulling my hair
out at the roots. What the hell was I even still doing here? Was I seriously
going to consider going with the elven brothers to live in their world
permanently, to live with
two
men? I considered myself adventurous, but
not
that
adventurous…

“
Argh
!” I moaned, giving in to the urge to grab the ends of my
hair and yank hard in agitation before I abruptly stood up. “I need to get away
from here,” I said as Emily rose to her feet as well. “Thanks for talking to
me, for telling me what’s what without sugarcoating anything, but I think I
should go home now. I need to think away from all this craziness. Can you tell
Seren and Locien that regardless of whether or not I want to pursue this—thing
with them, I’ll definitely come back to tell them my decision? I don’t like the
idea of just not showing up at all. It may not be tomorrow, or even the next
day after that, but I think after apparently stringing them along for this
long, they deserve at least that much from me.”

“Of course,” Emily said with an easy smile. “If you do decide to come
to the realm in the end, come see me. I’d like to talk some more. I’ll
introduce you to my friends, to the other human brides. After all, no matter
the outcome from that point on, we will all be family.”