Rapture (Elfin Series) (20 page)

“It’s about time,” he whispered as he laid her on the bed and pulled the covers up. He climbed on next
to her leaning against the headboard and then drug her up to lay against his chest. His bossiness should tick her off, but as his body warmed hers and his heartbeat lulled her to sleep, she couldn’t find the energy to be irritated, let alone mad at him.

Cush struggled with the urge to haul off and kill someone or something. As he lay with his Chosen in his arms in the dark motel room, his mind was continually drawn back to that moment when he had put his arm in the portal. Someone, and he knew it was a
someone
because it had been a hand, had grabbed his arm. He had felt the heat from their skin against his and when they had attempted to pull him through the portal it had enraged him. The amount of evil that had been in that touch had left his skin feeling as though thousands of ants were marching along his nerves all doing a dance to the tune of “Another One Bites the Dust.” Whoever had touched him had wanted him to feel that evil. They had wanted him to know they were hunted, they were prey, and few things angered him more than feeling like prey.

“You’re thinking awfully loud,” Elora’s tired voice broke through his thoughts.

He ran a hand over her hair and down her back, enjoying the way she felt. “Shh, Little Raven, you need more sleep.”

“Your
little raven is going to peck your eye balls out if you don’t quit telling her what to do.” Cush chuckled at her kitten like growl. “You like it when I boss you around,” he teased as he whispered against her ear. She was still sprawled across his chest where he had put her, and even though she was arguing with him, she had yet to attempt to move away.

“Yes, well I also like the smell of gas
oline and the way a snake feels, so I wouldn’t bank your actions too much on what I like.”

“The way a snake fee
ls?” he repeated and though she couldn’t see him he still quirked a brow at her.

“Blame it on the dark blood,” she said dryly.

She buried herself closer to him and pressed her face against his neck. Cush stubbornly tried not to enjoy it too much, but her warm breath skittered across his skin and distracted him from the evil he had been so focused on.

“I keep hearing something about evil dance across your thoughts
, Warrior,” she said softly. “What evil?”

He knew that he needed to be open with her, but his first instinct was to protect her, to keep her from having to deal with dangerous things. He knew that if he attempted to cage his raven she would indeed peck his eyes out. He let out a deep breath before he answered her.

“Whatever grabbed me was something so evil, so vile, that I can still feel the residue of it on my skin,” he admitted and actually felt his mood lighten after the words were out.

Elora pulled back so she could look up at his face and he saw the concern in her eyes, concern for him. He reached a hand up and ran his fingers across her cheek, completely in awe of the creature before him who would worry for him.

“Do you think it’s Lorsan, or are you thinking there is someone else now joining the fray?” she asked.

“Whoever it was, they definitely are a player for Lorsan, but I don’t think it was Lorsan himself.”

“Why?”

He shrugged. “It didn’t feel male.”

She let out an un-ladylike snort. “Do I want to even know why you think that? Perhaps your hand landed on something.”

His finger landed across her lips silencing her as his eyes narrowed in warning. When he finally pulled his finger away she let out an exasperated huff.

“I say that it didn’t feel male because magic can have a masculine or an un-masculine quality to it. This was definitely un-masculine,” he explained.

“So how are we going to get back to Trik and Cassie?”

“I don’t know,” he finally admitted after several heartbeats of silence.

“I’m probably worrying for nothing,” she said as she snuggled back down against him. “They’ve probably smacked Lorsan to the curb and are having a party.”

“Weren’t we just standing in a castle?” Cassie asked as she looked around at the
rubble surrounding her. She was trying not to look at Trik as though he had just deflected an explosion and kept all of their people safe while allowing the destruction to take its toll on the dark elves still in the vicinity. But frankly, that’s exactly what he had done, and
bloody freaking hell, who has that kind of power,
she thought as she stared at her husband.

Trik looked at her and in total Trik fashion
, he winked. “Just think what I can do in the bedroom.”

Cassie rolled her eyes and turned her attention to the others around her. Syndra was talking to Tyndr
il and Tao, weird as that was. The two tigers were unharmed but seemed very agitated. Tamsin was checking on the other warriors and gathering up any of the dark elves who had lived through the blast.

“He knew his people would be killed and harmed
, and still he blew up his own freaking home?” Cassie growled.

“Lorsan cares about power
, Love; nothing else matters to him,” Trik told her.

“Yes but doesn’t he realize that if he kills off all his warriors he won’t be able to hold onto that power?”

Trik smiled at her. “He obviously doesn’t have a queen with wisdom such as yours to advise him.”

Cassie laughed. “If we weren’t in the middle of an exploded castle
, I might think you were trying to earn some brownie points for some reason.”

“Always
, beautiful Cassandra, always.” He took her hand and led her over to where Tamsin stood with the captives on their knees and hands bound behind their backs.

“Most of them didn’t even know you had returned to power,” Tamsin told Trik. “They were completely clueless. So either Lors
an doesn’t trust his own people or he had been planning on sacrificing them all along and didn’t want them to be aware of it.”

“Dude is sick,” Cassie muttered under her breath.

“And evil,” Syndra added as she came to stand next to them. “What are you going to do with them, Trik?” she asked.

Trik looked down at the dark elves kneeling before him. There were around twenty-five and they were all looking back at him, some in awe, some in confusion, but none of them looked hostile. These had been his fellow warriors for centuries, and yet standing before them now as their King, he felt as if he’d never met them.

“The Forest Lords have seen fit to restore me back as the rightful king over all the elves. You
can pledge your loyalty to me and to my queen,” he motioned to Cassie, “and the Forest Lords, or you forfeit your life.” He figured that would make the choice pretty simple.

“May I speak,” a male with long dark hair and red eyes spoke up.

Trik nodded his head and answered, remembering the warrior’s name. “Leer, what say you?”

The dark elf stood and pulled his shoulders back as he narrowed his eyes at Trik. “We know you
probably better than the light-elf king and queen. We know your reputation and have seen firsthand the death you have delivered over the centuries. Why should we follow you? Why should we pledge our loyalty to an assassin, one who worked so closely with Lorsan?” There was a rumble of agreement behind Leer as the other dark elves agreed with his questions.

Trik knew that these questions would come. He knew he couldn’t expect the light or dark e
lves to forget all of his past; they would be foolish to not question him. He didn’t want to be a leader of a race that could not think for themselves. He would never ask them to follow blindly and he would never lead haphazardly.

“You are right to question and I will answer you to the best of my ability.” He took a deep breath and looked down when he felt a small hand slip into his. Cassie was smiling up at him, her face the
picture of innocence and truth—his truth. He drew on the confidence she gave him and turned back to the dark elves. “When I walked away from my crown so many centuries ago, the Forest Lords gave me a prophecy although I did not remember it until it started to unfold. They said that the choice would be laid before me to take my crown back when I found my Chosen. They said she would be a vessel of goodness and light, one so pure that she would conquer the darkness that I had allowed a foothold in my own soul. Cassandra is my Chosen. Why the Forest Lords have given me someone so gentle and kind I will never know. I do know that I may be many things, but I am not a fool and it would be foolish of me to reject the gift of my Chosen. She has restored the light in my life, she has helped me to see that our creators, the Forest Lords, have a purpose and plan for us, and it was never for us to be a divided nation.

“I’ve committed myself once again to their leadership and teachings and choose to follow them. I will no l
onger let evil rule in my heart nor will I let it reign in the hearts of any of our elves, light or dark. A time of cleansing is coming and they will wipe from our realm any that do not choose the correct path. Change is painful, and change for the good is sometimes more than painful because it requires death so that new life can grow.” Trik’s eyes met Leer’s and then he met the stare of each dark-elf captive. “You have a chance to do something good, something selfless; don’t let this chance pass you by.”

He turned then to Tamsin. “If they pledge l
oyalty release them immediately; if not then bring them back to the castle and I will deal with them.”

“You don’t have to do it alone,” Tamsin told him.

Trik met his eyes. “I have set their death sentence. I should be the one to carry it out.” He heard Cassie’s intake of breath and knew that she would argue against it, but he knew it was the right thing to do. “Cassie and I will continue to seek out survivors, and Syndra will use her healing ability on the wounded.” He looked up at the rest of the light-elf warriors still waiting on orders. “Be vigilant as you search the ruins, and if you can keep from killing then please do. We will take as many alive as possible and give them the opportunity to choose their own fate.”

“Why do you think you have to be the one to kill them?” Cassie asked as soon as they were away from the others.

“
Are we really going discuss this now?” Trik asked her.

“Well we can always wait and discuss the fact that you think you have to be the one to deal out the death sentences later, when we’re alone, in the room we now share because we’re married.” Cassie knew she wasn’t playing fair, but then s
he was married to an assassin. The way she saw it he probably didn’t even know what playing fair looked like.

“That’s just wrong
, Cassandra,” Trik nearly growled at her.

She shrugged nonchalantly. “I’m sure there’s nothing else you’d rather be doing later an
yways, so you are totally right; there’s no need to talk about it right now.”

“Cassie,” Trik warned.

“Can’t hear you,” she sung as she continued to look for injured dark elves, all the while a secret smile danced on her lips. She shouldn’t manipulate him, but as she looked back over her shoulder at the frustrated, now huffy king, she couldn’t help the slight amount of satisfaction she found in it. Okay, so maybe she wasn’t quite as pure and gentle as they thought.

“Life is happening all around us. War, bloodshed, loyalties being given and taken away and yet there is still us. At the end of the day you are the one who I share my hurts, my worries, my fears and my hopes with. You are the one who sees me fall apart when I’ve been holding it together in front of everyone else. When everything else is falling apart
, you are the one who continually holds me together.” ~Cassie

Cassie drug herself into the room she had now called home for more days than she could remember. She didn’t even know if she could recall
what her bedroom at her parents’ house looked like, and that thought nearly dropped her to her knees. She was so tired—the kind of tired that seeped into your bones and didn’t let go until you had given into it and slept for days, but she knew that wouldn’t be happening. After searching the rubble and then traveling across the realm back to the light-elf castle, they now had close to fifty dark-elf captives to deal with. Of course her mate thought he had to handle it all himself. Little did he know that she was about to put her foot down and he was going to listen.

She went ahead and showered quickly, needing to get the dust out of her hair and used the time to gather her thoughts. She had been building her argument all day
, knowing that it would take some pretty good convincing to get Trik to change his mind. By the time she was clean, dressed in a simple nightgown, and working on the tangles in her hair Trik walked into her, well
their
room now. He looked so tired and yet when his eyes landed on her he seemed to fill up with life, like a balloon being re-inflated.

“Hey
, Beautiful,” he said smiling despite his obvious weariness.

“Why don’t you get a shower,” Cassie suggested before he could come wrap his dirty arms around her.

Trik looked down at himself, his clothes covered in ash and dust, and then looked back up at her. “So you don’t like your men dirty?” he asked with a wink.

Cassie felt her heart stutter at the inhumanly handsome elf before her. Trik was gorgeous on a good day, but when he flirted he took it to a whole other level. She didn’t want to be affected by him at the moment and so she did her best to frown at him, but she could tell he wasn’t buying it.

“Relax, Cassie, I’ll go take a shower so you can continue to work on your argument against my killing the captives.” He laughed when her frown turned to a scowl. As the door closed she heard him call out, “And don’t think that the discussion is going to postpone any other activities that need to happen and will happen.”

The door clicked closed before she could respond to that comment. She glared at the door as if it were the one that had made the inc
redibly conceded statement. If she wasn’t so embarrassed at possibly seeing Trik in all his glory, she would have opened the offensive door and given him a piece of her mind, though that’s not the piece of her she knew he wanted. She nearly laughed to herself at her own cheekiness.
Man, I wish Elora was here to appreciate my humor,
she thought wistfully.

Elora paced the small motel room feeling edgy and restless as the others gathered around the small round table. They had all slept for several hours but the weariness was still evident in the hunch of shoulders and the exhaustion written across each of their brows.

“Okay, let’s recap,” Oakley spoke up. “Tarron, the chemist from Hell, has taken over the running of Iniquity, the crops have been destroyed, and the portals are open, but they aren’t usable because something evil is watching them. Is that about right?”

Cush nodded solemnly.

“Don’t you think we need to at least try to get back to Trik and let him know what’s going on?” Rin asked Cush.

“Do we have a choice?” Lisa asked. “No really,” she started again when Cush began to shake his head. “We can’t just stay here and let Tarron have control. You and Rin are powerful, but there’s no telling how many dark elves Lorsan has in this realm and we are going to need more light elves to fight them.”

“She’s got a point, Babe,” Elora pointed out.

Cush let out a frustrated sigh. “We need that book.” He looked at Lisa pointedly.

“Lisa, please say you brought the book with you,” Elora pleaded.

Lisa folded her arms across her chest and narrowed her eyes at her daughter. “Why on earth would I bring a book
that
powerful into enemy territory?”

Elora shrugged. “Uh, because you’re you.”

“Damn,” Lisa huffed, “that’s true. Okay, yes, I brought it. It’s in the…,” she froze before the word came out of her mouth and her head snapped around to Cush, “vehicle,” she finished breathlessly.

Elora groaned and smacked her forehead. “You mean the vehicle that blew up several miles from here only a few hours ago?”

“Um, yep,” Lisa said and made a popping sound on the end of the word.

“Excellent,” Rin growled.

Elora was surprised because it was the first time she had seen the warrior even a little ruffled. She looked over to her own warrior who was now gazing out of the window into the nearly empty parking lot of the cheap motel. He was staring off in the direction where the vehicle in question had bit the dust.

“What are you thinking
, Warrior?” Elora asked him as she walked over to where he stood. He turned his head to look down at her and she saw his jaw tense up and his eyes narrow. It was a face she was beginning to recognize as his determined look.

“I will go get it,” he answered as his eyes met hers.

“Um, how about no,” Elora said sharply. “The book is probably a pile of ash, and if you go back you run the risk of being captured or killed by the dark elves that may still be lurking around. You can’t go back and get it, Cush.”

“Elora,” Cush’s voice was low as he stepped closer to her. “A book that powerf
ul probably contains protection. It might be fully intact.”

“You want me to risk your life on
might be
?”

“No, I want you to let me do my job.”

Elora bit back the snarky remark that was on the tip of her tongue. She knew that goading him would only push him to want to do it more. Instead she relaxed her face and tried to soften her tone. “I understand that you are a warrior. I understand it is your job to protect, but if you try to go get this book that might not even exist anymore, then you will be leaving me unprotected.” She nearly grinned as his brow furrowed at her.

“That’s not fair
, Little Raven,” he nearly whispered. “You will be perfectly safe with Rin and Tony.”

“Oy,” Oakl
ey piped in looking indignant.

Cush rol
led his eyes. “And your brother; they are all capable of protecting you.”

“Okay
, that may be, but who will protect them,” she pointed at the ones he had indicated, “from me?”

Cush’s lips twitched and Elora could tell he was fighting a smile. “Why do they need protection from you?”

“Because I’m going to kick their asses if they let you walk out of the motel on a suicide mission for a book that is probably scattered across the field as fertilizer by now.” Elora’s mouth was stretched into a straight, thin line and her forehead was wrinkled in frustration as she continued to stare at Cush, waiting for his response to her minor tirade. Was she being a little overprotective of the six-foot-four, elf warrior? Maybe, but he was her six-foot-four, elf warrior and she wanted him to stay just as he was—alive.

“I’m sorry
, Raven, this is just one in a long line of disagreements I’m sure will come over the course of our relationship. I cannot give you what you want.” His deep voice was soft and gentle as he spoke to her.

“Why can’t someone else go get it?” Elora hated that she sounded like a sullen child, but then again, if it got her what she wanted
….

“Because I am the leader of this war party and I am responsible
for the safety of each of its members. Please,” he let out a sigh before he continued. “Please, just trust me. I’ll be back before you know it.”

Elora made her way to the motel room door and turned to face the group. She crossed her arms over her chest and cocked a hip out to the side. “The only way you’re getting out of this room is to go through me
, Cush.”

“I can’t believe you let them tie me up!” Elora nearly yelled. “You’re my mother! Aren’t you supposed to keep things like this from happening to me?” Elora pulled against the ropes that had her hands bound behind the chair but they weren’t budging. She wiggled her ankles, testing to see how tight the ropes there were, but it was no use.
Damn elf knows how to tie rope that’s for sure,
she thought to herself and then something else occurred to her and she nearly grinned,
note to self, proficient at binding.
She nearly laughed out loud because she could only imagine the look Cush would give her if he had heard that thought. It was enough to almost make her forgive him—almost.

“If you don’t keep your voice down we’re going to duct tape your mouth next,” Lisa told her with a smirk
, not appearing to be bothered in the least by her daughter’s current situation.

“What about you
, Oakley?” Elora asked her brother. “How can you just let these elf warriors tie me up?”

Oakley shook his head. “That question is just wrong on so many levels.”

Rin chuckled. “She definitely has a way with words.”

“Hey, Rinky-tinky-tavey, nobody asked you,” Elora snapped at him. Rin just chuckled.

“It’s Rikki-Tikki-Tavi, Sis.”

“Don’t care,” Elora huffed shortly.

“Relax, he will be back before you know it, Elora, and then we will untie you.” Rin spoke as if it were the most logical and normal thing in the world and Elora wanted to throttle him all the more for it.

“Oh, okay since you put it like that,” Elora nodded eagerly. “I’ll just sit here calmly tied to a damn chair while the other half of my soul runs head long into the hands of the dark elves! Geeze why didn’t I think of that? Relax, right.”

Cush could see the slow break of the morning sun as it began to crest the horizon. Bursts of orange and yellow gradually began to reach up like eager fingers to chase away the last remaining cover of night. He had always loved that about the human realm. They had sunsets and sunrises in their realm as well but there was something so refreshing and new about it in the human realm. Maybe it was because they were mortal and every day they were growing older, coming a little closer to their inevitable demise. Their lives were numbered from the moment of their conception and so each new sunrise was like a glorious triumph where a human could stare up at the lightening sky and say
look, I’m still here, I made it another day!
Each sunrise was a victory dance for those with life still running through them—not just humans—but animals and plants as well. Every living thing seemed to stop what they were doing and turn their countenance to the glorious light that rose to greet them and it never ceased to amaze and inspire him.

He continued to run, his face
focused on the sky while his feet recalled the path they had taken when they had left the valley where the Rapture was being made. He was actually surprised the dark elves hadn’t found them hiding out in their motel room. Cush knew they could have if they had utilized their magic and he had fully expected an attack during the night, but it never came. With every step that brought him closer to the valley he hoped that the dark elves had left this realm. He wasn’t worried about himself; he knew what he was capable of and that his magic was strong. But he worried about his Chosen, always his worry was for her now.

His attention was drawn away from the beautiful sunrise when the smell of ash hit him. He looked straight ahead and saw the burnt fields, acre after acre. The fire he and Rin had started had done its job. They had fed the magic fire
a sentient intent; it wasn’t just a mindless flame that had destroyed those crops of elfish plants. The fire had had a purpose, and it had done its job very well. Not a single leaf remained uncharred.

Cush began to veer right, running towards the road where they had parked the vehicle and to his surprise
, it was still there. If the dark elves hadn’t come to clean up their mess, that could mean only one thing, they had deserted the place. He slowed as he approached the thoroughly burned SUV. He hoped that he was right, that the elf book had some sort of protection on it to keep it from being harmed. But it had been dark-elf magic that had destroyed the vehicle, so it might have been able to destroy the book as well.