Rapture (Elfin Series) (14 page)

“I understand, and I would not put you in that position. She belongs by my side anyways.”

“Well at least then you know what sort of trouble she’s getting into,” Tony pointed out.

“
She
is standing right here,” Elora grated out.             

Tony le
d them to a black, generic, albeit very official looking, SUV.  They loaded up with Cush taking the driver seat and Elora next to him in the passenger seat. Cush rolled down the window as he started the vehicle. Tony stood several feet away watching them. His eyes were narrowed and the skin around his mouth was tight with stress.

“Will you be alright?” Cush asked him.

Tony shrugged. “Worst case scenario, they torture me; best case, they only kill me.”

Elora’s mouth dropped open at his words. “He’s joking right?”

Cush began to back up and as he put the car in drive and pulled out of the parking deck he looked one last time at Tony. Then he glanced over at Elora and shook his head. “No, unfortunately he’s very serious.”

“Torture? Really? I mean
, who does that?” Elora asked incredulously.

“Apparently
, dark elves,” Oakley replied and then added, “and truthfully now knowing that we are half dark elves, it explains a lot.”

Tarron watched from the shadows as the black SUV pulled out of the parking deck. He had
expected that the human who was in charge of running Iniquity would have ran with the light-elf warriors. But he stayed. Whether that made him brave, or foolish, he couldn’t yet say. He did know that it made him dead. Tarron had no way of contacting Lorsan in the dark elf realm since the king had closed the portals. So he couldn’t get a confirmation that his king would indeed want Tony the human removed. But the human had betrayed them. In Tarron’s book, betrayal was an automatic death sentence.

He stepped out from the shadows
. Tarron could see by the tightening of Tony’s shoulders that the human knew that he had company. Tarron prepared himself to have to run after the human. Humans are prey and, after all, that is what prey do; they run from anything deadlier than themselves and the elf was definitely much deadlier. But, once again, the human surprised him. Tony turned slowly to face him. His jaw was tense and his eyes darted around the parking deck before finally landing back on Tarron.

“Your family has worked for the dark elves for many generations,” Tarron said as he took a step towards the human. “You know
the cost of disloyalty, yet you are still here?”

“I know the cost,” Tony agreed. “But I also know that the cost of Rapture being given to my race is more than I’m willing to stand for.”

Tarron chuckled. “Suddenly you’ve grown a conscience?”

“Something like that,” Tony quipped.

“I think it’s a little late for regret, human,” Tarron purred. “You’ve made your bed, and you invited the enemy to lie down with you in it. What is it you humans always say? You reap what you sow?” He smiled as he took another step closer.

Tony knew he was staring at death. There was no other way to put it. The sadistic dark elf standing not twenty feet from him was going to kill him. He realized that he was having one of those moments that you see happen to people in the movies, where their life sort of flashes before their eyes. For him it was more that everything up until that point was staring him in the face and it was screaming at him,
this is what you did with your life? This is how you spent the few years given to you, in the service of evil?
The crappy thing about having reality stare you in the face is that there is no turning from it. There is no hiding from what has already happened. It is done and it cannot be undone. And now as he stood there, staring at the man who would end his pathetic version of a life, he realized just how badly he wanted to do something good with his life.

He wanted to help someone
or give back in some way, and now, now he wouldn’t be able to do that. He would never be able to redeem himself from all the darkness he himself had caused, and he knew that if there was a hell—if it was a real place, he was about to be checking himself into it. Tarron took another step closer, and another, and the waiting just made Tony want to scream at him to get on with it. Suddenly, there was a screeching of wheels on the concrete and headlights were bearing down on the pair, heading straight for his executioner. Tony kept thinking that the vehicle was going to slam on its breaks or swerve, but it did neither. In fact, it seemed to be speeding up. Tarron must have seen the alarm in his eyes because he whipped around to see the oncoming vehicle and, in an act of last second desperate self-preservation, he jumped as only supernatural being could.  Tony was just about to dive out of the way when the tires screeched to a halt. The back passenger door of the black SUV was flung open and Rin, the warrior, stuck his head out.

“You look like you could use a ride.”

Tony chuckled but wasted no time jumping into the vehicle.

“I thought you were going to hit him like a speed bump,” Tony heard Elora’s voice from the front of the vehicle.

“He jumped out of the way, Elora,” Cush responded as if he was talking to a petulant child.

“You could always back up and see if you hit him then,” she pointed out.

Tony coughed back his surprise which caught the girl’s attention. She turned back to look at him with her purple eyes shining.

“Blood thirsty much?” Tony asked her.

She shrugged and pointed to herself. “Dark side.”

“You can’t blame every
little flaw on your dark side, Sis,” Oakley huffed.

“Okay, well
, if it’s not my dark side, then I’ll blame it on my ovaries.”

That brought a laugh from everyone as Cush slammed his foot down on the gas pedal and pointed the car in the direction of California.

Tony looked over his shoulder out the back window. He didn’t see any sign of Tarron, but he could feel him. Like a festering wound waiting to burst and spread its poison, Tarron would wait and then he would strike. 

“Where you go, I go. Where you stay, I stay. Your people are now my people. Who you love, I’ll love. Who you serve, I’ll serve. When you hurt, I hurt. When you laugh, I laugh. All of my days I am bound to you and when you leave this world, I can only hope to leave it with you.” ~Trik

Cassie
groaned as she lay back on the grass and stared up into the sky. Her entire body ached. She ached in places that she didn’t even know she had and in places she would never dream of saying she ached. She could feel her body changing, tightening, becoming sharper, as a result of the rigorous self-defense exercises Trik was putting her and the elves through. Aside from the warm weather, staring up at the sky, she could almost pretend she was back in the human realm lying in her own back yard. It would be cold January there she knew. She pushed away her worries, drawing on the memories of her life before Trik, before Rapture, before life and death. Her mom’s face suddenly emerged and she had to fight back the tears as a wave of longing rushed through her. She missed her parents fiercely and she was beginning to doubt that she would ever see them again. But no matter how badly she wanted to be with her parents, she knew she was where she needed to be. Unfortunately, being where you need to be didn’t diminish the feeling of wanting to be somewhere else.

Memories began to pour into her:
her mother’s laughter, her father’s smile, the smell of her house, the warmth of her own bed. The memories all came crashing down on her and she could no longer hold back the tears.

As the tears began to fall
, they became a much needed cleansing for her soul, one that she didn’t even know she needed. She sobbed. She cried for the injustice of life and for the loss of innocence. She cried for the dark years Trik allowed himself to live and she cried for the pain he would continue to endure as a consequence of the darkness he let reign for so long.  She cried for Elora and Lisa and allowed herself to finally come to terms with the intense loss she felt at not having her best friend with her. She cried until she was sure there were no tears left inside of her and then, lying there in the courtyard by herself, she fell into an exhausted sleep, somehow a little better off than she had been before.

As the darkness of night wrapped around the light-elf castle, Trik found his Chosen lying curled in a ball in the corner of the courtyard. He let out a deep sigh of relief as he knelt down beside her and brushed some strands of hair away from her face. He had been looking for her for several hours. Though he knew that nothing bad had happened to her, not knowing where she was had driven him crazy. He scooped her up in his arms and the fact that she didn’t even stir under his jostling testified to how tired she was. The past three days of training had been brutal, but he knew it was necessary. Better she be exhausted from training, than be exhausted in the middle of battle when it counted. He carried her to their room; well, it was really her room he grinned to himself. He had managed to weasel himself into her space and she had yet to kick him out. He wasn’t about to willingly leave. He laid her down in the bed and pulled the covers up over her. After one last glance, he left her to sleep. He still had some planning to go over with Tamsin. Though all he wanted to do was crawl into the bed next to her and shut the world out, he had to make sure there was a world left to shut out before he could allow himself that time with her.

Cassie felt warm breath on her cheek and for a single heartbeat she thought it was Trik. As soon as the large hand clamped over her mouth she realized how very wrong she had been. Her eyes snapped open and her heartbeat sped up as fear settled in her bones. She felt the blankets being ripped from her and the cool night air rushed over her. When another set of hands grabbed her ankles, she realized there was more than one attacker and she tried not to let that revelation push her from fear to complete terror. Her heart pounded relentlessly against her chest and she briefly considered the chances of her having a heart attack at her age, not likely even under great duress. She mentally berated herself for thinking about something so silly at such a critical moment.

“What do you think he would do to get you back?” A deep gravelly voice whispered in her ear. “What do you think he would give up?”

Everything
, was the answer she would have said if she could because she knew it was true. She also knew she couldn’t allow them to take her because Trik was needed, and he couldn’t save the elves and humans if he was focused on getting her back. With a renewed sense of purpose, she began to fight back. For three days she had been training with the most deadly assassin to ever grace her realm or his own. She wasn’t just a helpless little high school-er anymore. She was a queen. She wrenched back on of her legs and twisted her hips at the same time. It must have caught her attackers off guard because suddenly one leg was free. She pulled it back and kicked with all her might and the loud grunt that followed told her she had connected with her target. She flung her body, rolling it over and over, jerking herself free from the one who had covered her mouth. She rolled clear off the edge of the bed, and four days ago she would have landed on her rump, but her training with Trik had her reflexes on overdrive.

She rolled off the edge and flipped her legs around so that her feet landed on the floor with a thud. Swiftly springing up sh
e looked around the dark room. Her eyes adjusted quickly and she saw both men were looking at her with wide eyes. Long dark hair, tall lithe forms, and shining eyes gave away their dark-elf heritage. They had expected easy prey. Well, they had another thing coming if they thought she would just lie there while they tied her up like a prized hog. She crouched down into the fighting stance that Trik had taught her and she met each of their eyes.

“So, a
re we going to dance or what?” she asked with bravado that she didn’t really feel. Just as the one she had kicked made a move towards her, the doors behind her flew open, and Trik and all his power came storming in. His arm stretched out and the two dark elves were flung back against the wall. Their legs dangled uselessly several feet from the floor as they were held in place by the sheer will of her mate.  Trik walked straight to her and looked her over. He must have seen something he didn’t like because his eyes began to swirl and glow silver.

“Are you alright?” h
e asked her gently as he cupped her face.

She nodded. “I was using what you taught me,” she told him proudly.

His lips turned up in a slight smile. “My fierce beautiful queen.”

“Don’t you forget it,” she teased him back. She reached up on her tippy toes and pressed a kiss to his lips. “I’m fine,” she whispered against them. “They didn’t hurt me.”

Trik’s forehead pressed to hers and she could tell that he was barely holding it together.

“Why did he send you,” he finally asked as he turned to face the two dark elves. They stared back at him blankly as if he had spoken a foreign language. “Agog,” Trik said the elf’s name with a familiar purr. “I believe you have been on a few missions with m
e. You know what I’m capable of.”

“You’re a light elf now,” Agog interrupted him.

A slow smile spread across Trik’s face and it sent chills down Cassie’s arms and not the good kind.

“When it comes to my Chosen
, there is nothing that I am not capable of. So if you think for a minute that I won’t utilize all of my skills, vast as they are, in order to protect her, then you are so very, very mistaken.”

Cassie turned to see Tamsin and Syndra both enter the room. Syndra hurried over to her. “Are you alright?” Ca
ssie was slightly surprised when the light-elf queen hugged her.

“Yeah, I’m good. They didn’t get a chance to hurt me,” she told her honestly.

“What are you going to do with them, Trik?” Tamsin asked him.

Trik stared up at the men and with a flick of his wrist they crumpled to the ground. They weren’t de
ad. Cassie could still see their chests moving up and down as they breathed, but they were definitely unconscious. “Lock them up. I’ll question them after I’ve had a chance to make sure my Chosen is alright.”

Cassie started to speak up but the look Trik gave her had her snapping her mouth closed. Trik took he
r hand and led her to the bathroom. He shut the door behind them and turned the lock on the door, effectively shutting out the others.

“Trik.
”

“Shh.” H
e wrapped his arms around her and pressed his lips to hers. It started out sweet and gentle but then something changed, and suddenly he had her pushed up against the wall with his hands in her hair tilting her head back to deepen the kiss. She could hear his thoughts loud and clear in that moment. He was terrified of losing her again. He was terrified of what Lorsan would do to her if he got her. She ran her hands over his face as she returned his kiss and gradually he softened until he finally pulled back. He panted as he tried to catch his breath and she was glad she wasn’t the only one that sounded as though she’d been running a marathon.

“They could have taken you,” he whispered against her lips. He may have stopped kissing her
, but he wasn’t moving away from her. His hands ran up and down her arms and back and then gripped her hips. “They could have,” he didn’t finish the sentence; the horror of it was shining in his eyes.

“But they didn’t,” she pointed out, “and I was fighting back and doing a pretty darn good job. They were expecting a helpless girl, but you have taught me that I don’t have to be helpless. You’ve taught me to defend myself.”

Trik shook his head. “A female, a
human
female against dark-elf males doesn’t have a chance, Cassie. They could have killed you. The fact that you are alive means that Lorsan doesn’t want you dead.”   

“Well thank goodness for small mercies,” she said as she blew out a weary breath. “Now why exactly are we in the bathroom?”

Trik shook his head as he looked briefly away from her. “I needed you to myself for a few moments,” he sighed then added. “I needed to calm down so that I didn’t kill those two men.”

C
assie’s eyes widened at his confession. “You aren’t going to kill them?” She was more surprised by the idea that he would let them live, not that he wanted to kill them.

“I
didn’t say that. But for now I need them alive. Lorsan has a plan and they probably know at least a little about what it is. Once they give me all that they can, then I’ll decide their fate.”

“You know you don’t have to kill them,” she told him carefully, fully aware of how touchy he was when it came to her safety. “They can’t harm me, not anymore.”

Trik’s eyes met hers and she felt the intensity of his stare to her soul. It was as if he were stripping her bare, revealing every layer, shining light on every dark place. “It’s not about what they can or can’t do anymore, love. Some dark elves only understand one thing, and that is life and death. They only value one thing and that is themselves. To ensure that others do not come after you, I have to make an example of them. The dark elves have to know that I will not tolerate threats, and I will protect you at all cost.”

“And what about mercy? Don’t kings grant mercy?” s
he challenged. “Weren’t
you
granted mercy?”

“When it comes to your safety, your life, I have no mercy in me.”

Elora wiped drool from her bottom lip as she pushed away from the passenger side window where she had fallen asleep. She noticed the night was beginning to fade as it gave way to morning and the sky began to have
a pinkish hue as the sun started to rise. As she stretched her arms above her head, she heard a throat being cleared. Her head turned slowly and she saw Cush’s light blue eyes raking over her.

“Sleep well?” h
is deep voice rumbled across the vehicle, causing warmth to spread inside of her.

“You totally j
ust saw the drool didn’t you?” she asked, more annoyed than embarrassed.

“Could be worse,” he told her.

She snorted. “True, I could have farted,” her head snapped up. “Holy crap, tell me I didn’t fart,” she said desperately.

Cush chuckled. “My
Little Raven is all flustered; it’s a cute look for you.”