Claimed by the Elven King: Part Four (10 page)

A smell of something like cedar permeated my senses through my haze of
pleasure. I had enough mind left to wonder where it was coming from. From
Sethian? The scent was so strong that it was possible, but elves didn’t wear
anything like colognes or perfumes. They didn’t have to, as their natural musk
always reminded me of something elemental or meteorological. Sethian had always
smelled of fresh linens and clean air, of something powerful and masculine, and
right now I didn’t smell any of that at all. Maybe that’s why this new scent
was bothering me so much now. It made me feel that I was suddenly with a
different person.

With a tremendous effort, I pulled my mouth away from his and gasped
out, “Sethian…wait…that smell…what…”

That was all I managed to get out before his mouth covered mine again
more roughly than before, and I immediately lost my train of thought as my head
began to swim again. He was certainly more aggressive than usual this morning—or
night—or whatever. Did something happen that made him need to release some pent
up energy?

Then that smell hit my nostrils again, and my head cleared a bit as a
strong sense of annoyance shot through me. Was that my emotion or his? Maybe he
could smell it too, and it was bothering him just as much as it was bothering
me.

I pulled my mouth away for a second time and started to push at his
shoulders to get his attention—and in that instant, I finally got a good look
at his face. Even in the darkness, the outline was narrow and alien and
definitely
not
Sethian’s!

With a horrified shout, I shot one of my palms hard into his nose. He flinched
back violently, grunting in both surprise and pain, and in that moment of
confusion, I was able to get both hands between my chest and his and shove up
as hard as I could. I only managed to move him partially off me, his lower body
still pinning my legs.

“Saeria! Rinwen! Help me!” I screamed as I struggled to roll off the
bed in order to get to Thaylan before my attacker could recover from my blow.

I was just picking a now awake and upset Thaylan up when I was
aggressively grabbed around my waist from behind. I shrieked and tried to shake
him off while at the same time hugging Thaylan closer to my chest. A
split-second later the bedroom door crashed open and light from the room beyond
illuminated the room and Saeria in the doorway just as Thaylan shouted “Mama!”
in fear.

Then suddenly the crushing arms around my waist were gone and the
vision of Saeria, with Rinwen at her back, daggers raised and threatening,
rushing towards us faded out of view, only to be replaced by a row of tightly
packed trees under a night sky that was just starting to lighten and the cold
marble under my feet by cool, damp grass. Behind me, the
clomp
,
clomp
,
clomp
of what sounded like hoof beats had me whirling around and hugging
Thaylan to me more tightly even as his emotions shrieked with confusion and
fear that was so powerful, my legs nearly gave out on me as they thundered
through me and threatened to completely overwhelm my mind.

I gritted my teeth and fought to find some semblance of balance within
me. I could fall apart later when we were safe and the horror of what had just
happened to me fully sunk in. Right now I had to be strong for my son.

I was standing about ten feet from a cobblestone road, and I could just
make out the shape of at least five elvensteed as they barreled down the road
towards us. At the verge of collapse, I started to turn in order to hightail it
to the shadows of the trees before we were spotted by God-only-knows-who, but
Thaylan abruptly shouted a word that had me freezing mid-step.

“
Father
!” he cried out again in Elvish, reaching out over my
shoulder towards the oncoming riders.

“You’re kidding me…” I whispered in disbelief.

Squinting into the distance, it was still too dark to see anything
except the outline of the riders, but if my son said one of them was Sethian,
that was good enough for me. He had never been wrong—not yet, anyway. I moved
closer to the edge of the road, rubbing at Thaylan’s back, hoping to calm at
least some of his still-lingering fear.

“Yes, your father is coming,” I crooned to him, praying that wouldn’t
turn out to be a lie. How pathetic was I that I had needed my six-month-old son
to save us from a would-be rapist, and I knew I would have to rely on his power
again if by some million-to-one chance he was wrong about the riders.

Suddenly, one of the elvensteed broke off from the others and both
rider and animal nearly blurred into something unrecognizable as they shot
towards us at an incredible speed. A new wave of fear that did not originate
from me washed over me, and this time I did stagger a bit. The emotion was
easily twice as strong as Thaylan’s had been and negated the maelstrom of
emotions I had been feeling all on my own as well as those I was receiving from
the baby. However, this time I welcomed that outside emotion because the
essence behind it was
very
familiar.

“Sethian!” I cried in relief, not able to hold back at that point.

As that name was swallowed up into the pre-dawn air, Thaylan became
even more agitated, wiggling in my arms with everything he had in him and
seemingly trying to crawl over my shoulder so that it was all I could do to
hold on to him. Then the steed was only a few yards away, and I could finally
see Sethian’s face clearly as he vaulted from his saddle before they had even
come to a full stop.

Then before I could blink, my face was suddenly being cradled between
his hands and Thaylan was twisting around to grab at Sethian’s tunic, calling
out “
Father! Father!”
over and over again in an excited tone.

It took every last ounce of my fragile control to not start crying
right then and there.

“What in the name of the High Powers are you two doing
here
!” he
demanded, his eyes frantically roving over both of us, likely looking for
injuries. “And in your nightclothes, no less!”

“Thaylan,” was all I managed as I choked back a sob. Just the feel of
his hands on my cheeks made the painful knot in my chest start to loosen.

“Thaylan phased you…” he echoed in disbelief. “This is at least a
couple of spans from the palace grounds. Even
I
could not bend space
between two points this far!”

I would have said “I told you so” had I not been so damned glad to see
him.

“He was scared,” I said. “We both were! Sethian, someone attacked me in
my sleep! He fuzzed out my mind with elven magic and tried to make me think it
was you! He tried to—”

My throat closed on the words and I couldn’t finish. The tears I had
been trying so hard to keep from rising now began to spill freely from my eyes,
and this time, I didn’t try to stop them.

Without warning, a wall of rage slammed into me, and everything
instantly went black. The next thing I knew, one of Sethian’s arms was wrapped
around my waist bearing the entirety of my weight and the other was now
carrying Thaylan, who clutched at the front of his father’s tunic and was
staring at me with wide eyes. Not even an echo of that powerful rage was left
within me.

Sethian eyes swam with guilt as he said, “Are you all right now?”

I clung to his middle and closed my eyes. “I think I need to sit down
for a moment.”

He immediately helped me lower myself to the ground, urging me to lean
against him as he sat cross-legged beside me and wrapped a comforting arm
around my waist, Thaylan securely nestled within his lap. For now he seemed
content to just snuggle against Sethian’s chest. I hoped he would fall asleep.

Sethian planted a tender kiss on my forehead and said, “I’m sorry for
that. I am in control of myself now, so please continue.”

The sound of hoof beats and men shouting reached my ears before I could
open my mouth to reply. I looked behind me and saw the other four riders I had
glimpsed before plus an addition six in the process of dismounting and rushing
towards us. Sethian immediately held up a hand, and every one of them stopped
dead in their tracks as though they had suddenly met with a barrier only they
could see.

“Return to your steed and wait,” Sethian commanded them. “I wish to
speak with my wife, alone. We shall return to you, shortly.”

Without a word, they all bowed and moved to obey. Knowing how well
elves could hear, I wasn’t at all certain that they would be out of earshot so
was hesitant to say anything more about what had just happened back in the bedroom.
However, I found myself watching the world around me fade out for the second
time that night, only to phase back to a point that looked virtually identical
to the place we had left. I glanced back towards the road, but Sethian’s guards
were nowhere to be seen.

“No one will hear us speak here,” he assured me. “Tell me.”

I closed my eyes again and buried my face into his shoulder. I knew we
should probably be racing back to the palace ASAP, but I needed this time with
Sethian to wash away the feelings of violation that were beginning to surge
back to the surface now that the initial crisis was over. My attacker hadn’t
gotten far, but he had gotten far enough.

Also, I felt guilty for leaving Saeria and Rinwen to deal with the
bastard alone, but I was more worried about them freaking out about our
disappearance than the chance that they would be hurt. They had shown me on
more than one occasion just how deadly they could be.

“I couldn’t
hear
you,” I said, knowing he would understand what
I meant. That was probably what had ultimately saved me. Not even an elven
enthrallment could fake a soul bond. “Even when he had my mind totally under
his control, the fact that I could feel no emotion emanating from him broke the
enthrallment, I think. The only reason I was able to push him off me was
because I completely blindsided him.”

Even though Sethian had deliberately blocked any emotions from reaching
me, and likely Thaylan as well, at the moment, he was so enraged that some of
that rage managed to leak through. I could feel his whole body quivering with
the effort of keeping it contained.

“Go on,” he urged when I hesitated, his voice eerily calm.

“I screamed for Saeria and Rinwen then went straight for Thaylan. The
bastard grabbed me just as I was picking him up. I tried to shake him off, but
he was just too strong. That’s when Saeria crashed through the door, but by
then Thaylan was so freaked out that he took us to the one place where he knew
we would be safe.”

“It seems my royal guards will have much to answer for when we return,”
Sethian said blackly, his arm tightening around my middle.

I never thought in a million years that I would actually see a
medieval-style dungeon outside of a movie set being put to its real use rather
than as just a tourist attraction. It was just as dark, dank, and smelly as I
imagined it would be, the smell of waste and unwashed bodies assaulting my nose
from the moment the guards had opened the door to admit us at the bottom of the
longest staircase I had ever had the misfortune to descend.

Beside me, Sethian was still bristling with unhappiness that I was even
there at all, but in this one thing, I had not backed down. I wanted—no
needed
—to
hear with my own ears why the elf had chosen to assault me because I didn’t
trust that Sethian would tell me the whole truth in an effort to spare me more
pain.

We stepped into a wide corridor made, or maybe even carved, out of a
dark gray natural stone that could have been granite or some other stone found
only within the elven realm. With my arm looped tightly with his, Sethian led
me down a long row of thick, wooden doors that were swung wide open to reveal,
I was glad to note, the empty, fully-enclosed cells beyond and came to a stop
before the one on the end.

I instinctually stepped closer to Sethian as one of the three guards
that had accompanied us unlocked the cell door and entered first. I was
relieved when I saw that the cell was pretty well illuminated from several oil
lamps hanging from the walls that had probably been pre-lit just for the king’s
visit.

Even though I should have expected it, it was still a shock to see my
attacker chained by his wrists and ankles back against the far wall. I guess
the whole setup just seemed a little too barbaric for a people as refined as
the
Sidhe
.

Sethian’s expression was cold and utterly without mercy as he
confronted the man that had done such an unspeakable thing to me for the first
time. “Speak in the tongue of my wife so that she may understand your every
word,” Sethian commanded. “I would first hear the reason why you assaulted my
wife and defiled my home. We shall discuss your method of entry afterwards.”

I expected him to turn his head, to refuse to talk, maybe even to sneer
defiantly, but he looked his king straight in the eye and said without any
hesitation, “I did what I had to do. Nothing more, nothing less, and I shall
not apologize for it.”

There wasn’t even a hint of shame or fear in his expression. His voice
was also eerily relaxed, completely out of place for a man currently accused of
assaulting a member of the royal family. Was he an assassin? Did one of the
king’s enemies hire him to do this to me in order to send Sethian some kind of
twisted message?

Sethian’s eyes seemed to ignite in the face of such nonchalant defiance.
“I fail to see how committing the worst kind of sacrilege against the royal
House of Elerren could be to your gain.”

“There is nothing that I would not do for my Esdil, even go so far as
to mate with a
human
,” was his confusing replied.