Surrender, Book 3 The Elfin Series (17 page)

BOOK: Surrender, Book 3 The Elfin Series
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The room was lit by candlelight. Sconces along the walls held the dancing flames that serenaded the shadows cast by the bodies that filled the space. Once they were inside, Syndra realized that the room was spelled to be larger than the space that it occupied. In fact, it was larger than the club on the other side of the door they’d just passed through. She and Lisa followed Tamsin as he maneuvered the crowded space effortlessly. Once she’d quit looking around, she realized that her mate was able to walk so easily because the elves in the room had no doubt who he was and in turn who she was. Some bowed their heads as they walked by; others attempted to look away, either to go unnoticed or to openly snub light elf royalty. As they reached the far corner of the room, Tamsin came to a halt. Syndra maneuvered Lisa so that she was standing next to her mate and Syndra was beside her. A male elf stood across from them, leaning against the wall with a devil-may-care air. He was tall and slim with silvery, white hair that hung down over his shoulders and past his waist. His arms were folded across his chest and Syndra noticed that the nails on his hands were long and sharp. When she looked back up at his face, she saw that his eyes were shiny black, not just the pupil but the entire thing. There was no white in them and when the candlelight hit them just right they seemed to glow. There was an ancient knowledge in those eyes that revealed the true age of the male, who appeared to be no older than thirty standard human years. This was Vyshaan, and though Syndra had met him before, it had been a very, very long time since they’d seen him. He didn’t look any older, and yet he seemed older than any of the elves she’d seen, even Triktapic.

Tamsin stepped forward and placed his right hand over his chest and bowed slightly at the waist. It was a show of respect, but not one of submission. The elder might be older than Tamsin, but he had chosen to run and hide in the face of war while Tamsin had picked a side and chosen to fight. To the light elves, running was tantamount to lowering oneself into a position of subservience. Until Vyshaan could prove himself worthy of his station, not many elves would even give him the respect of a slight bow as Tamsin had done.

“To what do I owe the pleasure of your company, great elf king?” Vyshaan’s voice was silky smooth with a hint of persuasive magic woven into it.

“Keep your magic to yourself, elder,” Tamsin warned, though he didn’t sound angry.

The elder’s lips turned up into what Syndra figured was supposed to be a smile but instead looked more like a grimace. It was as though he hadn’t smiled in a very long time and no longer remembered how.

“You cannot blame me for trying. It is not every day that the light elf king bothers to find one who does not want to be found.”

“Why is it that you do not want to be found?” Syndra asked. She knew the answer, but she wanted him to admit it.

Vyshaan’s black eyes landed on hers and memories flashed through her mind, memories that she had buried and had intended to keep buried. Yes, she had met Vyshaan before and since then Syndra had diligently been avoiding him and would have gladly avoided him for the rest of eternity.

“It has been a long time, Syndra,” Vyshaan purred.

“Chosen of Tamsin,” her mate growled.

Vyshaan raised a brow at him.

“If you are going to name my mate then you will name her correctly. Syndra is
my
Chosen and you will respect her and me enough to address her appropriately.” Tamsin’s words were sharp and relentless. On this matter he would not bend.

Syndra reached over and linked her fingers with her mate’s and gave a gentle squeeze. It wasn’t often that he felt the need to express his claim over her, but she had to admit that when he did it was nice to know that he wanted others to know that she was his, and that he still desired her after all the time they’d been together.

The elder shrugged. “If it means that much to you.” He looked back over at Syndra and just as her mate had done, he placed his right hand over his heart but instead of the slight head bow, Vyshaan bowed fully at the waist. “Syndra, Chosen of Tamsin, once queen of the light elves, it is a pleasure to see you again after all the time that has past.” He straightened and his eyes shot to Lisa. They flashed with recognition and returned to Syndra. “Perhaps, we can reminisce of our shared history.”

Syndra’s stomach clenched with dread at his words.

“You have nothing to be ashamed of,”
Tamsin reassured her through their bond.

“You know that isn’t true. However, I don’t regret it.”

“I think we can arrange something,” Syndra agreed with a sly smile. “However, we have other things to discuss.”

Vyshaan’s interest had been piqued. He pushed away from the wall to his full height which was about the same as Tamsin’s. “What could you possibly have to discuss with me?”

Syndra shouldn’t have felt so satisfied at answering the question, but after his taunting she wished she had a butter knife to shove in his gut and twist at the same time that she spoke. Perhaps, that was too wicked of a thought for a light elf, but then Syndra had some darkness in her past that proved she was adaptable and rose to whatever the situation demanded, even if her response was greatly frowned upon. Then again maybe frowned upon wasn’t an accurate description of what she’d done in her past—against the laws of her people was a tad bit more truthful.

“Just a little thing, a trifle really,” she answered with a dismissive wave. Syndra waited until she knew he wanted to snap at her to get on with it before she finally answered. “Vyshaan, one time elder of the Elfin race, turned dark elf elder, turned deserter. Tamsin, former light elf king and myself, former light elf queen, seek your help in finding
The Book of the Elves.”
She paused and watched as his black eyes grew ever wider. “Okay, so seeking your help is really a load of crap. We aren’t asking, we are telling you that you are going to help us find the book. You have no choice. You will not refuse us this or I will go to Triktapic, reinstated king of our race, and reveal to him our past history.”

“You wouldn’t,” Vyshaan snarled. “You have just as much to lose as I do.”

Syndra let out a sigh. “Maybe, but then I did not serve the dark elf king, nor did I desert my people in their time of need. Even if my fate is the same as yours, I can stand before my king without shame. Can you say the same?”

Clapping hands from behind them had the three turning around, and Vyshaan’s head snapped up to look past the group.

“What a fantastic speech. I have to admit I am impressed by your attempt at blackmail. Who knew that the light elf queen would stoop to such levels?” Ilyrana stepped from the shadows, her hands clasped together in a steeple with her fingertips pressed beneath her chin looking like a proud parent.

Syndra stayed her hand from reaching out and smacking Lorsan’s Chosen across her smiling face. She figured that wouldn’t be very queen like. Then again, she wasn’t a queen any longer so really there shouldn’t have been anything stopping her from dropping the evil witch and watching her kiss the floor. Instead she did the diplomatic thing and attempted to hold a conversation. Who knew, they might actually be civilized and come to some sort of arrangement, and maybe animals would start crapping Skittles, and Cush would actually smile without looking like he was in pain. Really, if Ilyrana could be civilized then anything was possible. HA! That was laughable. On the tail end of that thought, Syndra realized she’d been hanging around Elora way too much.

“Why are you here?” Syndra asked. Okay, so maybe that wasn’t as diplomatic as she could have been.

“Come now, Syndra, we have known each other a long time. We’re like old friends really.”

“Um hm, sure old friends,” Syndra muttered. “So, old friend, why are you here?”

“To thank you. After all, you and your mate and” ―she glanced at Lisa and her face tightened as though there was a pungent odor wafting about― “this human, lead me to an elder. They all seemed to have disappeared after—,”

“Your mate blew up his own castle?” Tamsin finished for her.

Ilyrana’s eyes narrowed briefly before her pleasant mask returned. “A rash decision, I will admit. But then, my king has always loved to make a statement.”

“Still haven’t really answered my question. Why are you here?”

She snapped her fingers and they were all suddenly surrounded by a legion of dark elves. “You didn’t really think that escaping would be so easy, did you?”

Lisa smacked her forehead. “I knew it was too easy. Didn’t I say it was too easy?”

Ilyrana barely gave her a glance before turning back to Tamsin and Syndra. “The point is, I allowed you to escape.”

“You’ve been following us,” Syndra deduced.

“You found what I have not been able to.” She glanced at Vyshaan behind them and waved her fingers at him. “So good to see you again, Vyshaan. I’m glad to see that you weren’t blown to bits.”

Syndra glanced back at the elder and saw that Vyshaan’s face remained still as stone as he stared back at the dark elf queen. Apparently, there was no love lost there.

“As much as I love idle chitchat, I have a certain book that needs to be deciphered. Gather them up,” she said to the dark elves around her.

“You can’t think we will just go quietly.” Tamsin’s voice was low and very deadly.

More dark elves seemed to appear out of thin air as the others began to converge on them. “You can be as loud as you like, former king. Either way you will be coming with me.” Ilyrana’s hand shot out at the same moment’s Syndra’s own hand extended and the room was lit with a light so bright that everyone had to close their eyes. But just as fast as the light had appeared, the room was plunged into darkness.

Chapter 11

 

“We see you, though you may not want us to, and though you may attempt to hide. We know you, even if you don’t want to know us. We created you, even though you do not see us as your creator. We love you, even when you toss that love aside as though it were nothing more than a trinket you no longer need. There is nothing that you could do that will ever take you so far from us that we can’t welcome you back.” ~The Forest Lords

 

 

Lorsan burst back into his office, gasping. Damn that Tarron and little disappearing act. The casino’s final stores of Rapture had finally been exhausted, and the humans were not coping well. The worst of those that had been completely enslaved were now going through terrible withdrawals, and Lorsan had nothing with which to appease them. The riots had begun in earnest last night. Almost half of the people in the casino practically tore his main bar, and both clubs located in Iniquity, apart trying to find more of the drink. His own dark elf security staff had been inadequate to deal with them all. He’d had to go down and deal with most of the rioters himself. But in the end, even his power was no match for their numbers, for their sheer ferocity and disregard for their own safety, when they were in the throes of the drug’s grip. His chief of security had been forced to call the human police force. It had been years since he’d involved humans in the security of his casino. This was completely unacceptable. He had to find Tarron―and fast. But he didn’t have the remotest idea where to begin to look. Few elves were craftier than Tarron, and he had disappeared without a trace. Even though Lorsan had been monitoring the mirrors, Tarron was still nowhere to be found. But Lorsan had an idea of how he might locate the rogue dark elf—
The Book of the Elves
.

The Book rested upon the conference table in his office, where Ilyrana had left it to go find an elder—any elder—who could help translate it. Lorsan walked over to the table and slowly opened the book. Though he was powerful, knowledge of his people’s lore had never been his strong suit. That was why Ilyrana complemented him so well. She was always so adept at puzzling out the secret long lost history of their people. She had more knowledge of their history in her little finger than most elves had in their entire bodies. Surely, if she couldn’t deciphered the fabled book, no one could. But he must try. Not only did he need the book’s power to defeat Trik but he also needed it to save his casinos. Another day or so without Rapture and the humans might tear his empire to the ground.

He gazed down at the worn pages, stained and brittle after so many millennia. How a mere human had kept this book hidden for so long was beyond him. The words seemed easy enough to read and understand. The stories within told of influential elves of the past, of long ago wars and battles both within the elvish realm and against other realms, and finally of the creation of the elves by the Forest Lords. But he didn’t need stories. He needed the power contained in those stories. Those with the proper understanding could decipher the hidden meanings beneath the stories. They could unlock the power within and increase their own power a hundredfold. With this knowledge, he could strike down Trik with a wave of his hand. He could scry Tarron and bring him back, groveling, with just a word. But how?

He turned to a random page. It landed on the story of Mivertheron, the first elf to ever tame a Tirith―the intelligent tiger-like creatures of the elvish realm. As Lorsan read about the ancient elf’s exploits, he grew more frustrated. What does this mean? Why would the Forest Lords choose to put such a story in their book? He could almost feel a hidden power, some deeper meaning beneath the story that was lying dormant, just waiting for the right elf to come along and unlock its secrets. But the power eluded him.

“Curse you, Forest Lords,” he ground out, pounding his fists repeatedly on the table.

“It isn’t smart to curse your creators.” Lorsan felt the voice more than he heard it. Immediately he was forced to his knees. He could feel the power of the Forest Lords filling up the room. It was almost palpable, almost robbing him of his ability to breath.

“I, uh—”

“Silence elf.” The words were spoken softly, almost whispered, but Lorsan immediately found that he couldn’t have spoken if he had wanted to scream at the top of his lungs. He sat on his knees, his face plastered to the floor. After a few seconds he was able to look up and he saw the three men―as tall as the ceiling with emerald eyes and earth-brown hair flowing down their backs― standing around him. “Your reign as king is coming to an end.” He felt the power in the voice wash over him, though whether the voice was coming from one of the figures, or from all of them, he couldn’t tell. “How dare you think that you could use for evil the book that we created for good? Do you not understand, dark elf? The book can only be deciphered by one who is pure of heart, one who would use the book for good, not evil. You could sit and study that book for a century and you would be no closer to deciphering its hidden meanings.”

A hollow sound rattled from Lorsan’s chest. He was trying his best to stand, to rail against the Forest Lords, but he could do nothing but lay there. He could no more raise a hand against them as an ant could raise a hand against an eagle. And that is what the Forest Lords were; they were wild and powerful and flew above their elves―observing, waiting, and hoping that their creation would call out to them. They would not take their free will no matter how much they turned away from their creators. But they would hurt with them, mourn with them, cry with them, and be there to brush them off and lift them up once they had fallen and realized they couldn’t do it on their own. The dark and light elves had been divided for too long, and it was because of those like Lorsan that they remained divided. No, they would not take their free will, but neither would they stand by and let evil tear their children apart again.

“Do not think your insolence has gone unnoticed by us, elf. You have stolen what doesn’t belong to you. Long ago, we created the secret ways through the elvish realms, the mirror pathways, so that all of our people could move freely though this world and our own. And now you think you can control these pathways, blocking them from use by your light elf brethren? Once again you seek to use for evil something we created for good. No longer!” The closest Forest Lord touched the mirror hanging in Lorsan’s office. There was pop and Lorsan felt his control over the portals evaporate. For some reason, Lorsan felt that his commandeering of the portals somehow angered the Forest Lords worse than his attempted use of
The Book of the Elves
.

“Please, please don’t kill me.” The once proud dark elf king was finally able to squeak out.

“Kill you?” The three voices seemed to ask in unison. “We aren’t here to kill you, Lorsan, but to warn you. That is your problem and always has been. You don’t understand your Creators. When have we ever interfered where we were not welcomed? When have we involved ourselves in the affairs of the elves but to warn them or comfort them? We allow you to make your own choices. But you refuse to see us. Understanding your creators is the key to understanding the whole of the elvish realm. That is why you have been such an ineffective leader all these many years. You were too concerned with your own power to think that there might be something bigger than yourself, that there might be higher purposes than your own selfish desires.

You’ve made your choices and those choices will be the end of you, not anything that we do. Your fate is set, there is nothing you can do to change it. Farewell, Lorsan.”

And then, like a vacuum, the stifling power was sucked from the room. Lorsan wasn’t sure how long he lay on the floor after the Forest Lords were gone. But once he came to his senses, he knew what he had to do. He jumped to his feet and began scrambling around searching for only the more essential items. He could clearly see the writing on the wall. The Forest Lords had basically just told him he was going to die, and soon. The humans outside would soon overtake his casino and he sure as hell wasn’t going out at the hands of worthless humans. He couldn’t be around when they finally made it through. He grabbed his belongings and
The Book of the Elves
and bolted for the door.

 

 

 

C
ush and Oakley had finally decided to rest after hours of wandering around in a swamp that seemed hellbent on keeping them lost. Of course, Cush knew it wasn’t actually the swamp itself, but the evil that inhabited it―which had lived in this place for a very long time. The frustration of knowing that his Chosen was somewhere nearby and being unable to get to her was beginning to whittle away at his sanity, or what was left of it.

As he sat on the ground, which was rapidly cooling as darkness chased away the heat from the long day, he looked up at the sky only to find that he couldn’t see it at all. There was no view of the stars that filled the vast darkness, no moon that glowed like a large night-light. The only thing he could see was tree branches and more tree branches. It was as though the outside world didn’t exist. Cush felt as though the forest around them was closing in on them, slowly suffocating them. He needed a distraction. And, as if he had heard his thoughts, Oakley came to the rescue.

“Okay, so this place is freaking me out. I’m thinking this is as good a time as any for the brother of your girlfriend to get to know you. It is my job after all to make sure you’re good enough for her. I’m supposed to give you the
I’ll kick your ass if you hurt her
speech. But that just seems pointless since you could probably kill me with your pinky.”

Cush let out a huff of laughter. He had to admit that the human was growing on him, like an unidentifiable fungus, but growing on him nonetheless. “I’ve never done the
prove myself to the man of the house
thing. So maybe you should start.”

Oakley nodded as he leaned back against a fallen log. He brushed the dirt from his hands and folded them on his chest getting comfortable as though he was in his favorite recliner and not the dirty floor of the bayou. “So aside from the fact that there is this supernatural connection between you two, why did you pick Elora? She’s not exactly your typical female even in the human race. She’s contrary, relentless when she wants something, bossy, and usually finds hilarious things others find repulsive.”

Cush smiled at his description of his Chosen. He was right. Elora could be a tad difficult to get along with. But she was worth it. “Elora and I had a conversation similar to that, although there was a lot more shouting and her telling me what she thought I thought. She believed that I couldn’t want her on my own, that it was only because of the soulmate bond.” He paused remembering the discussion, more like yelling match, that they’d had.

“You think that I would rather go into battle than be with my Chosen?”


That’s just it, Cush. I may be your Chosen, but you didn’t choose me
.
You feel what you feel because you have to. You don’t have a choice and that’s not good enough for me. Not when it means that you might just throw away something that you love doing, something that you actually chose to do.” Her face was so full of pain because she truly believed those words.

“You think that I chose to be a warrior? You think that this life wasn’t forced on me? We aren’t human, Elora. We don’t live in a society where we go to school and get to be whatever our little hearts’ desire. As a male of my race, the first thing they evaluate us for, before we are even a handful of years old, is our battle skills. Do we defend ourselves or do we hide? Do we protect others first or do we think of our own safety first? I was chosen by my king before I turned four summers. I was singled out to be a warrior long before I even had aspirations or dreams. Don’t think for a minute that I ever
chose
this life. It was chosen for me. I was predestined for it—just as you were predestined for me.”

“You see that’s my point. You have never been given a choice in your life and I’m not going to do the same thing to you. Okay, I get it. We’re soul mates. I totally believe that. But I’m not going to tell you that you have to be with me just because we were made for each other. That’s not fair to you,” she paused and then finished with, “or me.”

Cush was pulled from the memory as Oakley’s voice broke the silence of the night air.

“So what did you tell her?”

“I told her that if the only thing between us had been the Chosen bond then it wouldn’t have been reason enough for me to ask her to walk away from all she’d ever known and spend eternity with me. Then I asked her to tell me she didn’t love me.”

BOOK: Surrender, Book 3 The Elfin Series
12.88Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
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