Traitor (36 page)

I closed my eyes and thought about his words.
Everything will be fine
. How could he be so sure? Why had he even rescued me in the first place? Didn’t he know what would happen if anyone had caught him beating up an infantryman?

Just the thought made my toes curl and my fists clench with frantic worry. I couldn’t stand the thought of anything happening to him. My father could never find out.

No one had ever attacked me like that before. Even weeks after it happened, I still found myself getting unreasonably anxious whenever Dad left me alone with male patients. The soldiers were long gone, but that didn’t matter. I still jumped at any sudden sound and found myself gravitating closer to my gray elf savior’s side whenever we were alone.

He didn’t seem to mind. I even caught him smiling to himself whenever I called him in to do some silly little chore just so I wouldn’t be alone. It was embarrassing, but I didn’t know what else to do. I’d never felt so vulnerable and helpless.

I even found myself begging my dad not to leave me alone at night while he went on house calls.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” he said, as he carefully packed his black leather bag. “Mrs. Collart is going to give birth any day now. She’s on bed rest so she can’t come to the clinic. I have to look in on her. You’ll be just fine. Lock the doors if you’re afraid, but honestly, I don’t understand where all this paranoia is coming from.”

I fidgeted nervously with the strings on my apron. He still didn’t know about what had happened with the soldier. “Can’t you just see about her in the morning? I could go with you. I’ve never done any house calls before.”

Dad waved a hand at me dismissively. “You need to stay here and look after our patients.”

There really was no reasoning with him. This had been the routine for years and I knew he wasn’t going to change it now. I watched quietly as he finished packing up and ducked out the front door. Once he had vanished down the street, I turned the placard to the “CLOSED” side and locked the door.

It was very late when I finally finished tending to the last patient. I hurried through my bedtime routine, eating dinner and bathing before finally settling into my room for the night. Even behind the closed door, I didn’t feel safe at all.

I tossed and turned in a restless sleep. I’d begun having nightmares of soldiers sneaking in and attacking me, and tonight’s was the worst one yet. I dreamed I was back in that awful supply closet. My gray elf savior was outside beating on the door, trying to get in to rescue me. But the door wouldn’t budge. He couldn’t get in.

I screamed as I bolted upright in my bed. My heart was pounding and my cheeks were wet with tears.

All of a sudden, my bedroom door flew open.

I screamed again before I realized who it was.

The gray elf came rushing in, bleary-eyed and looking around in confusion for whoever was attacking me this time. I must have woken him up because he was only wearing pants and his braid was mussed up. When he realized there was no one else in the room he turned and blinked drowsily in my direction.

“Are you all right?”

I was shaking so badly I couldn’t speak. Whenever I tried, my throat seized up and I started to cry again.

I saw him let out a heavy sigh. His muscular shoulders slumped and he quietly closed the door again—but he didn’t leave. Instead, he sat down next to me. My bed lurched under his weight.

“Nothing is going to come in here without me knowing about it,” he assured me in an all-too-confident tone.

I sniffled and hid my face in my blankets. “How do you know that?”

“Because I’ve been sleeping just outside.”

I looked up. “What?”

He pointed to the door. “I’ve been just out there every night.”

“But . . . why?” I couldn’t believe it. I’d never seen any evidence of that.

He shrugged, and I could have sworn I saw him blush in the faint moonlight ebbing through my bedroom window. “I wanted to make sure you were safe.”

Now I was blushing, too. “You didn’t have to do that.”

“I wanted to.”

I studied him for a moment. His strange eyes sparkled as he stared back at me. Why he would do something like that for me—the daughter of the man who owned him? I knew what I wanted the reason to be. I also knew that I wanted, more than anything, for him to kiss me. He was handsome, even if he was wild looking with that strange white hair, pointed ears, and color-changing eyes. He was like something from a completely different world, ethereal and breathtaking in a way I’d never seen before.

“Can you sleep now?” he asked.

I shook my head.

He frowned and glanced around, at the door and then back to me. “Come here,” he said at last, as he gathered me into his arms.

Propped up in my bed, he held me against the warmth of his bare chest. I couldn’t help myself—I curled against him, relishing the feel of being cradled in such strong arms. I could hear his heartbeat in my ear and my head rose and fell with every breath he took. It was so soothing.

“Kiran.”

I glanced up when I heard him speak. “What?”

“That is my name. Kiran,” he repeated.

I wasn’t sure what to say. My heart was racing again, but this time it was for an entirely different reason. I was suddenly very aware of every single place our skin was touching.

“Kiran,” I whispered his name. Then a question rose to my lips. “Why did you save me? My father
bought
you—as though you were just an animal. My people enslaved you and . . . and your sister. No one would have ever blamed you if you had just looked the other way.”

I felt his fingers in my hair again, twisting gently at my curls like he’d never felt anything like them before. “Maybe.”

“So why?”

“Because I like you.” His answer was so simple it almost sounded like a joke.

“You like me?” I was about to protest, or demand a better explanation, but then he slipped his hand into mine. I watched him lace our fingers together and hold them up to the moonlight. His hand felt so strong, so warm and steady.

“I have another question,” I whispered.

I could hear the smile in his voice when he answered, “Yes?”

“Why didn’t you run away? When my father first brought you here and it was just the two of us. You could have left. I wouldn’t have tried to stop you. Even now, you could still run and make it miles from here before . . . ”

He brought my hand up to his mouth. I felt his lips touch my skin, and I totally forgot what I was saying. My heart started doing erratic flips like it was trying to burst out of my chest.

“Because I had already tried that,” he replied.

“Tried what?”

“Running.” His expression became distant again, and I thought about his sister. Was that when she had gotten hurt? While they were both trying to escape?

I was struggling to hold back all the other questions I wanted to ask. There was so much about him I didn’t know, and so much I wanted to learn.

“Go to sleep, Holly,” he said quietly.

I didn’t want to sleep. Sure, I was exhausted. It had been so long since I’d slept soundly. And having him there, so close, was more comforting than I could ever have expressed. I didn’t want this moment to end.

I tried to keep our conversation going. “I like you, too, you know.”

“I know.” He sounded so certain about that.

“Oh, really?”

“Mhmm.” I could hear that smile again. “Your face gets red whenever I touch you. Sometimes almost the same color as your hair.”

Crap. I was blushing like that now, probably. I squeezed my eyes shut and decided that maybe sleep would be less embarrassing. “My dad is going to freak out if he catches us like this, you know.”

“He won’t.”

“You sound awfully sure about that.” I let my eyes fall closed. It took a while, but I finally felt myself become completely calm in his embrace. The rhythm of his heartbeat in my ear lulled me to sleep. And this time, there were no nightmares. This time, I dreamed of a jungle so beautiful I couldn’t imagine such a place could ever be real.

Of course, it couldn’t last.

Even dreaming that we could ever stay together like that was ridiculous. As long as our kingdoms were at war, as long as he was a slave, and as long as I was the daughter of the man who owned him . . . we could never be together.

That reality came crashing in on me when I awoke the next morning to find myself alone in my bed, the sound of rain pattering on the windowpanes. It was so early the sun still hadn’t risen yet. I tiptoed to my bedroom door and pressed my ear against the wood; I could hear Kiran snoring on the other side of it.

Bless him, he really
was
sleeping in the hall to make sure nothing happened to me. It broke my heart. And now I knew I had to do something.

I had to help set him free.

He’d never be safe in Maldobar, not with the king’s cronies rounding up all the gray elves and forcing them to live in those awful ghettos. That is, until they were caught doing something “illegal.” Then they were sent to prison camps or sold into slavery.

No, he couldn’t stay here. I had to help him get home, all the way home, to his own kingdom. He would be safe there. He could have a real life . . . even if I wasn’t in it.

The question was how to get him there.

It wasn’t going to be easy. But everything had a price, and smuggling a gray elf back into his homeland was sure to be expensive. I just had to find the right palms to grease. Fortunately, being in the medical trade meant I had a few connections.

So I got to work.

I had to act like nothing abnormal was going on. No one could know what I was up to—not even Kiran. If he knew, he might try to talk me out of it.

I went about my usual routine over the next few days, taking time to carefully plan what I was going to do. Little by little, I started setting aside foods I knew would last the long, long ride from the royal city of Halfax, where we lived, all the way to the elven kingdom of Luntharda. It would take him days, maybe even weeks. I had to make sure he wouldn’t need to stop for a while.

When I did my weekly grocery run, I used the money Dad gave me to buy food and got a leather bag, a bolt of black wool fabric, and a pair of men’s black riding boots. I hid them under my bed along with the food I’d been storing away. At night, after I was certain everyone else had gone to sleep, I sat up by candlelight and began using the wool fabric to sew a long, black, hooded cloak. I used the leftovers to make a crude sleeping pallet and rolled it into a neat bundle that could be strapped to the bag.

The day before my plan was set to come to fruition, I dug through my dad’s closet and took out a nicer, albeit old and threadbare, outfit. The tunic, pants, and leather jerkin probably didn’t even fit him anymore. But these were normal-looking human clothes. They would be perfect. I also cleaned and mended an old wineskin Dad had discarded because it had a hole in it. I filled it with water before adding it to my stash.

Everything was nearly ready. There were only two pieces left to acquire before I was sure he stood a reasonable chance. That night as I lay in bed, listening to Kiran snoring outside my door, my mind was spinning with worries and anxieties that he might get caught or my dad would find out what I was planning to do. I couldn’t sleep a wink. And when the sun started to rise, I knew there would be no turning back now. Today was the day.

Kiran could tell I wasn’t acting right. I knew because he kept staring at me, giving me funny looks as though he wanted to ask what was wrong. I tried to reassure him, to smile and shrug it off by saying I just wasn’t feeling well. I must not have been very convincing, though, because he still seemed concerned.

Truth be told, I was concerned too. I wasn’t sure this was going to work. What if I’d forgotten something important? What if he didn’t make it? What if my dad sent the city guards after him?

I closed my eyes and said a prayer to anyone that might be listening.
Please let him be safe. Please let him make it home.

That night, after Dad left to go on his nightly house calls, I closed the clinic early and hurried through the evening rounds. As soon as the last patient was squared away, I seized Kiran by the wrist and basically dragged him up the stairs to my room. His eyes were wide and confused as I shut the door and locked us both inside.