Elfin (11 page)

“Okay,” Cassi
e started before he could speak. “What were the little stunts with Todd about?”

Trik sneered.
“If you are speaking of the boy who was drooling over you, then I was simply distracting him from staring at what is mine.”

Cassie crossed her arms over her chest and glared at Trik.
“Yours?”

Trik nodded.
“Of course. I told you already. You are mine and I am yours. Would you be okay with a female eyeing me?”

She huffed and dropped her arms
. “Fine, point taken.”

“What do you mean you didn’t have a choice,” she finally
asked as they began to walk again and rounded a corner where some water fountains were tucked away from view.

“When my King calls to me I can only resist for so long before he forces my presence.”

“Does he do this often?”

“No,” Trik shook his head.
“In fact he’s never done it before.”

“So why now?” Cassie asked.

“I’ve never ignored his summons before.” Trik’s hair flowed like water, tracking his movements as he paced. Cassie wanted to reach out and touch the dark strands, but refrained.

“What was so important that he had to talk with you?”

Trik stopped and his eyes met hers. He stepped up and cupped her face in his hands. He was so close that she could feel his breath on her face. His scent surrounded her and she fought the urge to seek refuge in his arms. “It’s best if you didn’t know.”

Cassie’s lips tensed in a straight line as she tried to step away from him
, but he refused to release her.

He shook his head.
“I told you I would never let you go.”

“Even if I want you to?”
She asked quietly.

“You don’t want me to,” he told her with complete confidence.

“Is it going to harm people? What does your King want to do? Are you going to have to kill someone?” Cassie’s eyes implored him to say no; she needed him to say no.

He dropped his hands to her waist and pulled her closer to him.
He saw her needs in his mind as he touched her, needs that he didn’t know if he could meet.

“Please don’t ask this of me Cassie. You know what I am.”

Cassie glared at him. She would not let him off that easily.

“
I know that you have a choice. Regardless of what you were born into, you have a choice.”

“It’s not that simple,” he
pleaded.

“We are the ones who complicate things
, Trik. You either choose what’s right or what’s wrong. What is not simple about that?”

“I have responsibilities that I can’t turn from. My lo
yalty is to my King and my race,” Trik’s voice was growing into a frustrated growl.

Cassie pushed away from him. His hands dropped to his sides.

“You just met me,” she told him. “I don’t expect you to suddenly switch your loyalty to me, Trik. I still don’t understand all that is going on between us, but I know that I care for you. I care about what happens to you and I’m telling you that if you continue down the dark road you have been on for so long, it’s going to destroy you. You may be a dark elf, you may be an assassin, but you aren’t evil.”

Trik snorted, “
Please,
Arwenamin.
Don’t romanticize me. Whatever good was in me, if ever there was any, was snuffed out long ago.”

“I don’t believe that.” Her hands fisted at her sides
and she challenged him with her stare. “If that were true, then I would feel nothing for you.”

“If what you say is true, if there is any light left in me, then how come I am willing to steal you away against your will?” He watched the shock and then fear flash across her face.

“That’s who I am, Cassie. Something pure and good has landed in my lap, my Chosen. I never thought I would ever find you, but now that I have nothing will take you from me, not even your desire to leave me.”

“I never said
that I didn’t want to be with you,” she said quickly.

“I see the disgust in your eye
s when you talk of what I am,” he spat at her.

“Not disgust at you
, Trik. Disgust at what you have had to do? Yes. Whether you admit it or not, the things you have had to do have left holes in you. It’s eating away at you. I’m disgusted at the King who would care so little for you and allow you, even order you, to do such things.”

“YO
U AREN’T LISTENING!” Trik yelled, causing Cassie to jump.

“I have enjoyed it
, Cassandra! I like the kill. I like proving myself better than my adversary. It is in my nature to destroy things.” He turned from her, trying to gather his composure, not wanting to scare her any further. “I should let you go .
I should leave and never look back. I will wind up destroying you.” His words were a whisper on the air, but Cassie heard them and felt the pain of them in her chest.

Cassie started to speak but he cut her off. “I have some things to take care of. I just came back to make sure you were alright. I need you to be okay with me going or else you will be in pain.”

“Are you coming back?” She asked him, trying to cover up the desperation she was feeling.

Trik closed the space between them and grabbed her face
, pulling her to his own. He kissed her firmly, possessively. Cassie opened her mouth and let him deepen the kiss. His tongue brushed against hers and she felt her knees weaken. Trik wrapped an arm around her waist, supporting her as he continued to kiss her. Cassie once again felt the pull that was becoming all too familiar. She heard Trik groan into her mouth and suddenly felt cold metal behind her. Trik had pushed her back against the lockers and she hadn’t even realized they had been moving.

Trik had never felt anything better than his Chosen’s lips against his own. He nipped at her bottom lip playfully and pulled back from her mouth only to continue nipping and kissing her across her jaw and down her neck. He heard a gasp from her and felt her breath quicken against his cheek. He needed to stop, but he didn’t. He kissed her lower and when his teeth grazed her collarbone; her passionate whimper finally had him pulling back. When a woman makes a sound like that a man can do one of two things; push forward knowing she was beyond the point of saying no, or be a gentleman and step back. Trik had never been a gentleman, but then Cassie brought all sorts of things out of him that he never knew himself to be capable of.

He lifted his head to look at her face. He
r lips were swollen and red, glistening from his kiss. Her eyes were half closed, clouded with pleasure and her chest rose and fell quickly as she tried to regulate her breathing. She was breathtaking, Trik thought to himself. Her lips rose into a sultry smile and Trik quickly pushed away from her. He needed some space between them before he threw her on the floor and…

“You look
like you’re ready to ravish me,” Cassie interrupted his thoughts seeming to pluck the very idea from his mind.

“Don’t tempt me,” he told her with a wicked gleam in his eyes.

“You never answered my questions,” she responded.

“Didn’t I?” Trik didn’t try to hide the smugness on his face.

“You were just as lost as I was, Trik.”

“I do not deny it beautiful, which is why I need to go. You
test my resolve, Cassandra. I will be back. I will always come back for you.” As he started to walk away from her he turned back, continuing to walk backwards. “Oh and if that boy touches you, I’ll rip off his arms.”

Cassie’s mouth dropped open, but he was out of sight before she could respond.

~

“He threatened to rip
Todd’s arms off?” Elora asked Cassie as they walked into the backroom of Lisa’s shop. Cassie had drifted through the rest of the day unable to think about school or anything that didn’t have to do with a certain dark elf.

Cassie nodded.

“Was he serious?”

Cassie looked at her friend, raising a single
eyebrow. “Did you really ask me if a dark elf, who kills for a living, was serious about ripping someone’s arms off?”

Elora hopped up onto a counter that ran along the back of the room.

“Good point,” she conceded as she leaned back and against the cold, concrete wall behind her.

“So he didn’t tell you what he had to do that was so important?”

“Nope, he kissed me crazy and then left saying he’d be back,” Cassie explained.

“Was the kiss before or after he threatened to dismember Todd?”

“Who’s getting dismembered?” Lisa asked as she pushed the door open.

“I don’t know what should bother me more,” Elora
looked at her mom, “the fact that you respond so calmly to us talking about someone being dismembered or that you are wearing that terrible shade of pink.” She paused as if to think about it. “I take that back; it’s definitely that Pepto pink that bothers me more.”

Lisa shook her head.
“We can’t all pull off the ‘dark and mysterious’ look as well as you do, Elora.”

“This is true,” Elora agreed.

“So I ask again,” Lisa took a seat across from Cassie and crossed one leg over the other. “Who is being dismembered?”

“
No one,” Cassie exhaled loudly. “Trik just made a comment that if a boy touched me…”.

“Todd,” Elora interrupted.

Cassie shot her a glare.

Elora shrugged.
“Details are important when you’re dealing with a dark elf.”

“How would you know?” Cassie shot back.

“Call it instincts,” Elora answered.

“Todd…
,” Lisa spoke trying to get Cassie’s attention back.

“Right, Todd. He’s this guy that Trik thinks is interested in me because he passed me a note in class.”

“What did it say?” Lisa asked curiously.

“Ah, I don’t know,” Cassie said slapping her back pocket. “I completely forget about it. What the…? The note’s gone! T
hat sneaky elf took it somehow when he had me distracted.”

“Distracted how?” Lisa narrowed her eyes at Cassie.

“With his charming personality,” Elora retorted. “His lips mother, with his lips,” she quickly added rolling her eyes.

Lisa made
an “o” movement with her mouth as she continued to watch Cassie, who was turning a bright shade of red.

Lisa sla
pped her thighs as she stood up. “Well, he is something to look at, so I can’t say I blame you.”

“Lisa!” Elora exclaim
ed. “Please don’t ever say something like that in my presence again. I swear I just threw up in my mouth.”

“
Oh please, he’s older than dirt. It’s not like I’m being a pedophile.”

“So not the point,” Elora
muttered.

Lisa shrugged off Elora’s sharp tone. “I’ve got to run, girls. Cassie, I want yo
u to be careful. Hopefully the Light Elf King has called off his dogs by now. But Trik has probably made a lot of enemies over the centuries. Take it slow and watch your back. Don’t forget who you are dealing with, no matter how charming he is.”

“Don’t worry,” Cassie answered, her voice
mirroring the pain on her face. “I won’t.”

Ch apter 6

“I want to give her the world. I want to fall at her feet and declare all the ways that I love her. I can’t. She deserves so much more than me. I should walk away ; I should let her go. I can’t. I know how to kill a man eight different ways with my bare hands. I have power greater than any human can imagine. I lead an army more powerful than any other in existence, and yet I can’t walk away from a mere human girl. But then she isn’t just a human, she is my Chosen. She is mine and I refuse to give her up.” ~Triktapic

Trik pushed through the revolving glass door of the tall building that housed the realty company Lorsan had chosen to deal with. They had finally found land that would be compatible with the soil from their realm, soil that was needed in order to grow the Almare plants.

Lorsan had asked the realty company to find
five hundred acres of the richest and deepest soil in the United States , and so they had—San Joaquin Valley, located in Southern California. The valley is among the richest soil in the world, perfect for what they needed. Very little of the land was actually for sale, but that did not deter Lorsan. When he set his eyes on something, there was nothing that could stand in his way. The agents had found some six hundred acres that was owned by a couple of winemakers, currently being used as a large vineyard. Lorsan had offered a sick amount of money and the owners had finally caved.

Trik stood in the quiet elevator, riding up to the fifteenth floor. He wore his human guise once again , allowing himself to be seen by humans. When the elevator opened a woman was standing, waiting for her turn to get on. She froze as he stepped out, her eyes filling with desire. He was used to the effect that he had on women and usually he would have toyed a bit with her, but he hardly noticed her as he passed. His heart was spoken for, his mind forever captivated by a single thought—Cassie.