Elfin Trilogy

Chapter 5-3

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 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 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 I cannot turn from. My loyalty 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 I wanted to leave you,” she said quickly.

“I see the disgust in your eyes when you speak 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.”

“YOU 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 okay. You need to accept that I must leave 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 caused him to pull 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 of which he never knew himself capable.

He lifted his head to look at her face. Her 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 is 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 r****h 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 backward. “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 regain Cassie’s attention.

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

“Lisa!” Elora exclaimed. “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 you 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.”