Claimed by the Elven King: Part Two (2 page)

The queen suddenly spoke sharply in what I assumed was Elvish, and two
of the four elves with her hurried over to an alcove where piles of what looked
like towels and other various garments were neatly folded on several rows of
shelves. They returned with several of each just as the other two elf women
were carefully helping their mistress out of the pool.

She then posed with her arms slightly out and raised, seemingly
unconcerned about displaying her nudity to everyone in the room, while two of
the elves dried her as carefully as if she was a delicate figurine that might
shatter. Not that she had any reason to be concerned. Every part of her body
was a masterpiece.

Through it all, I stood rooted to my spot, silent and feeling extremely
awkward. Lariel also stood silently beside me. It was apparent by her worried
eyes that she had no idea what to do in this situation, had probably not even
expected the queen to be here, and I immediately felt a kind of kinship with
her. From Sethian’s earlier explanation, I figured it had probably been several
hundred years, if even more, since a king might have needed to take a human
wife. We were both treading unknown waters here.

And one of the biggest sharks in the ocean is heading right for us
,
I thought in sudden panic as the queen, dressed in exactly the same robe I was
wearing, seemed to almost glide across the marble floor until she stopped only
an arm’s length away from me.

This close, I could see that Sethian was right. She was extremely
beautiful, but unlike Lariel’s delicate beauty, the queen’s beauty was utterly
alien, bringing to mind power and coldness in the sharp angles of her face.
There was nothing soft or delicate about her. She reminded me of a well-honed,
well-crafted sword who just happened to have an exquisite jewel-encrusted hilt.
It was almost like she had been bred to be a warrior.

Sethian had said that she was of a different elven race. I wondered if
the rest of her people’s women shared the same sharp, warrior-like
characteristics.

I was drawn out of my thoughts when I realized that the queen was
examining me as well, her eyes moving critically up and down my body several
times. She even tilted her head to look at me from several different angles,
giving the impression that she was a judge examining the quality of an animal
at a stock show.

I flashed her a small smile even though I was internally gnashing my
teeth at the way she was treating us, and said a short “hello.” Sethian had
implied that she held just as much power as he, both elves the ruling
representative to their different peoples, so antagonizing the elven queen here
would be worse than stupid. Hopefully me talking to her first wasn’t a social
misstep or even worse, against the law.

As soon as I spoke, the neutral expression on the queen’s face melted
into something between a sneer and a look of disgust, making her appear even
more alien. I couldn’t help the shiver that ran down my spine, and hated myself
for being the one who had blinked first.

“So
you
are to bear our future king,” she said, her eyes still
doing their best to bore twin holes through my face. I wasn’t altogether sure
she
couldn’t
. “I should not be surprised that a mongrel would choose a
mongrel, but…”

I swear I could hear my spine crack, I had grown so stiff with
suppressed outrage, but I merely stared back at her neutrally without a word.
She was clearly trying to get a rise out of me, and damned if I would give the
elf-bitch the satisfaction.

She sniffed and then uttered a few words in the musical elven language
she and Lariel had spoken earlier that made Lariel suddenly twitch as she
walked past me without another glance. Her ladies-in-waiting hurried after her,
flashing me a few curious looks as they passed, but saying nothing.

“What did she say?” I asked my new companion once I could no longer
hear the faint footsteps of the queen and her entourage.

A flash of panic showed momentarily in the elf girl’s eyes before she
could completely hide it. She tried to cover it up by smiling brightly and
urging me towards the largest pool in the chamber with a gentle pat to my back.

“Don’t worry about it, My Lady,” she said airily. “The queen is still
adjusting.”

Translation: “The queen just called you a dirty whore; but that’s only
because she’s jealous, and she really,
really
doesn’t mean it…”

I decided not to force the issue and allowed her to lead me to the
steps of the main bathing pool. While I removed my robe, she went to fetch me
some soap. The pool was pleasantly warm and wasn’t as deep as I had thought
along the edges, coming up to just below my shoulders. A natural stone ledge beneath
the water had been carved and smoothed out into a bench, allowing me to sit
comfortably with my head above the waterline.

Lariel returned with the soap as I was dunking my head beneath the
water in order to thoroughly soak my hair, and she immediately insisted on
being allowed to wash my hair. I let her have her way without a fuss, but
flat-out refused to allow her to wash anything else, telling her it was a
“human” thing to allay any possible hurt feelings. Remembering how I had been
washed by all those unknown elves while still blind and clueless about my fate made
my skin crawl just thinking about it. I wondered if this was the pool where it
had happened.

After bathing, she directed me to one of the smaller pools towards the
back of the chamber just like the one the queen had been soaking in. I wasted
no time in getting in, extremely uncomfortable with even walking that short
distance while completely naked even if the only one to see me was Lariel. The
pool was a bit hotter than the one I just left but not quite hot enough to
count as a hot tub.

“Relax your body here within this pool for a time while I go alert the
kitchens about having your midday meal brought to your personal rooms,” she
said. “If you need anything before I return, you need only call out to the
guard at the entrance and he will send one of the bath servants immediately.”

Bath servants? It had never even occurred to me that there were other
elves around! I quickly scanned the room, but except for us, the large chamber
appeared empty. “Where—”

“Don’t worry,” Lariel said quickly. “They would not dare intrude on the
Royal Wife unless called.”

Never mind Lariel calling me “My Lady,” I
really
didn’t like
this newest form of address, for more than the obvious reasons. For me, titles
had always seemed to dehumanize the person being called them, building walls
between them and the person speaking, no matter how necessary they may seem.
Lariel was certainly friendly, but as long as she insisted on calling me by
honorifics, I would always be the “Royal Wife” and she the “lady-in-waiting.”
If the elven realm was where I would be spending the rest of my life, then I
would at least want to have a few real friends.

However, now was definitely not the time to bring it up, not when I
still had very little clue as to what was in store for me.

“Thank you,” I said with as sincere a smile as I could muster.

Alone again, my thoughts couldn’t help but wander back to the new title
the young elf had just called me—Royal Wife. It reminded me once again of why
Sethian had stolen me to the elven realm.

“You will bear my heirs.”

A baby was utterly the
last
thing I wanted right now, especially
when I was still so confused about my feelings for Sethian. We hardly knew each
other, never mind what my stupid, sex-muddled brain thought of the matter.
Hardly the ideal situation to raise a child, especially if my new elven husband
only saw me as a baby factory, a pleasurable means to an end. The thought of
the elven king only tolerating my company just for the sake of—breeding made
something deep inside my core twist painfully, leaving me feeling cold despite
the warmth of the surrounding water.

But then there was that weird—incident—that had happened the second
time we were having sex that Sethian had yet to explain properly to me. Not
that he’d really had the time to explain even if he had wanted to, I suddenly
realized. We had started making love again almost right after, then—

I made a face. Then the
queen
had walked in on us and instead of
saying something, gasping in shock,
anything
, she had just stood there
and watched us go at it like some kind of damned voyeur! That I apparently had
passed out just when I was about to say something to Sethian about her was
probably no coincidence.

The only question was which of the two royals had been the culprit?

A pair of arms abruptly slid over my shoulders from behind and hugged
my neck, and I yelped in sudden shock until the familiar laugh next to my right
ear had me falling completely still instead of fighting against the unexpected
hold. I couldn’t believe that I had been so deep in thought that I hadn’t even
heard him step up behind me!

My cheeks flaming in embarrassment, they got even worse when Sethian
slipped into the pool beside me, and I was treated to a full-frontal sideshow
of hot, wet muscles and a thick cock that was already at half-mast. My eyes frantically
darted towards the entryway, afraid that Lariel had accompanied the king
inside, but not a soul was in sight, not even the guard that had accompanied us
here. No one would have ever accused me of being an exhibitionist back home,
and it didn’t take a genius to figure out why Sethian had sought me out here. I
sure as hell wasn’t about to prove them wrong.

My eyes turned back to Sethian with some trepidation, but other than
slipping an arm around my waist and drawing me closer against his side, the elf
didn’t try to initiate anything sexual at all. I ruthlessly squashed the tiny
part of me that was just a little bit disappointed. This was a truth that I had
been better off not knowing about myself.

“You are still afraid,” he said. I could hear the frown in his tone.

“I’m just unsettled,” I clarified. “This has all happened so fast, and
I really didn’t expect to have to meet the queen so soon—”

“You met the queen?” he interrupted sharply, his eyes flashing with an
emotion I couldn’t quite decipher.

I nodded hesitantly, suddenly unsure if I should have told him about it
at all. Even if the queen had acted like a bitch, I didn’t want to make trouble
for her.

“She was soaking in one of the pools when I got here.”

Sethian narrowed his eyes angrily, and I suddenly wished I could go
back in time and tell myself to keep my big mouth shut because the being
sitting next to me was suddenly the most terrifying thing I had ever seen. His
whole body seemed to radiate
power
, and it was in that moment that I
finally understood what he had meant when he told me his role as the elven king
embodied much more than that of the human kings I was familiar with.

I instinctively shrunk away from him, and when he saw that, he
instantly clamped down on the fireworks until he no longer looked or felt so
scary.

“I am sorry,” he said, actually sounding contrite as he gave my body a
squeeze of comfort. “It wasn’t my intention to frighten you. I was merely
displeased that Limira ignored what was custom. It is rare that a queen and a
Royal Wife should meet, and it never should be done out of the presence of the
king. Taking a human wife is a delicate enough situation, as it is often
painful for the elven wife to know that her husband will have the child she
could not give him with another woman.”

“Is that why I keep waking up in a different bedroom than yours?” I
asked.

“Yes,” he said, and I suddenly felt like I had been stabbed in the
heart even though it was an answer I had expected. “Keeping both wives in
separate households tempers the pain, somewhat.”

I guess I shouldn’t tell you about her calling
both
of us
mongrels
, I thought uncomfortably. Instead, I said with a bit of
embarrassment, “Then she must’ve been pretty upset about walking in on us
earlier…”

“She was told to keep her distance for the time being,” he replied,
sounding unapologetic, “something that she normally does on her own on any
given day. She had been quite dismissive when I initially brought up the idea
of me taking a human wife, like she could not be bothered at all with it. I
should have known better. Did she say anything to you?”

Crap. I really didn’t want to tell him about the mongrel thing, but I
also wasn’t sure if Lariel would rat me out if pressed by her king. “She made a
comment about me being the one to bear the next king. That’s all,” I lied,
deciding at the last second to take a chance on a lie of omission.

The queen obviously already hated me enough as it was, so why open that
explosive can of worms if I didn’t absolutely have to? I could always just
apologize later if caught out, anyway. I was quickly becoming the Queen of
Later, it seemed.

I let out a cry of surprise as I was suddenly pulled onto his lap. The
feel of both the warm water and his silky member simultaneously gliding against
my naked sex as I turned to straddle him properly was utterly indecent. I
grabbed onto his shoulders tightly and looked at him with wide eyes.
Apparently,
that
conversation was over.

He grinned mischievously and lowered his head until his face was buried
into my neck. I felt him take a deep breath through his nose before planting a
soft kiss against my damp skin.

“I never knew that humans could smell so good,” he murmured before taking
another deep whiff of me. “Where elven women are sunlight and air, you are rain
and flowers and earth. It is quite intoxicating.”

He slowly slid his cheek along the skin of my collarbone, and I gasped
when he playfully nipped at my shoulder.