OwnedbytheElf (5 page)

Briac’s bright silver eyes were amused and vaguely mocking
as he looked at them, noticing Bane’s hold on her. Longing filled his eyes for
a second, but then he blinked and it was gone, leaving Tamryn to wonder if she’d
seen it at all.

“Go screw yourself, Briac.”

She caught her breath. That was the second time Bane had
been downright disrespectful to his king. She loved Queen Talitha with all her
heart, but she was as respectful as the next soldier. She would never dream of
speaking to the woman the way Bane spoke to Briac.

Instead of ordering his ever-present troll guards to lop
Bane’s head off, all the king did was laugh, as though he found Bane highly
amusing.

“Kinky. As well endowed as I am, that’s still impossible.
Now put her down—”

“Never. She’s mine.”

Bane tightened his grip to the point she couldn’t breathe.
Whimpering as her ribs were crushed, she pushed against his shoulders. He eased
up a fraction but didn’t let go, his dark gaze still locked in a battle of
wills with Briac.

“Technically, she’s Talitha’s and bitch queen wants her
back. Since I just signed a treaty, we have to play nice.” Briac turned his
attention to Tamryn, his silver eyes hard now. “It’s your lucky day, sweetness.
You’re going home.”

She was gone. Tamryn was gone.

Bane snarled as he paced around the practice ring, the other
warriors whooping and hollering as he faced down his fourth opponent of the
morning. Even during a truce, the elven army conducted combat practice.
Especially
during a truce. Elves were highly competitive, had violent tendencies and
little self-control. Without the regular bloodshed of the battlefield, half of
them would be dead within a week over petty arguments. There was no way to
“command” an elven army as such, the only thing was to point them in the right
direction of the enemy and hope they didn’t start fighting each other on the
way.

Bane circled, his troll opponent firmly in his sights as
fury and pain surged through him, as unquenchable as dragon’s fire. Thanks to
that silver-eyed, wily tongued bastard of a king and some words on a scroll, he’d
lost the only thing he’d ever wanted. He’d lost Tamryn.

She’d be back behind the faery lines now, laughing and
dancing among her own kind in the endless dances and parties the winged freaks
seemed to revel in. Would she ever think of him? Would she miss him? Did she
have a fucking great gaping hole in the middle of her chest?

His opponent feinted to the right but attacked from the left.
Bane’s eyes narrowed dangerously as he blocked, the troll’s blow glancing off
his upraised arm. This was so easy it was laughable. Spotting an opening, he
moved in, gathering himself for a vicious attack.

If he couldn’t have his little redheaded faery, he planned
on beating the hells out of anyone and anything that came his way until the
truce broke down. It would happen, it was just a matter of time. These truces
never lasted long. He grinned and slid under the troll’s guard to deliver a jaw-shattering
blow.

Bone crunched and some spectators around the practice circle
winced. A few, knowing they might be up next, took the chance to melt into the
undergrowth, obviously deciding that the better part of valor was running the
fuck away.

The troll dropped to his knees, swaying like a reed in the
wind, then sprawled face-down in the dirt, unconscious. The crowd erupted into
roars. That was the thing about elves. Bloodthirsty bastards would cheer for
anything, as long as there was enough blood.

Ignoring the unconscious man, Bane stepped from the ring. He
didn’t care that the elves in front of him scattered as he made his way through
the camp. He didn’t care that he terrified even the hardiest of them, or even that
the camp followers avoided him as if he had the plague. He credited them with
intelligence on that score. The woman who touched him was either brave or
suicidal.

A shudder racked him at the thought. He wanted only one
woman touching him, and as soon as this stupid truce broke, he was going to
storm the fay lines and get her back. Then make her pay for leaving him.

“Lord Bane. My Lord!”

A pixie, tattooed and pierced, slid to a stop a couple of
feet away from him. Sensibly out of reach. One thing was to be said for pixies,
they weren’t slow on the uptake. He’d only had to throttle four before they got
the message not to get too close to him.

“What?”

His glare said that whatever the pixie had to say had better
be important or there would be pain in his future. And Bane could get
really
inventive when it came to dishing out pain.

“The Claimed are here, my lord. His Majesty insists you
attend.”

Bane glowered until the pixie quailed under his gaze. The
creature’s body started to shift sideways, as though trying to edge out of Bane’s
sight without actually moving. If the it thought he could disappear up his own
ass, Bane was sure it would try to do just that.

“His Majesty can go fuck himself—
don’t
say it!” he
snapped as the pixie’s lip twitched. He just knew the little fucker was going
to come back with Briac’s own quip about impossibilities. If it did, then the
little shit was getting skewered here and now.

“I’ll be there,” he grumbled, even though he had no interest
in seeing scantily clad faeries being stripped and summarily fucked. In a move
worthy of his “silver-tongued” epithet, Briac had pulled a fast one on the fay,
writing into the treaty that Talitha would hand over twenty young women. Bane
pitied them. Yeah, the faery queen had insisted on the women being treated
right, but right for a faery was hugely different to right for an elf.

The pixie zipped off, all energy and enthusiasm and way too
fucking cheerful for Bane’s liking. He didn’t know why it was so happy, it wasn’t
as if the creature had a chance at any of the women. Twenty women weren’t going
to go far if they weren’t allowed to share, but the Claimed were never shared.
So it meant most of the crowd gathered were only going to get a look and had no
chance of any real action tonight unless they could persuade one of the camp
followers into a little bed sport. Unprincipled barbarians they might be, but
they did have
some
morals. Just not many. Sighing, he gave in and
followed. If he didn’t show, then Briac would just send more pixies to irritate
him.

“They’re here… Fuck, look at the tits on that one.”

The chattering crowd parted to let him pass, for once
ignoring him in favor of the show about to be put on.

“I want a blonde,” one on his left groaned.

“Yeah? Grunt like you? Like you’ve got a chance. Best you
stick to Pam and her five little friends.” His friend retorted, both of them
sliding out of the way as Bane stomped past.

“Ahh, Bane. Glad you could make it. I have a little surprise
for you.”

Briac looked up from his blackened throne as Bane made his
way over, clearing a space next to the throne with another black glare at the
elves in situ. They scattered like leaves in the wind.

He grunted as he dropped to the hastily vacated furs. He
didn’t want any more of Briac’s surprises, unless it was the guys’ head on a
plate. He slid a sideways glance at his king.
Hurry up and sire a brat, so I
can gut you without breaking my promise.

The other elf caught his look and clicked his tongue
chidingly.

“Now, is that any way to treat your king? Especially when I’ve
gone out of my way to do something nice for you.”

“Fuck off.”

Briac laughed, leaned back on his throne and ran a hand
through his shoulder-length hair. Unlike Bane, he preferred his hair long,
which made him look like a jumped-up faery in the bigger man’s opinion.

“Well, I’m not one for redheads, but if you don’t want her, I
guess I could rise to the occasion.”

Bane’s temper rose. He didn’t like cryptic, and Briac was
wily tongued at the best of times. “Talk plain elvish.”

Briac’s eyes flashed with anger.

“Open your fucking eyes, Bane, instead of letting that rage
blind you.” He nodded toward the group of women assembled the other side of the
“court” clearing.

All faeries, slender with delicate limbs, they were dressed
in the almost sheer white Claiming shifts. Nervously they watched the elves
around them, one gasping as one of the braver spectators sneaked past the
guards to grope the rounded globe of her ass. She responded with a heavy right
hook that almost made Bane grin. That was so like his Tamryn.

The elf stumbled with the force of the blow, parting the
women and guards in front of him and his “victim”. Bane flicked a glance over
the woman and froze. Red hair tumbled over her almost bare shoulders, the
slender form he’d last seen in leathers and tunic encased in a white shift as
she moved to the front of the group. His jaw dropped open.

Tamryn. Here. In a Claiming shift.

Mine,
his body and feral instincts roared.

“If you’re no longer interested, there are many who are.
After all, she’s been, uhm, introduced to our ways, hasn’t she? Rather
thoroughl—”

Bane surged to his feet, anger and need waging a war in his
veins. He shot his king a dangerous look, the accompanying growl loud enough to
roll around the suddenly quiet clearing.

“She’s mine. Any man who touches her is a dead man.”

He looked around the small clearing, poised and ready for
battle. Any man who was foolish enough to challenge him for the redheaded
beauty was getting cut into so many pieces it would take a week to find them
all.

No one moved. No one stepped forward. The elf who’d touched
Tamryn had gone purple, as though he wasn’t even breathing for fear of
incurring Bane’s wrath. He should worry. Bane knew his name and where in camp
he bedded down so it was only a matter of time before he decided they needed a
friendly little “chat” off in the darkness of the woods. No one thought
anything of two buds heading into the woods for some “male bonding”. With so
few women, it was expected. Bane didn’t do man-on-man action, but there was going
to be a whole lot of knife-across-throat action. No one touched his woman and
got away with it.

There were no challengers. Relief and disappointment
shimmered through Bane as he switched his attention to Tamryn, standing at the
front of the group of faery women. Relief because she wouldn’t have to see him
brutally kill men for the right to make her his and disappointment that she
hadn’t seen him doing what he did best.

Any sense of relaxation disappeared as his gaze wandered
over her. Fuck, she looked fantastic. His body roared to life, cock straining
against the leather of his pants and throbbing in complaint at the confinement.

“Come here.”

The order was rough, and growled in a low voice. Feet
spread, a glower on his face and his leathers still splattered with troll
blood, he cut a fearsome figure. One who three of the faery women were eyeing
with panic as they huddled at the back of the group, obviously terrified he was
talking to them.

He ignored them, his attention all for the woman whose touch
had haunted him for the past week. The feel of her body against his, the soft
breathy sighs of pleasure, the way her cunt hugged his cock…all there as soon
as he closed his eyes at night. He’d about worn the skin off his palm fucking
his own hand.

She didn’t move, just watched him with her chin up, as aloof
and poised as if she were a grand lady and he a mere serf who’d had the
audacity to speak to her.

“I said, come here.” He shoved his thumbs into his sword
belt, his stance imposing. “Don’t make me come and fetch you.”

Gods, he wanted to.
Wanted to chase her down, tumble
her to the ground and show her why he was the only man she’d ever need.
Admiration ran through him as she appeared to consider her choices. Defying
him, challenging his authority. Anticipation welled, whipping the lust swirling
through him into a frenzy. He’d make her pay for the defiance, in ways they’d
both enjoy immensely.

She flicked her hair over her shoulders and arched her back
so the sheer shift moved over her luscious figure. Her dusky nipples pressed
against the fabric, drawing a groan from the crowd. He ignored them as she
walked slowly across the clearing, picking her way with care.

With each step, the shift parted to reveal the length of her
legs, from delicate and tiny bare feet all the way up to thighs that made a man
want to get down on his knees and thank the gods he was male. Thighs Bane
planned to part, then wrap around his waist as he plunged into her heat.

His heart thundered behind his ribs as she approached, the
heavy thud driving adrenaline around his body. Forcing himself not to move, he
watched her with an implacable gaze. His cock jerked again, begging for
release. Just a few more steps and he could touch her. Draw her into his arms
and claim her forever.

She stopped just out of reach and tilted her head to give
him a challenging look. Silence fell in the clearing as those assembled watched
the drama unfolding. They’d come to watch a claiming, but this was turning into
something far more explosive.

“Don’t play games with me, little faery. You won’t like the
reaction.”

He lowered his voice warningly, aware of everything around
them. The clearing, the interested spectators just waiting for him to grab her,
force her onto her hands and knees and fuck her. He wanted to, his cock as
desperate as he was to claim her utterly in the eyes of his people.

She bit her lip, her expression slipping and allowing him to
see the nerves within. Realization hit him hard. Eyes narrowing, he looked past
the erotic image she presented, the one his very male instincts wanted to focus
on, and saw what was actually there.

Under the bravado, she trembled, the thin fabric of her
shift giving her away as she took a breath in, the pulse at her throat pounding
as thickly as his. As he watched, she gathered her composure and lifted her
chin to give him a look that all but seared the flesh from his bones.

“Perhaps I want to play.”

That did it. Bane’s control snapped and he surged forward.
She was quicker. With a squeal, she dodged under his outstretched arm and
darted past him. Lust warred with delight at the game she was playing. He
roared and raced after her.

She didn’t get far. He caught up with her two steps past the
furs he’d been sitting on. His hand caught her shoulder, spinning her around
and throwing her off balance at the same time. She collided with his outstretched
arm and gasped as he hauled her up against his muscled body.

She didn’t struggle, her eyes wide in her delicate
heart-shaped face and searching his. Behind him, the crowd roared approval that
he’d caught his prize and a chant started up.

“Fuck fuck fuck fuck!”

He ignored it, holding her against him with one arm and
snagging his free hand in the mass of red hair at her nape. He’d take her when
he
was good and ready.

“Never run from me.”

His voice rasped with the control he was exerting over
himself. Every primal instinct he had demanded he topple to the ground, part
her creamy thighs and bury himself balls-deep. He should take her. He wanted
to, the crowd expected it, but the trembling that racked her slender frame held
him off.