by C. R. Jane
Around me my small store drowned in darkness, a counter against the back wall with two shelves where I displayed shoes, but right now there were only two pairs which I had fixed for a customer, and I had no weapon. But my shoemaker tools would do, except I didn’t keep them here in the store.
When the front porch wooden panels squeaked, I flinched. A paralyzing dread spread through me like ice because I was trapped, except I had the advantage. I had hiding spots in this home.
But first, weapons, and Dad kept an array of knives and tools downstairs in his workshop.
I rushed out the rear door of the store and burst into the hallway, leaving the lights off, and swung left toward the basement door, pulling it open. I charged down there, but only halfway did it hit me there was candle flickering down in the workshop. I must have left a candle burning when I’d worked on mending a broken pair of shoes for a customer. God, that was all I needed. To have burned down my house by not blowing out the candle.
Without pause, I jumped the last couple of steps to the landing with a thud and turned toward the oversized, underground cellar.
But when I came face to face with three men, I rocked on the spot and cried out from pure shock.
They stood around Dad’s workbench, their eyes wide and clearly just as surprised. Each wore black pants and a tanned leather apron, nothing underneath but their muscles. So many of them. These were young men, maybe in their mid- or late twenties.
“W-Who are you?” I recoiled, remembering I wasn’t exactly wearing much myself. “What are you doing here?”
The blond with the bluest eyes stepped forward, carrying a hammer. I grasped the railing on the steps, my mind racing to think of what to do next. Outside waited a monster ready to tear me apart. Down here was a trio of men who could overpower me without breaking a sweat, and I doubted there was a room in the house that could keep me safe from them.
Show no fear, Dad had said when facing a wild boar or a wolf in the woods. I guessed that applied here too.
The stranger set his hammer down on the table and ran his hands down the apron. The fabric was tattered across the chest. Wait, I’d seen that before.
“Is that my father’s?” He had several similar aprons, and when I glanced over to the hooks on the wall where he used to keep them, they were empty.
The blond man stared at me, tilting his head, and I looked up to meet his stare. High cheekbones with a dimple in each cheek. I had never seen such a handsome man in my entire life. Yet he carried an elegance about him as if he didn’t belong in this world and had come from somewhere angelic. With strong biceps that belonged on a warrior, he stood there watching me.
What was he thinking? How he’d tie me up and have his way with me? Of course not! Why was I even thinking such thoughts?
The other two stepped alongside him, also broad-shouldered, and both as gorgeous as the first. One had hair as white as snow, and he wore it over a shoulder, reaching his waist. The third man had short hair, black as a raven, green eyes like the forest on a spring morning.
But something lay behind all their gazes. An eagerness, or was it hunger? God, what if they were working with Luronk? I stepped away.
The world around me seemed to tilt, as too much was happening too fast.
Maybe I’d hit my head, and really, I remained somewhere in the woods, dreaming this. There was no reason for three men to be in my home.
“Have you finally made a choice?” the blond man asked, his voice deep, carrying a husky tone.
“What are you talking about? Why are you here?” My world spun, but I gripped the wooden railing, holding myself up.
“Don’t think she’s here for us,” said the white-haired man, his honeyed voice like a feather tracing the length of my spine. Who were these men?
“Of course she is,” the third man with a tattoo across his temple said. “This has already taken too long. She’s laid eyes on us. Tonight, she must decide.”
The three of them stared my way again, expecting, waiting, yet my breaths raged through my lungs. Nothing made sense. And all I could think about was why the edges of my eyes were darkening. How my legs wobbled breath me, and in an instant, the world faded and I fell forward. My last vision was of the blond man rushing toward me with arms stretched out.
CHAPTER THREE
The softest caress stroked my brow, cool against my skin. Just like the lullaby in my ears. Someone hummed a tune and at first, I thought it was a bird.
I opened my eyes, licking my dried lips, my mouth feeling as if I’d been sucking on a copper coin.
Looking down at me were the deepest blue eyes framed by golden hair, seeming to glow beneath the candlelight. It took a few moments for everything to register, to remember what had happened. And how I now laid in my bed. Unease curled deep in my gut as it had before, spearing through me.
I breathed deeply as this stranger’s attention remained upon me, and I braced myself for an explanation that might cause me to faint again. Because so far the night had been anything but normal. On the bright side, I wasn’t tied up somewhere being tortured. Though I couldn’t ignore how my body reacted in his presence, the butterflies in my stomach, my eyes lingering on the massive square muscles of his shoulders.
“You’re feeling all right?” he asked, and I couldn’t find my voice at first, instead lifting my head to scan the room. We were alone, and I still wore only my underwear and top. I snatched the blanket and dragged it over my body, but he didn’t even blink.
“For the love of Haven Realm, tell me what is going on.” I shuffled higher on the bed, my back plastered to the wall, grasping the blanket against my chest as if it would protect me.
“You’re safe for now, little one.” He stood tall over me like a guardian. “I’m Luca from the Sundrax family. I am an expert archer, I hunt for food, and I’m a master swordsman. My eight brothers have each found their life partner, and I am the last to still make my father proud.”
All right, I wasn’t expecting such a formal introduction. “I’m Rain. I run a shoe store and enjoy the outdoors.” The words sounded awkward to me, yet his words about finding a partner alarmed me and hell they should. I wasn’t a fool to ignore the correlations that this ridiculously sexy man implied he was looking for his life mate. Was I some kind of conquest?
When he didn’t say anything, I said, “Look, I don’t know how this works in your family or wherever you’re from, but here you need to court a woman you’re attracted to, take her to dinner, get to know her. Not break into her home. You should leave!” Maybe speaking to his rational mind might get him to see the huge misunderstanding here. I had enough problems without strangers in my house talking about finding a wife.
“And we have followed the protocols,” he explained, his expression serious. “We’ve watched you for months, mourned for your loss when you father passed, learned your favorite meal is honey-covered nuts roasted with lamb, admired your morning routine of picking wildflowers from the field.”
“For months?” My voice climbed. “You know how bad that sounds?” How could I not have known someone had followed me this long? Had they been in my house this whole time, seeing me sleep? I shivered, unsure how I ought to feel. But they hadn’t harmed me either.
“Why is it bad?” The bridge of his nose pinched. “It is a great appreciation and respect in my homeland. It’s a process where an elf selects his mate, then—”
“Wait up.” I shuffled further up on the bed. “You think you’re an elf?”
He laughed, the sound loud. He mumbled a few words under this breath, and a surge of sparks danced over my arms, my hairs raising.
Luca’s skin shivered, and I froze, watching him. His ears elongated, his facial features softening and appearing more beautiful than I’d ever seen before.
I rubbed my eyes, but he stood there in all his stunning glory, smiling.
“You changed into an elf!” My mind swirled and shut down because how many surprises could I take in one night? Or I st
ill hallucinated. I balled the blanket in my fists, breathing too fast.
“We are elves from the deep forests of the Tritonian realm.” He sat on the edge of the bed, the mattress bowing under him. The corner of his mouth lifted into a smirk as if we were long-lost friends.
I studied his skin and how smooth it appeared. My fingers tingled at the urge to reach over and touch him.
“Your father mustn’t have told you what you are?” he asked.
I shook my head because right now none of this was making much sense.
“You’re a half-elf, but it doesn’t matter to us. Females are almost extinct in our race, killed over the centuries by the orcs.”
“No, you’re wrong. I’m a human.” This was ridiculous. I wasn’t an elf… sure, my ears had grown along with one wing. I reached up and found my ears were normal sized. My breaths sped up, and I held myself tight, terrified to admit that part of me considered it might have been a possibility. Heck, what did that mean then? Dad chose not to tell me the truth, or maybe he hadn’t known either. Or what if someone had put a spell or curse on me? But why and who hated me that much?
But at the mention of orcs, my mind also sprung to Luronk, fear silently hammering in my chest. “An orc chased me home,” I blurted out and rushed out of bed, leaving the blanket behind, darting to the window. I glanced down from the second story into the front yard, where three large figures paced around. One of them was Luronk. The other two were just as large and disfigured. They spoke to each other, arms flaying about, yet their voices didn’t reach me. “Shit, there are three orcs out there now? How long was I passed out?”
When I turned around, Luca stood by my side, and I flinched, as I hadn’t sensed him move. He stared out the window and then down at me. “You weren’t sleeping long, but your transformation has sent your scent out across the land. More of these beasts will arrive soon.”
“None of what you’re saying makes sense.” And as he looked outside once more, I quickly sniffed my armpit. I didn’t smell that bad.
But when Luca faced me once more, he pushed a hand to the back of my head, cradling me, pinning me in place.
I should have panicked, but his presence had the opposite effect, not to mention igniting the fire within. I’d never felt this way before for anyone. Or perhaps this was fear and adrenaline, twisting my delusional emotions. Yet all I could do was fight the urge to lift myself on tippy toes and discover what his mouth tasted like. Ridiculous thoughts.
“You must have turned eighteen tonight, right?” His eyes flickered to the window when footfalls sounded outside my room. Moments later in marched the other two men. Or was it elves? Luca’s attention skirted to the newcomers and offered them a slight nod as if they understood exactly what he meant by that movement.
“Yes,” I finally said as the two took a seat on the bed as casually as my friend Bee would if she’d come over for a girls’ catch up. She often popped over for tea and we’d head into the woods to hunt for wild mushrooms. But this was different because I shouldn’t have been comfortable with these strangers in my home.
Luca’s hand glided to my chin, and he tilted back my head. Before I could react, he kissed me with such ferocity, my legs buckled under me. Our mouths clashed, a powerful electricity shaking me at the core. With his other arm, he clasped me around the waist, pressing me against his strong body.
A surge of fiery energy sparked across his lips and onto mine, snapping throughout my body from head to toe. I trembled with an uncontrollable desire, a rekindling of a feeling I’d never known existed. Luca responded as if sensing my reaction and pushed my back up against the wall, his tongue pushing into my mouth. His body grinded against mine.
“Enough,” one of the other men shouted.
Luca broke our connection at once, but his eyes continued to devour me. His departure left me cold. However, when I laid eyes on the other men, they stared at me with similar looks, gazes trailing up and down my body, their earlier stoic expressions morphed into something more primal and raw.
I hugged myself and hurried over to my wardrobe and pulled out the first dress I found, a floral piece I slipped over my head and down my body, the hem falling to my knees. The frilly sleeves and square neckline reminded me of the last time I’d worn this… at Dad’s funeral because it had been a glorious spring day and butterflies had fluttered around me all day.
Dad had always told me funerals were to be celebrated, and he’d made me promise I would never wear black on the occasion of his.
Maybe I ought to change outfits, but the heaviness of three sets of eyes on my back reminded me this wasn’t about what I wore, but a means to cover myself. I shut the wardrobe and turned around.
“Now, let me tell you what will happen,” I began. “You’ll detail exactly what you are all doing here in as few words as possible. No rambling. Why there are now three orcs outside my house. And what it will it take to get rid of you all.” I held myself tall, even though I crumbled on the inside. This was foreign territory for me.
“I told you everything,” Luca replied with confidence, then faced the two men. “She’s ready—I tasted it—so we need to do this fast before more orcs arrive.”
The others nodded, and I frowned, waiting for someone to explain what the heck was going on.
“I’m Brey,” the white-haired man said, patting the bed next to him. “Best you come join us.”
“I’m fine where I am.” It worried me how easily I’d let Luca kiss me and how I’d wanted it, so it was better I kept my distance from all of them. “Just talk.”
“Every female elf inherits their power and wings at the age of eighteen,” Brey said. “During this time, your body unleashes a scent into the air, which is meant to call prospective mates to you. But it comes with a downside. It is also a beacon to orcs to find you. This race of orcs can transform with magic they stole from us and take human form to trick unsuspecting elves. They hunt down females for their wings because that’s where you hold your magic. Once you transform and your wings are finally released, orcs will hunt you down to rip your wings out, and you’ll die.”
“Why would they do that?” I asked, hugging my middle.
Luca interrupted. “To eat them. It gives the bastards your ability for a few days, along with adding years of youth to their lives. Our females have been hunted close to extinction, so we live scattered through Tritonia in a hidden section of the realm. Every female has several males to protect them because men don’t grow wings. A few months ago, your father sent a message to my father, explaining he was gravely ill, and he asked for protection for his half-elf daughter. He claimed you were still a child, so the three of us came to watch over you. But we never expected to find someone so radiant and close to the time of her Divinity. It’s what we call your transformation.”
So my dad had known I wasn’t a human but had never told me? I bit down on my lower lip, refusing to let the tears flow, hating that I felt betrayed. I understood he’d done it for my safety, but he had been all I’d had left in the world, and yet he’d never told me the truth. Never allowed me to decide my own future. What would he have done when I turned eighteen? Was this why he’d built our house into a fortress? His decision hurt because now I couldn’t even tell him how upset I was with him. He must have known of the repercussions; otherwise, why had he contacted the elves to come rescue me? What had he been thinking to keep this from me? And was he or Mom the elf? How had they met and come together? Dad never told me a thing, insisting one day he would tell me the truth. But after his death from illness, I’d lost the chance to discover anything about my past. And it burned me up to have lost all ability to know who exactly I was.
The dark-haired elf lay back on the bed on bent elbows, smiling as if all would be right in the world. But that wasn’t how I felt. “We swore a pledge to your father to protect you.”
“You spoke to my father?” The wardrobe held me upright as my legs were giving up. I pressed my hands to my stomach, gasping for air. �
��How could he not have told me about this?” My voice squeaked, and I cleared my throat.
The dark-haired stranger was on his feet and he brought me a glass of water from the bedside table. He took my hand and placed the drink in it.
“Take long breaths,” he whispered.
I drank the water in several gulps and he took my glass from me. “Thanks.”
“Call me ‘Truid.’ And we never had the privilege of meeting your father before he passed. But we pledged our allegiance to you before we even laid eyes on you.”
“How could you do that?” I asked, trying to keep up with their stories.
He shrugged, as if such a question had never crossed his mind. He took my wrist and guided me over to the bed, urging me to sit down as they stood around me.
“I’ll lay it out for you,” Luca said, running a hand through his shoulder-length blond curls. “You are a half-elf. If we knew you were turning eighteen tonight, we would have stopped you from leaving the house. We’re here to keep you safe and alive, but to do that, you need to choose which one of us you want as your mate. Even all three if you so select.”
“What are you talking about? Mates?” I said, convinced they had lost their minds.
Brey studied me as if I were a bird in a cage. I unsure if that meant he found me attractive or terrifying, but the pity in his gaze was clear. “You’re as beautiful as a flower, but inside you lies tremendous power. You have grown up without your heritage, without understanding your strength, without knowing what was required of you.”
“And that is?” I narrowed my eyes as his gaze fell down the length of my body and back to my face.
“Each of us has bestowed upon you multiple gifts,” he started. “These would connect us with your heart once you accepted them, but you haven’t yet chosen.”
“I don’t understand, and what has that got to do with the orcs?”
Luca placed a hand on my thigh, his touch sending tingles up my legs. I held back the desperation to moan from how amazing his hand felt. “Little one, we need to stop your energy from spreading outward through Haven Realm before every orc is on your doorstep. They can’t enter your home while we have magic stopping their entrance, but our defenses can only hold up so much against dozens of orcs’ brute force.”