THE CHOOSING Read online

  His wandering thoughts were abruptly interrupted as a woman stood in the waves and scrambled out of the surf. Where had she come from? He had not noticed anyone swimming in the swelling waves.

  The woman’s long black hair picked up the rays of the morning sun and glistened like wet obsidian. The black tresses reached past her knees, completely blanketing her body from his gaze, but as she moved, attractive glimpses of smooth skin captivated him. Enticing mounds of creamy flesh, tipped with dusky nipples, peeked from behind the dark curtain of hair, and his loins suddenly responded.

  All thoughts of war and Sea Elves left his head as he pondered this unusual sight.

  At first glimpse, he thought perhaps she was a mermaid stranded on the shore. But as she made her awkward way out of the water, he could see that she had a pair of long and lovely legs, well muscled and strong.

  Not a mermaid then. Perhaps a selkie? But there was no evidence of seals around the cove.

  “By the Jewels! Could it be a damned Sea Elf, delivered into my hands by some fickle god?” He heard her shout and watched her throw a rock against a large boulder. The smaller rock crashed against the larger, exploding into tiny pieces and dust.

  She certainly did not sound like a magical being. Or very silvan-like. She turned and scanned the feet of the cliff where he lay hidden, looking for the gods only knew what. It was the first clear glimpse of her L’Garn had. With his keen elfin sight, he could see that her eyes were a startling blue. Not the pale ice of his own, nor the deep, jewel tones of a fine sapphire gem. Rather, their color was something in between.

  Her full lips had a petulant set to them, but he had no doubt they would be soft and sweet if he were to taste them. And he suddenly had a need to lick the salt of the sea from them.

  The woman’s square chin and full features disproved his Sea Elf theory. Even without seeing her ears, he knew this fire brand was a human. There could be no other explanation.

  At the thought of the word human, L’Garn’s heart lurched, and a deep ache he’d never felt before spread through his chest. He almost doubled over with its intensity.

  What would it be like to talk to a human? To be able to observe one in close quarters? The need to know was almost as painful as the ache in his chest.

  L’Garn watched her duck behind a boulder, then emerge on the other side, swearing and yelling at no one. She raised her fist and shook it towards the sea. His lips twitched. It was obvious she had been abandoned by her people, probably as some punishment for a crime. Her fit of temper showed she had no self control.

  Perhaps she was an unfaithful mate and her male had dumped her here at the mercy of the sea and the elements. L’Garn had heard stories about humans and their strange customs of fidelity and morality, although it was obvious their loyalty did not include elves. His mother was proof of that. Yes, that had to be it. Abandoned and left to die. Why else would someone dump such a lovely female without a stitch of clothing?

  He shook his head as if to clear it from so many unanswered questions. It did not matter why she was there alone on the beach. It did not matter whether she was a human or a Sea Elf. The only thing that mattered was that she could have valuable information which he, L’Garn, would use. His grandfather would be grateful.

  L’Garn would enjoy interrogating her, even if she proved to be resistant to his questions. There were always ways of learning what one wanted to know. After he had picked her brain clean of any useful bit of information, perhaps he could find another use for her. Sembali would celebrate her birth night soon. A new slave would be a welcome addition to her household. His mother’s household was conveniently close to his own chambers.

  L’Garn licked his dry lips and began a silent descent from his hiding place to the beach below.

  ~*~

  “Get this damned thing off me!”

  Using her most intimidating tone, Feenix ordered the man as if he were one of her recruits.

  Trouble was, he didn’t respond like one.

  Instead, her captor ignored her as he drew a thin cord from one of the many pouches around his waist.

  “Did you hear me? I said release me, immediately!”

  He shook out the cord and, using a thin dagger from his boot, cut off a length about as long as his arm.

  Through the net’s mesh, Feenix couldn’t help but notice that the arm he used to measure the rope with was firm and very muscular. It looked like the arm of a warrior.

  She watched as he tucked the unused portion of the cord back into his pouch, then calmly coiled the smaller length into a palm-sized circle. He looked up towards the cliffs and seemed to be measuring, or considering, some great problem. Still without a glance her way, he hunkered down, balancing on his toes. He reached down and began to draw circles in the soft sand.

  “Hey! Are you deaf? What are you going to do with me?” she demanded, trying again to push the netting over her head. The more she moved, the more tangled she became in the cording. Bits of long-dead fish flaked from the net and fell on her shoulders and feet.

  She jumped to the side to try to dislodge a crusty fin from her foot, fell and landed on her bottom. A rock protruding from the sand jarred her tail bone, causing agonizing pain to her lower back.

  She screamed in frustration, anger and pain, and still the elf-man drew circles with his long fingers.

  She managed to roll to her hands and knees, but the net was wrapped even more firmly around her, pulling her hair and rubbing against her unprotected skin.

  “Are you just going to sit there all day, or do you have something in mind for me?” She saw that his finger never stopped its methodic circles. “Come over here so I can look at you before I kill you!”

  He reached into his pouch for something blue and glowing, sprinkled it over the pattern he was making.

  “If you were half a man, you’d release me and let me go!”

  His pale blue eyes never left the sand in front of him.

  “I’m no threat to you. What, by Mac Lir’s ears, do you want with me?”

  “Much.” His voice seemed rusty and unused, as if he rarely spoke.

  As he continued drawing in the sand, Feenix felt her anger reach a new high. “What the hell are you doing in the sand? Are you an idiot that you play like a child at the beach? Release me right now so I can knock some brains into your head!”

  “Be still,” he ordered. “I must concentrate.”

  “Don’t give me orders, fool,” she yelled, barely able to keep from toppling over again as she moved towards him. “Do you know who you are speaking to? Obviously not,” she answered her own question. “If you did, you’d understand the world of trouble you’re going to be in as soon as I get out of this damned net!”

  “You speak too much. It is obvious that your mate abandoned you to the sea because he was tired of your grating voice.”

  “By the god’s brass bells,” she sputtered. “Nobody talks to me like that. Give me a dagger. Your death will be swift and very painful.”

  He finally looked up from the sand and gazed calmly into her stormy eyes. “Now who is the fool?”

  “Who the hell do you think you are?” Feenix couldn’t believe it. How could she have dropped her defenses long enough to have this...this male sneak up on her and capture her with a stinking net?

  She took a faltering step towards him, trying to get out of the sun that was steadily taking over the entire cove. The only place of refuge from the burning rays was the shadows where her captor drew in the sand.

  “Where did you come from and why do you have ears like a stinking elf and a beard like a real man?”

  A change came over his face, etching more lines into his already stern and marble-like expression. He narrowed his icy eyes and a hood seemed to drop over them, as if he were trying to hide from her gaze. But she was rocked to her soul at the pain and misery she thought she saw there, a second before his expression went blank as a stone wall.

  She lost her balance and landed with a plo
p in the soft, hot sand.

  She tried to stand again, but the net wouldn’t let her, so she decided to try to get comfortable. Besides, she needed a moment or two to erase from her mind the tortured expression she was almost sure she saw in his face.

  Fine. She would bide her time and when he came to release her from the net, she’d use some of the skills she’d learned over the years. Given half the chance, Feenix was capable of killing a man with her bare hands.

  She flexed her fingers in anticipation of putting them around his throat. She looked to where he hunkered in the sand, and wondered if he was ever going to come close enough for her to get her hands on him.

  She thought she detected a faint scent of pine as he returned to his scribbling in the sand. Her mind must be playing tricks on her. The only smell she was fully conscious of was the sun-dried fish from her corded prison.

  Patience, girl, she cautioned herself. He’s giving you an opportunity to study your enemy. Wait. Watch. Learn where his weakness is. Then when the opportunity comes, kill him.

  Forcing herself into the familiar battle-ready exercises, she slowed her breathing and watched, making mental notes of his slightest movement.

  She had to look past the interesting face, past the wide shoulders and muscular chest, bare except for a leather vest, open to the ocean breeze and her gaze. She must ignore the trim waist and firm thighs where his arms rested easily, as if he were playing a childhood game and had all the time in the world. Ignore the fact that the thought of those ice-blue eyes looking at her again caused her pulse to race and her mouth to go dry. It was merely the bloodlust in her, preparing for battle.

  She forced her brain to concentrate. Look. Learn.

  The first thing she noticed was that while he gave the impression of ignoring her, he was in actuality acutely aware of her struggles and movements. The involuntary clenching of his jaw, the minuscule quirk of an eyebrow, even the slight flare of his nostrils when she moved, all told the story. He was watching her very closely.

  What did he want? Was he waiting for her to tire herself out before lifting the net? Well, he could wait until Mac Lir stopped in for a bite to eat! Feenix knew how to conserve her strength.

  She knew how to watch and wait. She had the patience of a great cat stalking its prey. The strength of ten fighting men and the stamina of a rock troll. She would just make herself comfortable here in the sand, with the sun’s rays beating down on her, and she would show him just how strong and patient Captain Feenix of Port Marcus could be.

  It didn’t matter that the sand and pebbles were beginning to bite into her exposed flesh. She was a warrior and could put such annoyances far from her mind. Had she not trained for hours in the searing heat of the Great Tylana Desert, until her arms ached and quivered with the pain of wielding fifty pounds of iron, thrusting to the quintain over and over again? Had she not survived the attack of thirty hobgoblins in the marshes of Siravo, taking seven arrows and never once even murmuring at the pain?

  He blinked once.

  The smell of dead fish in the hot sun was stomach-turning. She forced her churning belly to obey her command and subside. Had she not headed up a burial detail to dispose of the bloated remains of a trader caravan in that same desert, and never once flinched at the flies and maggots, the smell of blood and exploded entrails?

  Her elbow discovered a shell. A moving shell. A hermit crab crawled across her forearm, like a reddish-brown spotted spider.

  “By the god’s holy beard!” she screamed and doubled her efforts to stand. “If you don’t release me at once, I will kill you where you stand!”

  This time her struggles were rewarded. Pulling herself up beside the boulder, Feenix was able to gain her feet, although the net kept her from stretching to her full height.

  The man took a great breath of air and released it in a long, steady sigh. He continued to mark the sand. Again the brief scent of pine wafted to her.

  “Aaiieee!” she yelled. “You must be deaf, although with those ears I don’t know how you could be!”

  A soft sound came from between the man’s lips, slow and melodic. The circles in the sand continued to multiply.

  “Who are you?”

  The sound from his throat grew a notch. The scent of pine intensified.

  “What are you?”

  The man’s finger stopped. His body became still as a stone. As she held her breath, he raised his head and those ice blue eyes pierced her with a glare that brought to mind lightning.

  Then she knew.

  “By the god’s left ear lobe,” she mocked. The wind carried her words around the cove and to the cliffs. “You are half a man!” Her laughter made her stomach clench for some strange reason. “You’re a damned half-elf!”

  She watched his eyes flicker, and a deep pink flush rose from his neck to fill his face with color. She wasn’t sure if it was from anger or shame. Slowly he stood, his left hand clenched.

  “That tongue of yours will be the first thing to go, once you are inside Cragimore.”

  The timber of his voice touched a chord deep inside her, but she ignored the sensation, thinking it was a finger of dread racing down her soul.

  “If I go into the stronghold of those filthy Night Elves, it won’t be a social call, elf-man!”

  He raised his arm. “You have no choice. You are now my slave.” He tossed the sand in her direction and uttered a strange word.

  “You bastard,” she yelled, as the scent of pine reached her on the breeze. “Magic!”

  Feenix of Port Marcus slipped to the ground in a lifeless heap.

  L’Garn walked to the boulder and, with a quick flick of his hand and a Word of Power, easily released the woman from the net. Upon closer inspection he could see she was indeed a human, not an elf. No matter. His mother would still receive a new slave for her birth night. And perhaps this woman knew something of the Sea Elves.

  Without wasting any more time, he bound her hands behind her back, then picked her up and flung her over his shoulder.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Feenix decided it was too bad the half-elf hadn’t killed her. Too bad for him anyway. Merely rendering her defenseless and unable to move was not enough to dampen her bloodlust. Her body was as limp and supple as a pair of well-worn leather boots, unable to stand or function without support. But her determination was as firm as a steel sword; the elf-man would die.

  She should have recognized the magic before it hit her. Hadn’t she smelled the spell as he prepared it? Hadn’t she known he was silvan?

  Well, at least part silvan. That kind could never be trusted in honest battle; they never fought without some sort of trickery. Even the Sea Elves, with whom she had a contract and understanding, dealt more often with deceit and underhanded maneuvers than with honest, face-to-face warfare.

  Although, to be fair, Rendolin’s people did have a code of honor they adhered to, if humans had the wits about them to figure it out.

  No matter. Because the half-elf had made the mistake of taking her captive rather than killing her, his death at her hand would be slow, painful and very, very satisfying.

  The fact that she could not stir a muscle did not remove all feeling from her. Feenix was acutely aware of every bounce, jiggle and firm step the elf-man took. She could not help it. His bony shoulder dug into her stomach with the unyielding firmness of an iron rod. The man could do with some meat on his bones.

  From her unique perspective, the rocky cliffs were her sky, and the only direction she could look was down his trim legs or through his muscular thighs. However, in order to get a clear view of those long legs, she first had to gaze past the firm mounds of his posterior. Quite a mesmerizing sight in itself as she watched, entranced, the large muscles moving beneath the thin layer of material that was only a tiny distance from her nose. She suspected he was carrying her to his stronghold, and she was determined to be ready for anything.

  She wished she could shut her eyes for a moment. The motion of his strides, a
nd the reversed position of her head and stomach, was making her nauseous. Vertigo was not usually something that afflicted her, but from this angle, every step caused her head to spin.

  Her eyes burned with the need to close them. Her eyeballs felt as if they had been rolled around in the sand for a day or two.

  Long strands of her hair trickled over her shoulders to drape past his calves and occasionally snag on a jagged rock or grasping bush. It was going to take hours to work all the snarls out of the tresses. Just one more crime to lay at the god’s feet.

  She wanted to scream and yell and run him through with her sword. How dare he abduct her in this manner! Just who in Mac Lir’s back yard did he think he was, dropping nets on unsuspecting women and forcing them to go with him to who-knows-where? If she had her gear, this never would have happened. Rendolin and his brother had a hell of a lot to answer for, if she ever got out of this predicament.

  No, when she got out of this predicament, she reminded herself.

  This was not the first time she had been at the complete mercy of a man, but she had sworn never to be in such a situation again. Until now, she had pretty much kept that promise to herself. She was ten years old when she made the vow. Seconds later she had liberated herself and experienced her first taste of death engineered by her own hand. The beauty of slipping a deadly dagger into an enemy’s heart had been a sensation she had never forgotten. It wasn’t something she took joy in, but it was something she was good at.

  However, these days she used her skills for the benefit of her employers, rather than her own thrills. A girl had to work for a living, and she would be damned before she laid down and sold her body for money. That was just another way for a man to control her, and Feenix refused to give that control to any man.

  Somehow she had forgotten her vow, had lost her instinct for survival there on the beach in those moments after recovering from the Change. The god’s curse made her weak. She made a pact with herself to do whatever it took to have the curse removed.