Terran Times 18 - Emerald Envisage

by Viola Grace

  When she left the bathroom, she found Hunter sitting on the couch in the living room. He was holding her dagger, a worried frown on his face. What was it about that weapon that concerned him so much? She wished, not for the first time that day, she had even a shred of knowledge about her people. Before now she had never truly realized how little she knew about her heritage.

  “Thirty years ago, one of our princes fell in love with a Water Elf,” Hunter began, showing he knew she had been watching him. “There was a problem though, not only was it forbidden for him to take another species of elf as a mate because he was royalty, but the female in question was just a commoner.”

  She stood fixed in place. Shock making movement impossible. “Was that my father?”

  Hunter nodded. “It must have been, this was his dagger. The markings on the hilt say so.”

  She had often wondered about the strange letters etched on the handle of the dagger. But there had never been anyone around to teach her the language of the elves. Her oldest brother, Loredean, had a vague knowledge of it, but it was so remedial he had never been able to translate.

  “Your father loved this Water Elf so much he gave up his kingdom for her,” Hunter continued. “They both left their clans and nobody ever heard from them again.”

  Korin brought her hand to her throat as she thought about how much her parents must have loved each other. They gave up everything to be with each other. “I don’t even remember them,” she confessed in a whisper. “They died when I was still a baby.”

  He raised his gaze and she was struck by the sadness she saw in his eyes. “What happened?”

  “Some Red Ones, or rather some Fire Elves attacked our house.” Tears came to her eyes. “They held them off long enough for us to escape. I was so young I couldn’t even run yet so Loredean had to carry me.”

  “That’s why the Fire Elves still attack your family.” He sat the dagger down on the table and walked over to her. “They know you are of royal blood and they want to wipe you off the earth because of it.”

  It all of the sudden became too much for her. The tears started to fall freely from her eyes. “So where does that leave my brothers, sisters and me? From what you say, neither the Earth Elves or the Water ones will accept us because we are of mixed blood and if we stay among the humans, we will be open to attack from the Fire Elves.”

  He put his arms around her and pulled her to his chest. “I’ll take care of you. You’ll never be alone as long as you have me and I won’t let anything harm you.”

  Funny, she somehow believed him. Burying her face in his chest, she breathed in his scent and savored the comfort he was offering.

  “Get your hands off my sister and step slowly away from her,” a harsh voice commanded.

  Korin gasped as Hunter’s body tensed. She looked around him and saw her three brothers standing there, all of them armed with swords and mean glares. Loredean was pointing his sword at Hunter, the tip pressed into the small of his back. They must have snuck in while Hunter and she were talking. Or at least she hoped that was when they broke in. She would die a thousand deaths if they saw her while she was having sex.

  Then her embarrassment suffered a quick death and the familiar feeling of aggravation took its place. Her brothers were always butting into her personal life and she was getting sick of them suffocating her with their over protectiveness. With a low growl, she pinned each of them with an angry glare. They, in turn, ignored her.

  All of her brothers had the same blond hair as she did, although each and every one of them had green eyes, like their father. Loredean had a hat on and, though the brim was pulled down low, hiding his eyes, she knew they were dark with anger.

  “How did you find me?” Korin asked, clutching at Hunter’s arms. If she kept enough of her body against his, then maybe they wouldn’t try to run him through with one of their blades.

  “Your co-worker, Tammy, called and wanted to know if you were feeling any better,” Loredean supplied. “When we realized you had pulled a disappearing act, Avery tracked your path.”

  At the mention of his name, Avery waved his hand sarcastically. He wasn’t wearing a hat, preferring to grow his hair longer in the front and sides in order to hide his ears. “I believe you were told to get your hands off our sister,” he drawled.

  The third brother, Jace snorted in disgust. He was wearing a hat, too, but he wore the brim backward, revealing his eyes. Usually they were dancing, since he found all situations humorous. Not today though, they were full of fury. “Maybe we need to cut them off for him. Then he might take us serious.”

  Not moving his hold on Korin, Hunter growled. “And maybe he needs to take those swords of yours and shove them up your asses.”

  His body tensed as his hand shot for his waistband and she knew he was moving to draw a weapon. With a gasp, she wrapped her arms around his chest and plastered her body even closer to his. “No, they’ll hurt you and I couldn’t stand that.”

  “No they won’t,” Hunter declared, but he relaxed.

  “Then you will hurt them and I couldn’t stand that either.”

  The anger melted from his face. “I meant what I said earlier. You’re mine and I won’t give you up.”

  “Ewww…” Jace called. “Is your boyfriend always this nauseating?”

  “I do know he’s stupid,” Loredean said, his voice hard with rage. “Almost as stupid as you, Korin. After all I have taught you, I would expect you to know better than to make nice with a strange elf.”

  “Don’t you talk to her like that.” Hunter spun around, pulling a dagger out.

  “I’ll talk to her anyway that I want,” Loredean shot back, getting into a fighting stance. “She’s my family and I am not about to see her get hurt by some male that’s looking to use her.”

  “Stop! Both of you.” Korin put herself between the two of them and placed a hand on each of their chests. The hostility between the males was so thick it made it hard for her to breathe.

  She realized then that there was no way her brothers would ever accept a strange male in their mists. No more than there was any way they would willingly let her leave with Hunter. The only way out of this without bloodshed would be for her to leave one or the other of them behind.

  Her heart seemed to seize in her chest at the painful revelation. In the span of a few hours, she had grown to love Hunter. How that was possible, she had no clue, but the awful ache in her stomach told her it was true. Yes, she would have to walk away from him, but it was going to devastate her in the process. She must have shown her thoughts on her face because Hunter was gazing at her, panic in his eyes as he shook his head.

  “No, you don’t have to do this. I can handle myself.”

  “It’s the only choice I have right now,” the words came out ragged because there was a lump in her throat.

  He grabbed her by the shoulders and pulled her close so he could whisper in her ear, “If you do walk out that door, don’t look back. Because if you do, then I will know you feel the same way about me as I do about you and nothing will stop me from looking for you. No matter how far away they take you, I will find you and make you mine forever.”

  Goose bumps went down her arms at his words and her heart started to hammer in her chest. Judging by the intense look on his face, he wasn’t kidding. There was a raw possessiveness in his eyes. Giving him one last lingering kiss, she left the comfort of his arms and started toward the door. Her brothers didn’t move, keeping their weapons trained on Hunter.

  “You touch him at all and you will lose me forever,” she vowed to them. After a tense moment, Loredean gave a slight nod and they lowered their swords. Korin spoke the next words low so only her eldest brother heard. “I will never forgive you for this.”

  She walked away from her brother before she could see what his reaction might be because at that point she frankly didn’t give a damn. All she knew was that with each step she took she was getting further away from Hunter and she felt as if she w
ere losing a piece of herself.

  She could feel him staring at her. Willing her to look back, willing her to acknowledge their connection, willing her to admit that she loved him. As she reached the threshold of the door, she paused. Almost in slow motion, she turned her head and met his gaze. A look of triumph went over his face and she smiled in return. Come for me, she mouthed. I’ll be waiting.

  MYSTICAL RAPTURE

  Stephani Hecht

  “Get over here you little bugger.” Jorvin bent closer to her patient’s arm and tried in vain to find…well a vein. So far it had been a useless hunt, the blood vessels were much like her patient, non-responsive and lifeless.

  “Damn,” she muttered when the chamber on the IV failed to show the flash of blood that would tell her she had achieved her goal. An errant hunk of her brown hair fell from its clip and she started to tuck it behind her ear, only to stop short when her fingers grazed along its pointed tip.

  She looked around, guiltily, afraid someone had seen her slipup. Relief flooded her when she saw that it was just her and the comatose Mrs. Motgomery still in Trauma One and nobody had witnessed her massive mistake. The last thing she or her siblings needed was for her co-workers to find out what she really was.

  An elf.

  Since she was an elf passing herself off as a human, Jorvin had always lived by the motto no attention is good attention. Her brothers had been uttering that phrase to her since she had been old enough to repeat it back to them. Orphaned and separated from their own kind, she and her five other siblings had learned long ago they could only trust one another.

  So in the six months that she’d worked as a nurse in the Flint city hospital, Jorvin had made sure to do nothing to attract attention to herself. She wore baggy scrubs to hide her lithe frame, kept her brown hair in a sloppy bun so the tendrils on the side shielded her pointed ears and, most of all, kept her mouth shut.

  The door opened and two of her fellow nurses came sailing in, already in an animated discussion.

  “Did you see the two new paramedics?” the taller of the two said. She had beautiful blonde hair that Jorvin would give her hind teeth for.

  “You mean the brothers?” the shorter one responded.

  She had a rack that Jorvin would give her front teeth for.

  “They are so hawt. What I wouldn’t give to ride in the back of their ambulance.”

  Jorvin let out a little victory whoop because she finally had the IV in place. The gossip twins gave her identical looks of annoyance.

  “So I take it you like them, too?” Boobs said.

  “Like who?” Jorvin didn’t spare them another glance as she began taping the tubing into place.

  “The paramedics from Alpha 421.” Blondie shared a not-so-secret smile with her buddy.

  “I don’t know that I’ve seen them before.” She adjusted the flow of the IV to a steady drip.

  “How can you not see them?” Boobs acted aghast. “They’re built like gods.”

  “Because Jorvin never sees anything.” Blondie crossed her arms over her chest. “She lives in her own little world and comes out to visit us when she has to take care of her patients.”

  Jorvin spun around, her mouth open in shock. “I do not.”

  “Really? Then tell me what our names are.”

  “They’re…” She squinted at their name badges and they immediately slammed their hands on them so she couldn’t cheat. She strained her brain, tried to remember only to come up with, “Boobs and Blondie?” She covered her mouth in horror as soon as the words slipped out. Her brother Loredean liked to say she had no inner monolog and damned if he wasn’t right. The two nurses laughed and didn’t take offense, thank the Goddess.

  “I’m Cindy,” Blondie supplied. She hooked a thumb in her friend’s direction. “This is Debbie.”

  “You know, we’ve been watching you.” Cindy leaned against the counter and eyed her speculatively.

  “I thought you were watching the hawt paramedics,” Jorvin countered, despite the fact her heart thudded in her chest. Damn, they had been noticing her, what might she have done to betray who she really was?

  “Yes, you act shy, but it’s all for show. At first, I thought you might be stuck up, but it’s not that either. Then I finally met your brothers the other day and it all became clear to me.”

  Clear? What was clear? Oh crap, this is not good. Did they know the family secret? Jorvin licked her dry lips. “What might that be?”

  “Those boys are way too controlling of you. They probably never let you out to have fun.”

  Oh that. Well that certainly wasn’t any secret. Her brothers broadcasted their almost suffocating protectiveness whenever they came to pick her up from work. Shoot, they wouldn’t even let her drive herself home, despite the fact she had a car of her own that sat in their garage neglected. So it was true when Cindy said Jorvin’s brothers were too controlling of their sisters. To add to things, a year ago her youngest sister, Korin, had a fling with a strange elf. Now her brothers watched all their sisters even closer, all the while looking over their shoulders because the male had promised to come reclaim Korin someday.

  “They just worry too much, our parents died when we were young so they basically raised us,” she automatically defended her brothers. As soon as the damning words left her trap, she grimaced. Damnit, she was revealing way too much info. Next she would be drawing them a family tree.

  “That still doesn’t mean they have the right to boss you around and lock you up,” Debbie said. “You have every right to live your own life.”

  Jorvin pulled back, stunned by how right the human was. She did have a right to live her own life. All of the sisters did. While her brothers went out playing around with the females, her, Korin and Nivian had been forced to say home for their own good. To make things even worse, ever since her brothers had taken Korin away from her male elf, she had been a shell of herself and miserable. So Jorvin had the added burden of peacemaker. She tried everything to bring her once-extroverted sister out of her fun while dealing with Loredean’s mounting aggravation. To him the fact their youngest sister was willing to risk the family all for one mere male was unacceptable.

  “Why don’t you go out to the bar with us after work?” Cindy suggested.

  Did she dare? It would be so nice to spend a night away from her tension-filled house. To have some time just for herself. “I could call Loredean and tell him I had to work over,” Jorvin mussed. The thought of having a night of fun was so tempting. “He would never be the wiser.”

  “Perfect!” Cindy did a little happy dance.

  Jorvin couldn’t help but smile at her exuberated response.

  “I’ll drive you home after,” Debbie offered.

  An alarm shrilled through the speakers, followed by the pre-recorded voice that told them a priority one emergency was coming into the ER. The nurses hurried to a trauma room with the rest of the team and waited. As Jorvin stood in the packed room of doctors, nurses, radiologists and techs, she thought about what her two new friends had said.

  Her brothers thought they could rule her life and she was sick of it. Just look at what they had done to poor Korin. Thanks to them, she was miserable without Hunter and she may never be able to find him again. Maybe it was time they learned to stand up to those oafs and take control of their lives. Jorvin decided then enough was enough. She was going to reclaim her independence tonight. When she did call her brother, she wasn’t going to tell him she was working over, she was going to tell him she was going out with some friends and if he had a problem with it, too damn bad.

  The doors swung open with a loud bang as the paramedics came rushing in, pushing a cot between them. Jorvin barely gave them a glance because her attention was focused on the patient and the task at hand. They had a young male tied down to the backboard and the human was bleeding and shrieking hysterically.

  “We have twenty-year-old male who wrapped his car around a tree about one hour ago,” one of medics recited
as they lifted the backboard from their cot and transferred him to the hospital one. His deep voice sounded a bit winded from having to fight with the flailing patient. Despite the straps securing him into place, he was still able to move a lot. A couple of the hospital staff ran over to help. The medic wiped his brow and continued, “According to his girlfriend, he did some LSD. We have C-spine stabilized, one large bore IV in. He has a large laceration to the scalp and we stopped the bleeding and cleaned the wound best we could out in the field.”

  “The elves came to save me,” the human screamed. His pupils were so large his eyes looked black, they almost bugged out of pale face. His brown hair was slick with sweat and blood. “They tied me down and brought me here.”

  “Oh, and he’s having hallucinations,” the medic finished drolly. A few nervous chuckles met his words.

  Jorvin reached in the cabinet to get the four-point restraints when she became aware the paramedic who wasn’t giving the report was studying her closely. A moment of terror visited her heart as she wondered if maybe she was showing some ear or something. After all the talk about elves, the last thing she needed was to prove they really did exist. A nervous pat to her hair reassured her that wasn’t the case. So she started to shoot daggers at him, only to be brought up short by what she saw. The human had been right all along. The medic was a frigging elf, just like her.

  She whipped her head around to look at the other medic and saw he was one, too. Not only that, his name tag said Hunter. As in Korin’s Hunter. She glanced back over at the first one who was still gawking at her and saw that his badge said Devin. Korin had told her Hunter had a brother by that name. Both of them had dark hair, almost obscured by the blue ball caps they wore, and sharp green eyes. With bodies that were the perfect male specimen, they were tall and very muscular, although Devin was the taller of the two by a few inches. Both of them shared the same elf-like facial structure that she did, highly arched cheekbones and the slightest of tilting to their eyes. She tried to see if they had pointed ears, too, but those stupid hats hid them.