“Ah, brother, your timing could not be more perfect,” Seren called in lieu of a greeting.
“Oh?” Locien replied, raising an eyebrow in interest as he stepped onto the blanket and paused right beside me.
“I know you have just arrived, but could I trouble you to return to the realm?” Seren asked. “Megan and I have been having a very productive conversation, one that I think would benefit greatly from a very special third voice.”
Locien’s eyes instantly narrowed. “So soon?”
Seren nodded, his face now a mask of seriousness. “I believe we have now come to a point where none of us can step forward without her.”
The elder elf stared back at Locien for a long, tense moment, and for some reason, I got the feeling that they were still talking to each other even though neither one so much as blinked. It made the hairs on my arms stand on end, but I didn’t dare move to rub them. Even the air around me seemed to have become slightly heavier.
Finally, Locien nodded. “Just her?” he asked enigmatically.
Seren’s entire body became visibly more relaxed. “Yes, I think that is best, for now.”
He nodded again before he turned his head to look down at me. “I shall not be long,” he said, maybe afraid that I wouldn’t want to wait for him to bring whoever Seren wanted him to bring.
“It’s fine,” I managed to get out.
His lips twitched up into a small smile before he turned to walk back to wherever he had come from. With a start, I realized I had never seen either elf come or go from the Inbetween. I suppose I had just assumed that they came and left the same way I did—between the two trees. I silently watched him walk across the hazy meadow until the fog-like atmosphere seemed to swallow him up completely. Oh well, I would just have to ask them about it later. For now, I had a more pressing concern, something I was hoping I was utterly wrong about.
“Who is he bringing?” I asked with some trepidation as I turned to look at Seren.
“The Royal Wife,” he replied with a grin.
CHAPTER SIX
As I watched the two figures in the distance approach, I couldn’t take my eyes off the smaller of the two, especially when they were only a few yards away and I could see her face more clearly. It was hard to believe that this woman was human. The way she looked, the eerie green of her eyes, the dark hair that shimmered even in the dull light like threads of silk, and the impossible smoothness of her skin just seemed to scream “other.” Hell, she even moved like them, with a kind of effortless grace that even if I lived to be a hundred, I could never hope to copy.
Was this what Seren meant when he said that “steps” would have to be taken in order for me to be able to enter the elven realm? It was obvious that the elves had somehow changed her physically. That seemed awfully—permanent.
Before I could freak myself out even more, Seren was suddenly at my side, urging me to stand. I complied almost as though I were in a daze as I continued to stare at her like an idiot gawking at a celebrity.
A smile lit up her face, radiating a genuine friendliness that had me relaxing just a little bit.
“Hi,” she said, offering me her hand. “I’m Emily. It’s nice to meet you.”
It was such an ordinary, casual greeting that I felt the rest of my tension melt away and even managed to smile back at her as I reached over to shake her hand. “Megan Reyes,” I said, relieved that my voice sounded completely normal. “It’s nice to meet you, too.”
“We shall take our leave for today,” Seren said, and I looked up at him questionably. “Remember that time flows more slowly here, so stay and talk as long as you need. Locien and I shall be here waiting for you tomorrow should you decide to return.”
Emily sighed. “You’re still so proper, Seren. You and Locien both.”
Seren grinned. “Force of habit.”
“I look forward to talking with you tomorrow,” Locien said to me, ignoring the others’ banter.
He had said that the last time I left as well. Maybe it was just a polite phrase elves always said when they left, but I wondered if he was trying to sway my decision just a little bit by saying it in a way that left me little choice but to nod agreement rather than seem rude.
I was a little discomfited when I turned my attention back to Emily and found her already studying me.
“Um, please don’t take this the wrong way, but I find it hard to believe that you’re really human,” I said before I could stop myself.
Her smile was self-deprecating. “That’s because I’m not—at least not anymore.”
“Because they changed you?” I prompted.
“More than that,” she said with a nod. “Let’s sit down. It’s a long story, and I’m sure you’ll have tons of questions.”
“Seren said that you’re married to the king,” I said once we were settled.
Emily had chosen to sit cross-legged facing me. It looked really weird to see someone wearing one of those medieval-type gowns with a bodice and everything that you would only see in a movie sitting so informally. It made me wonder if she was going out of her way to be informal in order to put me at ease or if this was her true nature.
“Yes,” she replied simply.
I shook my head. “How in the world did you ever meet an elven king in our world? Did you fall into his trap, too?”
Her brow furrowed. “Trap?”
I gestured towards the twin trees in the distance. “A doorway like that.”
She laughed. “I see what you mean. No, my case was unique. I had no idea at the time, but he had been watching me for months. He says he first saw me out on the balcony of my apartment. You see, I was a graduate student at the time, studying for my PhD in astrophysics so I was outside a lot at night to stargaze. Did Seren and Locien tell you why you three must meet here in the Inbetween?”
I blinked in confusion at her sudden shift in topics. “Just that we can’t enter each other’s world without some kind of help.”
“You can, just not completely,” she corrected. “The first time I saw an elf, they looked like a bunch of shadows that had suddenly come to life. It was pretty scary.”
My eyes widened. “Really? I would’ve peed my pants if I saw something like that!”
“Believe me, if I hadn’t been half-asleep, I would’ve done more than wet the bed—but I’m getting ahead of myself. The point I wanted to make was that Sethian came into the human realm just like that, looking no more substantial than a shadow, and was easily able to blend into the night. He literally became my shadow.”
“That has got to be the creepiest thing I have ever heard,” I said with a shudder, “and here I thought I was having a really great dream when a couple of hot, pointy-eared men suddenly popped up.”
“I still think I’m dreaming sometimes, so I can totally relate,” Emily said.
“So did the king talk to you when he was like that?” I asked curiously.
“No, and I’m eternally grateful that he didn’t,” she replied with a grimace. “I would’ve had nightmares for years. When he decided that I was the one he wanted for his bride, he sent a group of elves to steal me away from my bedroom in the middle of the night.”
“You’re kidding me!” I exclaimed in utter disbelief. And to think I had started to feel a little guilty about being so suspicious! I really needed to start listening to my subconscious a lot more.
“I’m not telling you this to scare you,” she said firmly. “As I said before, my situation was unique. Had I asked to go home, he would have allowed it. He simply knew after all those months of observing me that I wouldn’t.”
“But—suddenly disappearing like that. Your family—” I instantly snapped my big mouth shut when I saw the flash of pain in her eyes.
“My parents were both long dead before the elves came for me,” she said softly before I could apologize. “Sethian’s never flat out told me, but I know he would have never taken me if I hadn’t been so alone. At the time, I shared an apartment with my
best friend. I think I may have seen her at the most twice on any given month. She was a nurse working the graveyard shift, and all of my time was eaten up by school and work.” The pain in her eyes suddenly turned wistful. “She would be almost fifty now, maybe even a grandmother.”
I was about to offer to look her up, but then the friend’s age suddenly registered, freezing the words on my tongue. Fifty? I stared hard at the young woman before me. There was no way she was older than her early twenties.
“Fifty?” I asked, hoping she would understand my confusion and wouldn’t make me spell it out.
She sighed. “I would have thought they would have at least told you about the lifespan of the Sidhe.”
Come to think of it, Seren had mentioned something about thousands of years earlier…
“They might have. Did they tell you about my sudden memory loss?”
“Yes, and you can bet we’ll get to the bottom of it, so don’t worry,” she said, a hint of anger coloring her words.
“Do you think they’re right?” I asked anxiously. “Did another elf really mess with my brain?”
She nodded hesitantly. “Locien said that he found a suggestion implanted within your mind, so there’s no doubt about it.” She paused, her eyes looking at me pensively for a brief moment, before she continued, “The thing you must understand about the elven society, particularly the elven court, is that many see the fact that they must take a human bride in order to have children as a disgrace. Some believe that it is better for their entire race to eventually die out rather than mix their blood with us lowly humans. It is a small minority, but one that can never be ignored, nor underestimated.”
“You sound as if you speak from experience,” I said with a frown.
“Too much so,” she said with a sad smile. “Just know that if you do decide to accept Seren and Locien’s proposal, it is inevitable that you will run into those kinds of prejudices eventually.”
“You don’t think it’s weird? Asking me to be a lover to both of them?”
“No weirder than my own situation,” Emily replied with a shrug. “The only thing that really matters here is whether or not it’s a relationship you are comfortable with, as well as being comfortable with its potential outcome.”
I made a face. “Yes, a baby. Have you had any kids yet?”
Her face lit up. “Four so far—two boys and two girls. My oldest, Thaylan, is twenty-two, and my youngest, Arra, just turned fourteen.”
“Seriously? And I was just thinking that you couldn’t be older than early twenties!”
“That’s right—I never did finish telling you about their lifespan. An elf can live for thousands of years. Sethian says that his father was nearly ten thousand years old when he died. Sethian, himself, is over two thousand years old. As for me, when Sethian’s mage transmuted my body in order for me to be able to enter the elven realm completely, the change somehow granted me the same longevity. I was twenty-three when I was brought to the elven realm. I’ll look more or less like this for the rest of my life. If you decide to come to the elven realm, the same will be true for you.”
“That’s—” I shook my head, unable to articulate what I was feeling.
“—a lot to take in, I know,” Emily finished sympathetically. “Things were hard for me my first few months here. There was a lot that I didn’t understand about the nature of elves or elven society in general. Their sense of time is totally alien from a human’s perspective. They can leave home for a year and no one will think anything of it no more than they would if they had been gone only for a day. After these last twenty-three years living in the elven realm, the most important lesson I learned was that as a human, no matter how many centuries may pass, I’ll never truly become one of the Sidhe. You’ll always be the outsider, and it’s something you’ll just have to accept if you decide to marry into the House of Elerren.”
“You’re actually not pleading their case very well, you know,” I said dryly.
“I’m not here to persuade you,” Emily said firmly. “Nor has either of the brothers asked me to. Whenever a suitor comes to me and asks that I speak with their potential bride, I come with only one purpose—to tell you the realities of this unique life choice as seen from a human’s perspective.
“I will say this, though. Both Seren and Locien are good men, and Locien’s wife, Hilde, is a sweet, gentle woman. I don’t expect you would face the same difficulties I did should you end up bearing Locien’s child. The need for a child can be a powerful factor, or as in my case, the reality of actually holding your baby for the first time can shift everything in ways you never expected.”
“That’s just the thing,” I said uncomfortably. “I’ve never wanted to have children. I—well, let’s just say that a lot of things that happened in my shitty childhood, not only to me, but to the grandmother who raised me, pretty much ruined for me any desire to be a mother.”
“Then why do you keep coming back here?” she asked pointedly. “If you truly feel that motherhood isn’t for you, then it would be better for everyone involved to just move on before things become more serious on Seren and Locien’s end.”
“Exactly,” I said, throwing my hands up in frustration. “Yet, it seems every time I turn around, even in my dreams, I’m looking at those damn pine trees.”
Emily looked at me sharply. “Would you say it’s strong enough that you’re being compelled to come here against your will?” she demanded.
I sighed noisily. “No, it’s probably just because I’m neurotic and too damn nosy for my own good. I come here, and just talking with Seren and Locien excites me. I think I felt like this before someone screwed with my memories. I mean, I came to meet them for seven days in a row. Maybe I just want to know why. Maybe my life’s been too boring, lately. I just don’t know at this point, and that’s what drives me crazy.”
“But is it enough? Enough to make you reconsider your stance on children?” Her lips curved up into a self-deprecating smile. “Lord knows that I went into this scared out of my mind when I found out exactly why I had been brought here. I had been so busy with school that the thought of having children hadn’t even entered my mind at all. Then I got pregnant within my first month here, and terrifying doesn’t quite describe what I felt. Looking back now, there was absolutely nothing unique about what I was feeling. What first-time mother isn’t scared? It took actually becoming a mother to show me my true feelings about the matter. Now, I couldn’t imagine my life without my kids when before Sethian came into my life, I couldn’t imagine them at all.”
The more she talked, the more I just wanted to start pulling my hair out at the roots. What the hell was I even still doing here? Was I seriously going to consider going with the elven brothers to live in their world permanently, to live with two men? I considered myself adventurous, but not that adventurous…
“Argh!” I moaned, giving in to the urge to grab the ends of my hair and yank hard in agitation before I abruptly stood up. “I need to get away from here,” I said as Emily rose to her feet as well. “Thanks for talking to me, for telling me what’s what without sugarcoating anything, but I think I should go home now. I need to think away from all this craziness. Can you tell Seren and Locien that regardless of whether or not I want to pursue this—thing with them, I’ll definitely come back to tell them my decision? I don’t like the idea of just not showing up at all. It may not be tomorrow, or even the next day after that, but I think after apparently stringing them along for this long, they deserve at least that much from me.”
“Of course,” Emily said with an easy smile. “If you do decide to come to the realm in the end, come see me. I’d like to talk some more. I’ll introduce you to my friends, to the other human brides. After all, no matter the outcome from that point on, we will all be family.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
“I have something to confess,” I said as soon as Jenna answered her door.
“O—kay,” she said, flashing me a bewildered look
as she stepped back to allow me to enter her apartment. It was nine o’clock on a Saturday morning after a girl’s night out, so I wasn’t surprised that she was still in her pajamas. “I thought you had to work the drive-thru this morning.”
“I called in sick,” I said as I plopped myself down onto her couch.
She bent down to scrutinize my face. “Yeah, the bags under your eyes aren’t doing you any favors. If you’re still sick, then what the hell are you doing here at this god-awful hour?”
“I’m not sick. Well, at least I don’t think I am.”
Jenna sat down beside me and gave me the evil eye. “You didn’t have a headache last night, either, did you?” she said flatly.
I shook my head, and her scowl deepened.
“All right, spill. The last time you flaked out on us was because you were doing something incredibly stupid in regards to a certain asshole.”
“It has nothing to do with John, I promise,” I hastened to assure her, and her icy expression began to melt somewhat.
“It better not,” she warned.
No, this could probably be worse than me begging my ex for a second chance, I thought with an inward grimace.
“I met someone last week,” I said. “Things happened, and now I don’t know what to do.”
“Oh my God!” she yelled, grabbing me by the arms. “You’re pregnant, aren’t you!”
I flinched back when confronted by her unexpected ferocity. “What? No! I can be stupid sometimes, but I’m not that stupid.”
I had never seen a person look more relieved than in that moment. Jenna let go of my arms and sat back with an exasperated sigh. “Next time stop to think about what you’re saying. ‘Things happened, and I don’t know what to do.’ How else was I supposed to take that?”
I made a face. “I see your point.” I rubbed at my eyes wearily. “Sorry. I didn’t get any sleep last night, and I can’t think straight right now.”
Claimed by the Elven Brothers: Decision (An Elven King Novella Book 1) Page 4
