Arrival

****TRIGGER WARNING:::: This chapter contains r a p e, forced abortion, forced impregnation, and other dark themes. Please be advised before reading. Thanks****

tWhen I awoke again, I was cold, and it was dark.

tI did a quick sense over of my body, and I was startled to find that I was naked. Otherwise, I seemed to be alright.

tI pushed down my initial panic, and forced myself to remain calm. I had to find out where I was. I began to calculate my surroundings.

tI could feel a hard, stone floor underneath me. My stomach was somewhat crampy, and my body felt tight. But that was more than likely from the stress of what I had endured, I could only suspect.

tMy eyes adjusted to the darkness quickly, and I saw a small sliver of light coming from in front of me, at the floor.

tI a.s.sumed that I was in a closet, of sorts.

tI began to grow nervous. What had happened to me while I was unconscious?

tI took a quick inventory of my body. Nothing seemed to be misplaced or out of order...I didn"t necessarily hurt anywhere... So if he hadn"t hurt me, why was I here…?

tI decided to chance it. "H-h.e.l.lo?" I called.

tI immediately heard a response.

tFootsteps approached the door, and I quickly got to my feet.

tAs soon as the door was opened, I bound out of it and to the opposite side of the room, my body pressing against the locked door to what I a.s.sumed was a hallway.

tMy eyes flew to inspect the room I was in.

t.i.t was a bedchamber, white and red in color. It must be his room, I suspected.

tA quaking young Ork girl held up her hands in surrender. "P-p-p-p-please, miss! Please don"t h-hurt me! I"m j-just a servant!"

tI stood out of my offensive position. "Who are you? Where am I? Who is the man who captured me and where is he? SPEAK!" I shouted in my war tone, and she jolted, sweat running down her cheek as her body jerked with barely contained sobs of fear.

t"I-I am Urix, you are in the royal palace in Barrenwilds city! The man who captured you is my master, the Darkelf Prince Mafrien! He"s getting things prepared!"

t"Getting things prepared for what?"

t"For your stay here!" She cried.

t"Where are my clothes? Answer me!"

tShe jolted again, and I thought that she would soil herself.

t"I burned them," I heard his sultry voice say as he sauntered into the room. "Urix, go and run her a bath."

tAs Urix scurried out the door, he shut it and locked it.

tI got into a fighting position and he laughed at me. "What"s so funny?" I asked.

t"That you still think that you can fight your way out of this. You cannot stop me."

tI leaped onto the bed and used the springs in it to force my body to leap harder and faster at him, doing a roundhouse kick mid-air toward his head.

tHe laughed as he caught my foot with ease just before it could connect with his face, and then he slung me with force to crash into the wall behind his bed before my battered body fell onto his bed. It hurt much more than it should have, and I was startled by the lack of strength that I had. What was going on?

tWhy did I feel so… weak?

tHe moved with inconceivable speed and locked shackles around my wrists and ankles, connecting to chains that were tied and locked around each of the four bed posts, so that my bare body was stretched and I was not able to move.

t"If you continue to fight me, you will never see your homeland or your precious Dragon again," he sneered. "This is your last warning. Submit and get to go free, or fight and be forever imprisoned. It is your choice, girl."

tMy eyes burned with tears as I forced my body to go limp.

t"That"s a good little hybrid," he said in a disgustingly soothing voice.

t"Please don"t do this! I am newly married! I don"t want to be ruined for my husband." I pleaded, but he ignored me altogether. I knew that I was not pure, but I had only just lost my virginity. Dragon deserved his bride to be only his, and I wasn"t prepared to with this dark man. His hands began roaming freely over my body, and I stayed perfectly still with my eyes closed. I ignored him and tried to go to a happy place in my mind.

t"You must be wondering, why you feel so much weaker than you usually would, are you not?"

tI stayed silent, meeting his eyes. He grinned, a sick looking smile that made my skin crawl.

t"You must surely have more awareness of your body than this. Have you truly not sensed it yet? I have already smelled it on you."

tI didn"t understand, and I shook my head. He rolled his eyes.

t"More proof of how weak you truly are," he spat. "You consummated your marriage yesterday. Your body has already begun to grow soft, your senses slightly dulled and your body less able to absorb injury and impact. Think of the only reason that this could be, stupid girl!"

tThe realization hit me hard. I had conceived! At the end of our consummation, Dragon had… well, he had released, hadn"t he…? It had been his first time with a woman in almost a century, we had both been so lost in our pleasures with one another that... he hadn"t pulled out of me to release himself, as we had planned. He had been too lost to the feeling of me. We had not intended to have children for a while, and yet... and yet here it was. It didn"t even have a heartbeat yet, but I could feel it forming in my womb.

tFear spiked through my heart. Why would he be bringing this up? Worry struck through me for my barely conceived child.

t"What… what are you going to do?" I whispered.

tHe ignored me, pulling my legs apart.

tI was shocked when he began laughing a dark, dangerously comical laugh. "Oh, you are even clean down here!" He crowed as he inspected my privates, and my face felt as if it were on fire. "You were expecting someone to be down here, although to be fair, I suppose it wasn"t my handsome self. How odd, I am unused to finding a woman bare skinned here." He crawled back up my body, a vicious grin on his face.

tI closed my eyes and winced, cringing when I felt his tongue lick into me. His tongue felt almost like a cat"s tongue, rigid and rough, uncomfortable. I shuddered against the discomfort. I remembered my oral intimacy with Kelose, he had not really had much exploration of my nether regions. I had been the one to be more giving to him that night... and Dragon had been a bit more thorough, though we hadn"t taken a lot of time for that because the king was waiting for us to seal our union. But this... I didn"t have to dwell on the feeling long, however.

tI was even more shocked when he pressed his thick lips against mine, and I opened my eyes to see his.

tBlood red eyes met mine. They were a deep, liquid blood color.

tThat, combined with his solid white hair, black eyebrows, was a stark contrast against his dark gray skin.

tHe grinned a feral smile at me as his hand went to my lower back, and he began chanting something in a dark tongue that I could not understand.

tImmediately, a searing, blinding pain burned into the base of my spine, all the way through to the deepest recesses of my abdomen, and I felt a stabbing jolt shoot through my heart. I cried out in a gasp of unrestrained pain.

tHis smile grew as he continued, and I yelped out in unexpected agony when his nether regions ripped mine open as he forced his way into my body.

tI felt tears run down my quenched-up face, and a sudden rush of what smelled like my own blood pooled at where his body was joined inside of mine.

tHe gave my battered and abused body no time to adjust as he surged into me, and I groaned as more and more blood seeped out of me into the sheets. This was nothing like when Dragon and I had consummated our marriage. This did not feel good. This was not soft and warm and filled with heat and pleasurable burning. This was nothing but agonizing pain.

tI smelled the slightest difference in the blood, and angry, raging heartbreak rushed through me as I realized what he had just done.

tMine and Dragon"s newly conceived child was gone.

tHe laughed as I thrashed uncontrollably, hysteric breaths ripping from my throat as I tried to contain myself.

tAfter a while, his pace increased and then I screamed, m.u.f.fled only by his lips on mine, as I felt something expand inside of me, unnatural, stabbing into me on the inside.

tI struggled to move away from him, away from the shock of pain.

t"I am locked, girl. Do not move or you risk slicing your insides. Once I am unlocked, I will remove myself."

t"W-what does that mean? What is locking?" I asked through clenched teeth.

t"Oh," he laughed. "Oh, you"ll find out soon enough."

tAnd then I, once again, fell into a blissful unconsciousness.

tI had no idea how long I had been here. But I continued to have faith that someone would come to rescue me...right?

tRight?

tOver an immeasurable amount of time, Prince Mafrien continued to use and abuse my body as I came in and out of unconsciousness.

tAs more time pa.s.sed, I felt a nagging and discouraging thought tug at my heart.

tNo one was coming for me.

tI gurgled incoherently as he shoved his phallus down my throat, and despite that I vomited on him multiple times he continued on anyway.

tNo one was coming for me.

tI felt my body convulse in time with sharp thrusts.

tNo one was coming for me.

tI sobbed as he cut off my long, beautiful hair full of years of time and upkeep and memories, up to my jaw line simply because I wasn"t behaving well enough.

tNo one was coming for me.

tI cried tears as I drank the blood of the young ork servant girl whose throat he had sliced open to feed me and I fed on her until she was dead with the strength of my hunger and thirst.

tNO ONE WAS COMING FOR ME.

tI had all but given up hope when another young ork girl came in and unchained me, dressing me in white clothing that barely covered my private areas.

tI gave her a questioning look.

t"Only the royal family of Barrenwilds is permitted to wear white."

tConfusion entered my thoughts. Mafrien stepped into the room, and rested a hand over my belly, and grinned.

tThen, he lifted my body up after putting a bag over my head, and carried me out of the room.

tMy head spun from the force the speed he was using pushed against my broken body, and finally, he set me down on my feet and pulled the sack off of my head.

tHe pulled me to him, and pressed his lips harshly into mine.

tHis blood red gaze pierced through me.

tAnd then, he placed his white, hooded cloak over my nearly naked body.

tAnd then my body slammed into the cold, hardness of iron bars as he threw me inside of a cage that hung from the bottom of a cliff.

tI startled, and I was just too slow to make it to the entrance before he shut the door and locked it.

tWhat was Mafrien doing?

tWhy was he just leaving me here?

tI had been locked to his bed or in his closet since he had brought me here.

tHe gave me a glance. "You cannot escape from this cage so don"t waste your energy trying to get out. You will be freed shortly. But know this... You will return to me someday, Kysael."

tAs if he was nothing but smoke, he vanished into the nothingness of the night, and I shivered as a cold wind blew. Cold, so cold...

tThen, I fell into darkness.

tSomething startled me awake sometime later, and I jerkily looked around for what had gotten me out of my sleep.

tI looked, and honed in with my ears to pay attention to the surrounding area.

tAnd then I heard it.

tIn the distance, four riders were approaching.

tWho were they?

tWhat would they do to me? What if he had sold me into slavery and these were my new owners?

tPanic rushed through me as I thrashed, getting away from the door of the cage. I was way above the ground, but I knew that something strange was going on for Mafrien to just simply leave me here.

tAnd what had he said? That I would return to him someday?

tThat didn"t leave a good feeling in my gut.

tI was still in dazed confusion, disoriented, when I heard a shriek from a drake of some sort in the distance-a wyvern, from the sound of it.

tI startled once more, whirling my eyes around to search for the beast. That couldn"t be good news. But if it was between slavers or a wyvern, I think I would rather the wyvern. At least then I might be able to talk my way out of the danger. I knew already that slavers wouldn"t listen, and I was injured and weak. I wouldn"t be able to fight anyone. At least if a wyvern was coming, if it decided to kill me, it would be fast.

tI looked through the bars and I saw the creature in the distance. I saw a deep, purple glowing arising from the ground, but I didn"t pay any mind to it and kept my eyes clenched shut.

tI could hear an eerily familiar voice speaking in some tongue that I could not understand, and then I felt the cage be grabbed and I could hear metal screeching.

tI gasped, releasing a panicked sound that wasn"t quite a scream but wasn"t quite a groan, either.

tAnd suddenly the air was forced out of my lungs as the cage was lowered with frightening speed to the ground, and I cried out in fear.

tThe wyvern was going to eat me! It wasn"t even going to have a conversation with me. Maybe this wyvern had already known I was here. Maybe he was getting rid of me for Mafrien.

tSurely, after all my torture and Mafrien"s promise to let me go home, he had lied and he was going to leave me as an offering to this wyvern, wasn"t he?

tSoon I felt my body being pulled out when the riders got to me and I felt my body pulled into a strong, shaking pair of arms as I heard the great flaps of wings go off into the distance before I could no longer hear it. Wait....

tWhat?

tWhy arms? What about the wyvern? I know that it didn"t just come to set me free, right?

tI focused on the arms that held me.

tOn instinct, I fought against them, my brain not registering that I had reached safety.

t"Kysael!" His voice pulled me back to reality, and I went limp.

tMy attention focused. "D-Dragon?" I didn"t understand what had happened, my eyes had been tightly shut the entire time. What was happening? How had Dragon gotten here?

tHis hold tightened. "Oh, Kysael! I was so worried!" His voice finally registered completely in my mind...And then I jumped up into his arms, and his arms wrapped tightly around me, hugging my body tightly to him, my feet off of the ground. "That"s right," he whispered. "You"re safe. I have you now. You are alright. I"m here to take you home." He set me down to the ground again after a moment, and I reluctantly let him go.

tI looked around to see the other riders.

tDrakul was there, as was Vintice of the Ridgestone clan, who I remembered from many tales during my youth depicting him as a fantastic swordsman, but that wasn"t too surprising considering that he was Havengrove city"s blacksmith.

tOf course, he would more than likely be skilled in the art.

tBut my attention was caught and lingered on a pair of bright golden eyes in a handsome face covered in traditional Woodelf a.s.sa.s.sin War Paint, a face that I would always recognize from the depths of my very soul.

tKelose.

tI nodded softly to him, acknowledging his presence, and he smiled sadly at me.

tDragon looked me over. "Are you alright? Are you injured? Do you need medical attention?"

tI nodded, and he lifted into his arms, and set me onto his moose before mounting behind me, and we rode with haste to get out of this dreadful place.

tWe rode in the direction of home, far to the northwest.

t"How did you know where to find me?" I asked, my voice cracking.

t"Your father," Drakul answered, and confused shock hit me.

t"My father?"

t"Yes," Dragon said. "The Wraith that you encountered in the forest was telling the truth, after all. He did know who your father was. He bit you so that he could take your blood back to the Wraith city and show it to your father. Your father came two nights after the war, and demanded that we take him to you. I led him to our home, but you were gone. He told me that there was a Darkelf"s scent inside your room as well, and that both of your scents led off in the direction of Barrenwilds. So, I threw together a small rescue team, and we came straight here."

t"How long have I been gone? I was taken the same night as the war."

t"It has been twelve days since the war," Drakul said softly.

tI looked at Dragon. "Why didn"t you come to check on me before then? I was kidnapped from our own home and you didn"t notice for two days?"

t"You had killed someone for the very first time, Kysael. And honestly, I was feeling so unlike myself, that I knew that you would want me to stay away. You had told me that you would come to me on your own. I thought that you would want s.p.a.ce. You have before, after all. And when your father came looking for you, we found your room empty."

tI nodded. "You"re right. I would have wanted you to stay away, because you were acting strangely...and I would have wanted s.p.a.ce. I"m sorry, I"ve just..." I shook. "I"ve just..."

tHe hugged me with one arm. "At least you"re still alive."

t"So, what was my father like?" I asked, changing the subject.

tHe hesitated before he softly laughed. "Oh, what you would expect any other Wraith to be like. Black hair, blue eyes, blue markings.... they were the same shape and color as yours, and he told us what he knew of your mother. As soon as he told us her name, we knew that he was telling us the truth."

t"I see. So, who is he?"

tHe hesitated. "How much do you know about the Wraiths, Kysael?"

tI thought for a moment. "They feed on blood and raw flesh. They all have black hair and blue eyes and markings to identify which clan they are from, each clan marking a different shade of blue. The darker the markings, the more powerful the clan. They are ruled by an ancient king, named Ekabat."

t"Does the name "Moserre" ring any bells?" Dragon asked me, and I felt Kelose tense up, gaping at me from his mount.

t"He is the crowned prince of the Wraiths, but what does that have to do with-"

t"Do you know the Wraith marking for the royal clan?" Drakul interjected.

tI shook my head slowly. "What does that have to do with me?"

t"Kysael, the marking of the Royal Wraith clan is a royal blue, upside down crown." Dragon said softly. He pulled out a mirror. "What is your marking?"

t"I don"t need a mirror, Dragon, I know that it"s.... it"s a....." I took the mirror anyway, just to confirm it to myself. I looked at my face. "A royal blue, upside down crown...!" I met his eyes. "No..."

tHe nodded, a sly grin on his face. "You are the daughter of the crowned Prince of the Wraiths, Prince Moserre."

t"That has to be some mistake!" I said. "Mother was raped, aren"t royal people supposed to be above such lowly acts?" I couldn"t accept this. t

tI was Wraith Royalty? All this time, I had been so degraded and so mistreated and I could have been royalty if only I"d known about my father? Had my mother known who he was? Had she known all along that I was the son of a prince?

t"You mean to tell me that my mother was executed after giving birth to the daughter of a prince? No. You have to be lying!" I shouted.

t"Your mother and brother and Garin were on their way back from another city," Drakul began.

t"Stop it," I whispered. I knew where he was going with this, and I didn"t want to hear it aloud. I"d already heard it once before, and that was more than my heart could bear.

t"A party of Wraiths came upon their campsite, and Garin fled-"

t"Please-" I begged.

t"And all your mother had to offer in exchange for her son"s life and her own was her body-"

t"I said STOP!" I snarled, my blood pumping furiously through my veins.

tHe sighed, running a hand over his long, red hair. "You need to accept who you are, la.s.sie. Your father raped your mother in exchange for saving them from being killed. And nine months later, your mother gave birth to you."

t"So, I turned out just like her, then."

tDrakul looked away, a hard expression on his wise face. Dragon"s grip on me got tighter. Kelose readjusted his position on his elk, a standard mode of transport in the mountains. His eyes continued to worryingly glance over at me.

t"So....I was right, after all." Kelose said finally.

t"What do you mean?" I asked.

t"The boy continued to tell us that he could somehow sense your body was in immense physical and emotional pain. But there is only one way for that to be true, and when you married my son, Dragon had a.s.sured us that you were pure and that you hadn"t mated with anyone before, that you were a virgin before the wedding...so, I didn"t take him seriously," Drakul said.

t"A Soul Bond," Vintice said softly. "Or, at least, the first stage of it." He glanced at me, then at Kelose. "Well?"

tI sighed heavily. "Yes, it is true."

t"La.s.s!" Drakul said, covering his mouth. "So, he wasn"t lying..."

t"I never gave him my purity. We just began the Soul Bond with one another. Dragon was right, I was pure when he married me."

t"I told you, Lord Drakul," Kelose said, smirking. Then he turned his attention to me. "So....he raped you?"

tMy face flamed with shame.

tWe came to a stop just outside of the desert, and agreed to camp for the night there.

tAs the others set up tents, I went to the boundary of where the forest floor turned from dirt to the barren sand of the Barrenwilds desert. I stood there; my arms crossed.

t"Do you want s.p.a.ce, or do you want to talk?" Dragon asked with a gentle smile as he approached.

t"Would you mind healing me?" I asked softly, not looking at him.

tHe nodded and pulled me off to the edge of the forest, to a small stream, where we both sat down.

tAs he began healing bruises and lacerations over my arms and legs, he smiled. "Once we return home, you should go to my mother and have her fix your hair. He did a terrible job," he joked.

tI gave him a dangerous look.

t"Too soon, too soon," he agreed. He uncovered my nearly naked body and handed me the cloak to cover my front. I could feel his gaze moving over my shoulders, the side of my face and the back of my neck as I looked over my shoulder at him. The moonlight fell through the bare branches of the trees to fall upon my naked skin, and I could swear that he gulped. I was sure of it when he cleared his throat. "I"ll start on your back, now." He began healing, and then when he reached the base of my spine, I could feel his hands trembling. "Oh, heavens!"

t"What? What is it?"

t"You have a mark.... his mark.... carved and engraved with dark magic on your back.... I cannot heal this.... It is the Darkelf letter "M". I a.s.sume that his name began with that letter...?"

t"Yes, Prince Mafrien."

tHe startled. "Prince Mafrien? That is who captured you?"

tI nodded.

t"But why would the Darkelf Prince want to capture you? That doesn"t make any sense," Drakul asked as he approached us.

t"He said that he liked to collect rare and unexplained and "exotic" things..." I said.

t"Did he...." Dragon said. "Darkelves, particularly the men, do something at the end of their mating sometimes, to continue on their bloodline and ensure insemination..."

t"I don"t understand," I lied. In truth, I already knew to what he was referring. And I just wanted him to tell me himself, to confirm my suspicions.

tDragon rubbed his hands together, uncomfortable for obvious reasons. "It is hard to explain. It is supposedly a very painful experience for the female, they call it "locking", I believe. It is similar to when dogs mate, knotting inside of the female to ensure pregnancy."

tCold, furious fear filled my heart. The idea had crossed my mind, but I"d had no clue that it was, indeed, a fact.

t"Kysael?" Dragon asked, gripping my shoulders.

tMy body trembling, I slowly met his eyes. His got wide, and he let go of me. He looked away quickly, and I could see his body shaking. His fists clenched.

tDrakul crossed his arms. "This is bad. If the king finds out, he would have no other choice but to execute you, la.s.sie. It would be best for all the citizens, and an act of mercy for you. After all the fuss the city threw over you, there is no way that they would allow you to give birth to such a child."

tVintice interjected as he came up to us. "To avoid such an outcome, you would have to tell the king that you want to leave for your honeymoon, and then leave Havengrove to move on to another life....If you leave the city without the King"s permission, you are labeled a betrayer, a rogue, and he would have an a.s.sa.s.sin come to kill you. But he will not allow you to leave the city without good reasoning. This is all very troubling..."

tDragon sighed and turned, coming back to me and he wiped the tears from my eyes. "I need to speak to Kysael alone. Please…"

The others looked at each other, and gave a small nod before they walked away.

Dragon stood there with his hands on my shoulders, looking away. I could tell he was lost in thought.

There was fear there. Anger and hurt, pain. I looked up at him in small glances. I knew that he knew. I didn"t know how, but he knew it. I saw his gaze go down to my belly.

"Dragon…"

He met my eyes. "I"m���" He sighed. "You know, don"t you…?"

I looked away. "He told me. How did you know…?"

He clenched his eyes for a moment in pain, before he met my gaze again. I could see the sorrow there. "I had smelled the slight difference in your scent, that night outside of the cabin when we had gone home… My scent… taking root inside of you. I knew that you had only freshly conceived." He looked away. "I had been filled with mixed feelings. We had agreed to wait, but we had been so lost in pa.s.sion that I had released inside of you. I was both upset and very happy. But now…"

"It"s gone. He killed our child without a second thought. And now, a new smell is taking root inside of me in our child"s place."

Tears filled his eyes, but did not fall. His gaze was solemn, and his hold on me was firm. "I will protect you. And I will help you in any way that I can. I will go along with whatever it is that you wish."

tI was thankful that he had sent the others away so that we could have some privacy.

tI sighed. "What will we do now? If he really ensured that I was...impregnated...then...I can"t expect you to possibly accept this on top of everything else...I am ruined for you. Not even a wife for a day, and I have ruined everything. I couldn"t protect our baby. I… I am useless."

tHe hugged me. "Don"t say that, Kysael. This was not your fault. Had you not been on that battlefield, I would be dead right now. And yes, he took you...but...you can"t just leave the city without proper clearance from the King...Vintice"s idea could work, however." He sighed. "I don"t have the answer. But I told you already, whatever decision you make, I will support you."

tA thought occurred to me. "What happened with my father? Is he still in Havengrove, waiting for me?"

t"No. He said that if you wanted to meet him, you could find him whenever you were ready and that you could come to Lykra to seek him out."

t"That"s it, then. Perhaps he would allow me to live in Lykra..."

tDragon nodded. And then he gave me a look full of meaning. "Come now, you must be tired." He led me to a tent, and stepped inside with me. He whispered. "Have you fed?"

tI sighed. "Once....about seven days ago."

tHe held out his arm, and I didn"t hesitate. I latched my teeth into him, suckling hard at the sweetness waiting for me inside of his skin. He hissed in quietly, stifling a moan. After several minutes, he began to stroke my shoulder.

t"Kysael," he whispered. "You don"t have to cry," he said.

tTears ran down my face, and my sobs broke my swallows of his sweet, precious blood.

tI went to take a step away from him, and I cringed in pain. "It...it hurts," I whispered.

tHe pulled me into a hug. "I am so sorry."

tI continued to cry, sobbing into his shoulder. "He....killed our baby. My belly hurts, and my back. And… and he was..." I shuddered. "He ripped me.... badly. And now, I am spoiled for you," I whispered out, my voice cracking, my throat still raw. "I have had perhaps five minutes with you as my husband, and now this. I am ruined. And I have such physical damage, I"m in so much pain." My voice cracked again, and my throat constricted in pain. I grasped my throat without really thinking.

tHis face got very pink as he held one hand over my throat, and one over my covered private areas. The lavender glow soothed and healed, and it got more comfortable to stand. He then held his glowing hand over my back and my abdomen, and I felt warm with his healing power. After a few minutes, I let out a breath of relief.

t"Thank you, Dragon. That feels much better." I was thankful that it was easier to speak, now. "Truly. The pain has lessened considerably."

tAnd he utterly shocked me when he brought my hand up to his mouth, kissing it. He kneeled before me. "Kysael...." He looked up at me. "I will do anything that you wish."

tI leaned down and kissed his cheek. "Thank you. But I think that I am ready to retire for the night. We have a long day of travelling tomorrow, and I need to conserve my energy."

t"Of course. Good night," he said, kissing me.

tI gave him a sad smile as he left the tent. How was he staying so… so calm?

tI lay down, and once everyone was down for the night, I was on the cusp of sleep when I heard the voices.

t"What in the world has happened to you?" Drakul"s voice asked. The tone was hard, and I could just imagine the unhappy expression on his disapproving face.

t"I do not know what you mean, father..."

t"You should know exactly what I mean. You are changed, son. Ever since the war, you have been different. Before the war, you made it no secret that you were doing your duty and doing what was best for the girl, that you didn"t have deep romantic feelings for her. Now, though...You have openly claimed that you will serve her at any cost, Dragon. Something has happened to you. You told me yourself, you felt a pull toward her. What happened during the war to make you this way? Why are you trying to be even more than you already are for her? You are already her protector, boy, as well as her blood source. You are already her husband. Why do you feel it necessary to serve her, "however she wishes", as well?"

t"Could it be possible that she fed you her blood?" Vintice"s voice asked as he joined in the conversation.

t"Well...yes, she did. I was stabbed, by a Darkelf on the battlefield...she told me that she would keep me alive, no matter what she had to do...that she loved me, and couldn"t lose me. And then she bit into her arm, drank her own blood, before feeding it to me..."

t"Then you are her blood bound servant, now," Vintice said quietly.

t"Oh, heavens above!" Drakul cried softly. "That would explain your increased desire to protect her and your undying need to serve her!"

t"I.....I don"t understand...."

t"When a Wraith feeds someone else, a non-Wraith, their blood....it creates an intense bond even more powerful than the Soul Bond of our people, only in the fact that nothing can break it but death. The Soul Bond is a sacred, holy bond. The Blood Bond is an unnatural, dark bond that is frowned upon because it is usually used to create servants for the Wraiths....and permanent blood sources." Vintice explained.

tI startled. I.....by trying to save Dragon"s life, I had made him my servant? That certainly did explain his odd behavior.

t And I immediately felt like a demon, a disgusting creature.

tEven in an act of trying to save someone, trying to do good, my good intentions had been turned into something dark and twisted and wrong.

t"But....Kysael wasn"t trying to make me her servant...."

t"Perhaps not, son." Drakul sighed heavily. "Never the less, you are her servant now. And as a Blood Bound servant, you will literally do anything that she asks of you. If she asked you to kill yourself, you would be fully obliged to obey her every whim. It is a powerful, evil tool of the Wraith people. I know that the la.s.s didn"t understand, and she just wanted to help you....and please, don"t be offended...but it would probably have been better for you if you had died. Your devotion to her protection was already frightening.... but now, your devotion to serve her.... that is a very scary thing indeed, son. And it"s wrong."

tDragon sighed. "So, nothing can break this bond...? Nothing at all?"

t"No," Vintice said. "Only your death can free you from her service. For as long as you live, you will live to serve her. Even if she were to die, you would still stay around her grave.... or her child, should the child live after she died. Your service would move to serve the child, because her blood would flow through the child"s veins. It would never end, not until your death."

tI heard Dragon sigh. "It is done, then. I fully accepted Kysael when she was born, and swore to protect her. Now, I am eternally bound to her through marriage and through blood. I guess it"s really no different."

t"Be careful, son. This is a dangerous thing, I"m not entirely sure that you grasp just how dangerous this is. If she were to find out, to be honest, I don"t know how she would react. But your bond to her demands that you serve her in any way. And that means in any way, son."

t"I understand," Dragon said softly. "But she needs me now, more than ever before. Now...I need to get some sleep."

t"I heard. And… I am sorry about the child. I hate that this has happened. But there is nothing that we can do to change the past. You and Kysael will get through this, together. Just try not to lose yourself along the way." He huffed out a sigh. "We will begin again after we"ve had some breakfast in the morning," Drakul said. "Goodnight, son. Goodnight, Vintice."

tA few moments later, I heard the flap of my tent open, and I pretended to just be waking up.

t"What time is it?" I asked in a yawn, stretching.

t"It"s a few hours until dawn. I just wanted to check on you, to be sure that you were sleeping well. I didn"t mean to disturb you," Dragon said softly, his tone careful. He didn"t know that I"d heard the conversation, and I could hear it in his voice.

t"It"s okay," I mumbled. "Goodnight," I yawned again, rolling over.

t"Goodnight, Kysael." I felt his body sit close to me in the tent, and he stayed with me even after I had fallen asleep.

t*

January, 1102 A.D.

t.i.t was just turning into the new year, when we arrived back to Havengrove city. I had been captured on December the tenth, and had been held prisoner there for twelve days. I was released on the twenty second of December. And then, it took twelve days with stopping to rest and eat to get back to Havengrove city.

tAnd by the time we returned to the city, my belly was already beginning to poke out just a bit. Dragon was constantly glancing at it nervously, but he always had rea.s.suring and comforting things to say to me.

tKelose had went back to his home with Lunariel in Irasil, he had only been in Havengrove to check on his family after the war had taken place when he ran into Dragon...and then, Dragon told him I had been taken by the Darkelves.

tDragon took me care of me, and told me that he could feel the life force inside of me, a new little heartbeat.

tSo, it was true, for sure, then.

tI couldn"t help but to be angry. I knew that it wasn"t the baby"s fault. But it should have been my child with my husband. Not this… not this dark, dangerous psychopath"s forced offspring.

tI didn"t blame the baby. But I was angry. I was angry that it wasn"t Dragon"s.

t.i.t wasn"t the child that I would have wanted.

tI sighed. What was I going to do? My life continued to beat me down despite my best eff0rts to be the best that I could be. Why did things continue to happen this way?

tAnd now�� well, I wasn"t entirely sure that Dragon would ever desire to be with me that way again. Would he want to father children with me, now that I had been spoiled by someone else?

tWould he want to be with me at all, anymore?

tWhen I got back to my tree, I found most of my things burned from the war. I had not known before, because Mafrien had attacked me at Dragon"s cabin. But he had obviously decided to destroy my personal home. So, if Dragon decided that he didn"t want to see me anymore, I had no where else to go and I would have to rebuild it from scratch.

tMost of my clothes, my bed, my paintings.... most of it was gone. There were a few items that I was able to save.

tDragon came to see me the next day after we arrived. He helped me move what few things that I did have to his home, helping me get moved in to my own room. I wasn"t comfortable, in the current situation, sleeping in the same bed with him. And he didn"t push the issue, for which I was thankful. He let me have my s.p.a.ce, and I appreciated that.

tAs the days pa.s.sed, and my belly grew, bit by bit, it finally began to really sink in. And I felt no ill-will or hatred toward the child.

tI knew that it wasn"t the child"s fault. I did, however, wish that I had at least fought a little harder than I did.

tI had not spoken to anyone in over a week when Dragon came knocking on my bedroom door.

tI refused to see him, asking him to give me a little more time to accept things. He had gone away without a single objection.

tIf anyone saw me now, they would know. I had no choice but to hide from the world.

tI was already running out of time, and I had only been back in the city for going on two weeks.

tI sighed, washing my pregnant body one day.

tI had not seen Dragon in nearly three weeks, at this point. I knew that he would always be there, waiting.... but I didn"t want to see anyone.

tI continued to send him away.

tBut sometimes, during the night, I could swear that I could see his lavender gaze watching me through the crack of the door, and in the next second vanish. Perhaps he was there, perhaps not. I continued to have hallucinations.

tFinally, one day, he"d had enough of my behavior.

tAnd he busted my bedroom door open, as I was running a soapy wash-cloth over my naked body.

t"Kysael!" He stammered, turning his head. "I am so sorry! I haven"t seen you in so long that I wanted to check on you! I didn"t think that you would be bathing!" He was blushing, fl.u.s.tered.

tI laughed softly and pulled on a thin robe. "You can open your eyes now. It isn"t as if you haven"t already seen it, anyway."

tHe faced me again, his cheeks still pink. "You...your stomach...."

tI ran a hand over it. "Yes, it has grown considerably. The child is even kicking me, now. I do not know why it is so fast-growing...perhaps that is a Darkelf trait."

t"This isn"t good, Kysael. Something needs to be done, quickly. We need to leave."

t"If anyone saw me now, Dragon, it would be obvious that I have been pregnant for a while, at least in appearance. And if not in my appearance, it will be obvious that the man I married is not the father once the child is born. You deserve better than me, better than this."

t"And you deserve to have a man who would do anything for you," he said softly.

t"Out of service or out of love?" I snapped.

tHe hesitated. "You heard my conversation with Vintice and my father, didn"t you?"

tI nodded. "Yes. And I don"t want for you to be my husband out of service to me.... or even because of an arrangement from the King and our clans. I want someone to be with me out of love, and for no other reason."

tHe sighed. "I am sorry, Kysael."

t"I know. And if you must serve me, then you can, but I did not and do not intend to have you be my servant."

tHe smiled. "I know that."

t"I am afraid, though. At this point, it is completely obvious that I am with child. The king would more than likely execute me for being intimate before marriage before he would allow me to leave this city. This is my second offense. And if he found out that I was pregnant with a predominantly Dark Realm child, he would surely kill me."

tHe nodded. "I don"t know what else we can do, then, other than to leave. But you are right, the child more than likely wouldn"t look enough like you to pa.s.s for any man in this city"s child." He sighed. "Only your father could help us now, Princess."

tI startled. "I nearly forgot about that," I smiled. "I don"t think I"m ready to rule over a race that I know little to nothing about," I said softly.

t"You don"t have to worry about that. Your father has an heir already for the throne. He is your baby brother. Only males are allowed to rule in Wraith society."

t"Ah, well, that is good to know."

t"How long has it been?" He asked me. And I knew what he meant.

t"Since that night in the tent."

tHe startled, and he quickly came and kneeled. "Then you must be starving."

tI licked the skin, numbing it before I let my teeth sink in to the skin of his shoulder. He moaned, and my body got hot.

tFeeling enflamed, I ran one sharp nail along my shoulder as I readjusted to get on my knees with him, and pulled his head to the laceration.

tI moaned in painful pleasure as he fed from me in what was the most exotically erotic moment of my life.

tHe squeezed his hands on my shoulders, his hands moving down to my waist, grabbing onto them tightly.

tAnd as soon as we broke away from one another to bring our lips to meet, I cried out in surprised agony as the base of my spine began to burn.

t"Kysael!" He cried when I fell to the floor. He looked over me quickly. "What is the matter? What is happening?"

t"M-my back! The mark!" I cried.

tHe flipped me over to inspect my back. "It"s raw!" He said, anger in his tone. He helped me sit up, and got me a gla.s.s of water. "So....it is a mating mark," he said softly.

t"I see. So, I can feed and be fed from.... but as soon as it turns into any type of romantic or s.e.xual attention, it prevents it."

t"If just a kiss can do this to you, I would hate to see what anything more would do."

tI punched the floor. "And he wins again! I can"t even kiss my husband!" I shouted.

tHe patted my shoulder. "I am sorry."

t"Now there is no point for me to be married to anyone. I couldn"t be with them, even if I wanted to. He must just love to destroy people!" I accused darkly.

tDragon sighed, and brought me into a hug. "Is there anything that I can do for you?"

tI scoffed. "Not unless you can turn back time." I sighed. "Why me? Why have a child with-" and then it clicked. My father had another heir to the throne....and Mafrien wanted the throne of Barrenwilds. "An heir...." I breathed.

tHe understood, also. "Mafrien wanted an heir...? But why wouldn"t he simply choose a Darkelf woman?"

t"He told me how much he hates Darkelf women, because they"re so predictable and easy to get into bed, they"re not a challenge," I said.

t"But you are the first female warrior in the history of elven culture, and a hybrid of the Light Realm and the Dark Realm....you are exotic. You are unique."

t"And to be able to a.s.sume the throne of a city, you have to have an heir to your bloodline," I said.

t"So, he found the woman he has always dreamed of, and ensured that you would give him an heir."

t"And once his heir has arrived, he can go and show his father, and be able to take the throne!"

t"This is even worse than we thought. If he expects to use the child to help him ascend the throne, that means that he will return for you," Dragon said.

t"Or he expects me to return on my own," I said darkly, Mafrien"s last words to me ringing in my ears again. "And what will he do once he is the king? Will he simply dispose of us? Or expect us to stay with him, there in Barrenwilds?"

t"I am not sure. But we need to get you into hiding, Kysael. We need to get clearance from the king."

t""We"? Dragon, you can"t come with me. And I am not leaving yet. We still have some time. I need a plan, not just a notion."

t"Kysael, I am under obligation to protect and serve you. I may not be able to be with you in an intimate way, but I am your husband, your mate. I cannot simply stay here while you leave. I have continuously failed to protect you, but I promise that I will continue to fight to keep you safe."

t"Let"s pray that I won"t need to be protected in the future. And I will not fail myself again."