Her mother's silver eyes glowed brighter than the sun with elven fire.

Eleanor winced against it. Her heart skipped and lurched into her throat. She stumbled away, ready to run.

But guards' gloved hands grabbed hold of her arms like shackles.

She threw her weight back but knew it was pointless. They'd never let go. The sadistic jerks.

"What were you thinking?" her father barked. The veins and tendons in his neck looked ready to snap. Red saturated his face, as if a wound on his head had bled. "What the hell are you wearing? I work hard and leave your mother alone every day, so you can have silk dresses befitting a queen and you shame me and all of Biston with this?"

Her mother spoke over him, "You can't abandon your fated one."

The old wound tore and spilled painful heat from Eleanor's chest. "He isn't mine. He doesn't even know." And he never would.

"You're coming home right now and you'll apologize to him for this."

"No I won't. I'll run. I'll scream. He deserves curses and misery, not my apologies. He doesn't care." Tears rolled down Eleanor's face.

Her father opened his mouth, face creased with rage but whatever he meant to say halted in his throat. He turned to Eleanor's mother and his mouth closed. Quietly, they talked in each other's minds.

Eleanor hated when they did that. It meant hell for her. Punishments. A shrinking prison cell. Removed privileges. Children had more rights and privileges than her. But she'd almost escaped this time. Next time, she'd be even stronger. They wouldn't catch her next summer. Eleanor wiped the tears from her burning eyes.

Chapter Two.

December 21, 9544 AR.

Valetta, Biston.

"She's grown," Erick mumbled, knuckles slowing his lips. She looked exactly the way he imagined she would. Hunched over in his stone throne, he hid his twitching cock. He should have accepted the nose plug.

Her come-fuck-me perfume filled the vast throne room. The sultry mix of musk, rosewater and honey drew every man in the room to their knees, save her guards.

The six stoic men surrounded her. Uniformed in gray and black, they could pass for royal guards, except for the silver, false noses that plugged their nostrils, supposedly rendering them impervious to her charms. Through the corners of their eyes, they sneaked peeks at their charge.

Earth, Erick couldn't feign disinterest any better. If he had her alone, he'd shock that scowl off her pouty lips. Her petite breasts would bounce free as he tore that red dress from her smooth, toned shoulders. After a few hours with him, her elven fair skin would look human, flushed with color and heat. He'd dig his fingers into her hips and supple buttocks while driving his cock into her. Thrust after thrust.

"Your Majesty?" Henry's voice echoed off the bare walls and arched ceiling, startling Erick back to reality.

"You don't have to call me that." The man had saved his life countless times and shed blood to win Erick the crown. A cursed crown. All that kept it on his head was Henry's skill as a military commander.

"Your Majesty," Henry pushed in his stern tone.

The girl interrupted whatever Henry meant to say. "There are too many men here." Only two dozen knelt on the chipped marble floor, yet she tugged at her raven hair in frustration and started toward the parlor. Darkness swirled around her like a widow's veil despite the sunlight spilling in from broad windows overhead. She absorbed it like heat from a fire, no doubt due to the drafts. This part of the castle had always chilled her in winter.

Her guards moved in a perfect circle around her, as if extensions of her skirts. Time must have strengthened her ability to control them. A repulsive quality in a girl.

"Eleanor, don't embarrass me," Henry snapped at his daughter.

Henry's elven wife, ever protective of their girl, scolded him in her native tongue. Her silvery hair fell loose from her pointed ears over her ageless face with each syllable. She towered above her husband, eyes aglow with elven fire. Her pale lips clamped closed but the morphing expressions on Henry's face hinted that Anre continued her scolding in his head.

Erick used the opportunity to adjust his painfully rigid cock to a less noticeable position. If he took the nose plug now, Henry would know why. Earth, the girl was practically his niece. Though not by blood.

She slipped into the parlor and her scent faded. The loss should relieve him but it left an ache in his chest. Elven magic?

One quarter elven blood flowed through his own veins, making him a dilute hybrid, yet he knew absolutely nothing about their mystical powers. On the outside, he looked purely human. The one elven gift he'd inherited worked sporadically at best, only when others let him read what they were thinking. At the moment, no one shared their thoughts. Rare silence filled the room.

"Maybe we should continue this in the parlor," Erick suggested, not to see her, just to hear Henry's candor instead of the formalities. He rose from his throne, finally flaccid.

Anre smiled in that frustrating way that meant she knew. The woman was like fog sneaking up in the night. She slipped into his head unnoticed. All the more reason to tell Henry no.

They followed Erick past Eleanor's guards, into the parlor.

The girl sat in his worn chair, curvy legs dangling over the arm peeking out from her skirts. Sunlight silhouetted her from the stained-glass windows. Ironically, the colored bits of glass glowed with scenes of Bistonian soldiers hunting elves and hybrids.

When the door closed behind them, her perfume nearly floored Erick as his blood pounded in a wild frenzy to engorge his penis. The small room with its low ceiling concentrated the seductive scent. She easily overpowered the centuries-old stink of spent cigars that normally wafted from the threadbare upholstery. He tugged his shirt collar away from his neck, suddenly boiling.

Eleanor glanced briefly up at him from her book, then ignored him as if he were a mere crystal beetle clicking by. She didn't rise and he didn't give her the chance.

He sat as far away from her as he could and propped a stained pillow on his lap to hide what he shouldn't feel. His rigid cock struggled painfully against his restraint.

"Greet your king," Anre demanded, softly.

"He isn't mine," Eleanor muttered. Her bell-like voice took on a sour tone as her darkness stole beams of colored light from the window. "Men are just sacks of hormones without any inclination toward civilized society, except for you, Daddy." She smiled but the act lacked any flavor of sweetness.

As much as he tried to hide his embarrassment, Erick's mouth curled up in a grin. Had she read him? Shit. This wasn't going well. He needed her gone. Growing rage chased the embarrassment away. That brat was in dire need of a swift smack to her curvy ass. If she didn't leave soon, Erick feared he'd be the one to deliver such a punishment and much more.

Henry apologized and sat near his daughter, as if that could impede her destructive nature. "It's just her age. Puberty for elves. Angst."

She grimaced and shook her head. Her raven hair shimmered and cascaded over her slender shoulders. Slightly pointed ears poked out. "I'm nearly twenty."

She'd never fall past that perfect peak. The flawless, never-ending beauty of an elf. Half-elf, a hybrid, though she looked nothing like her human father.

Henry ignored her arguments. "I know she's a handful."

That word drew Erick's gaze to her breasts. He shouldn't want to fill his hands with her. Frustration squeezed his eyes shut briefly. What the hell was wrong with him? "Why didn't you take her to Nan?" Thankfully, the thought of the woman who'd raised them threw his mind back to him.

"I did. Ma can't handle her anymore. These past two years have been...hell."

"Then let me go. I don't want to be with you, either." Hatred ignited her pale blue eyes. The ethereal radiance shot from her like icicles.

That same light was supposed to burn brightest in the ecstasy of orgasm. Erick pushed the thought away and leaned forward to hide what the pillow failed to disguise. Earth, he prayed Henry didn't notice. Shame dropped his gaze.

Henry was his oath-brother. One of the two who remained. Erick couldn't disrespect him this way.

"Anre needs to feel elven land under her feet to recharge. It'll just be two weeks. Eleanor's guards will watch over her. You don't have to speak to her."

"Of course you don't. I don't have a fucking phallus so what does my opinion matter?"

Henry gritted his teeth and raked what remained of his thin gray hair.

If any derivative of the word fuck left her mouth again, Erick would lose what little remained of his self-control. He couldn't do this. "I'm sorry, Henry. I owe you everything and I'd do anything for you but I..." He couldn't say it. "Her guards can watch over her better than me. I'm drowning as it is." Any day now, an assassination attempt would finally find its mark and sink him in his sea of failures.

"Biston's never been better. You're doing fine. Give it time." Henry stood. "Just stick her in a distant wing of the palace. So long as she doesn't escape her guards, you won't notice her. She sulks around her room all day. You only have to bother with her if she escapes. Once the frost kicks in next week, there's no danger of that."

Elves and most hybrids die in freezing temperatures.

Phil walked in, a smile on his bearded face. Arms wide, he hugged his brother. "I thought you were gone already."

"I'm going." Henry started toward the scuffed door with Anre.

Do something. Erick projected the thought to Phil.

But Anre and Henry left, as if fleeing from a burning building.

Shit. The girl could end him. The only men he trusted would slit his throat if he laid hands on her. Worse, they'd abandon him. He'd already lost three oath-brothers. The guilt of that failure still haunted him.

Phil leaned on the arm of Eleanor's chair and squinted at the book in her lap. "Elven architecture?"

She actually smiled up at the man. "Look," she flipped to another page, "at the stonework on this one. The curved surfaces make it perfect to withstand attacks but it's so beautiful. You can see the elven designs here and at first, you'd think it looks like an elven palace but look at the battlements."

"They look like the ones here."

Eleanor nodded. "I think the ruins up north used to have the same battlements and the foundation where it's caved in has this same shape."

"Interesting. I never thought much of it before." Phil flipped the book closed to glance at the cover. Intricate elven designs stamped the leather, even though the script was human. "Very handsome book."

"It was a gift from Gildon's queen."

Erick grimaced. Ceres, Gildon's queen, had nearly crushed Biston several times. The evil bitch toyed with them mercilessly, leaving most of Biston in ruin. Yet Bistonians still flocked to the enemy nation in search of work.

"Does she still write to you?"

"Don't encourage her." Erick wished he'd never introduced her to the bitch but he'd needed Eleanor's presence to win a truce. Queen Ceres' only weak spot was for hybrids, true hybrids.

"Yes." Eleanor ignored Erick and excitedly unfolded her bookmark for Phil to see. "Do you have your glasses with you?"

He patted his pockets. "I must have left them somewhere," he mumbled. The old man was practically blind without them but managed to lose his spectacles every day.

She read it aloud, "All lives feel the pain of destruction but we are judged by how we repair and rebuild. Let hope and duty lift you from the despair of your losses. Aspire for more than those around you. Ceres Duran." Carefully, Eleanor folded it back up. "I like the way she writes."

Get rid of the girl, Erick demanded.

But Phil only smiled in response.

That fuck-me scent probably screwed with the old man's head too.

Phil cringed and shook his head at him. She's my niece.

If only Erick could see her that way. Earth, he couldn't hold his breath much longer.

"I have something for you," Phil said to Eleanor, who squealed like the little girl Erick barely remembered. "I'll get it. Wait here." The old man left. His heels clicked where holes marked the faded carpet.

Erick should have followed Phil but the raging erection tenting his pants wouldn't allow him to. A sick part of him didn't want to leave. If he could just bend her over the back of that chair and lift up her skirts.

She glowered at him as if she'd heard his thoughts.

He tried to tap into her mind. When she used to live at the palace and before the war, they'd talked silently for hours but she'd been a child then. He slipped around the blocks guarding her mind to a place they'd shared.

Stop it. She forced him out. Why?

Because I don't like you.

She used to follow him everywhere, chattering like a baby bird. Eleanor was the girl from the tarot card of his past, not that he believed all of the wizard's ramblings. Open and unguarded, Eleanor had shared her imaginary worlds and every vivid thought. When stresses crushed him, she'd been his healing retreat within these decaying walls. A magic place only a mind tap away instead of the hell she unleashed on him now. He hadn't realized how much he'd missed her, the innocent her and Earth, he needed an escape after the day he'd had. If she'd just let him into the dreamlike world that hid beneath the darkness veiling her. What had changed, besides the addition of that scent and curves of her body?

You did.

You can read me but I can't read you?

It isn't my fault your thoughts are so fucking loud.

His cock throbbed as if on command. She so casually threw around that word.

"What? Fuck? You're such a whore. Have you knocked up any more of my friends since I saw you last? Just knock them up and marry them off to other men. Instead of fucking everything that moves, why don't you honor my uncles who died saving your incompetent ass, by actually doing your job?"

Fury shoved him to his feet and he seized her in his grip. He yanked her up and pinned her against the wall. Her flesh electrified the palms of his hands as he glared down at her. Mouth inches from hers, he snarled, "I regret every breath I take in their stead. If I could go back and undo their sacrifice, I would. As for my job, I'm your king and I deserve your respect."

"Earn it," she said through bared teeth.

"You arrogant brat. Someone ought to beat that self-righteous look off your face." He pressed her hard up against the wall. Chest heaving, nostrils flared, he inhaled heavy drags of her scent. His mouth salivated and he swallowed. "As for who I fuck, that's none of your damned business." His cock twitched against her stomach. His hips jerked and he couldn't help himself. He scraped her back up the peeling wallpaper and forced himself between her thighs.

He knew he should stop but she didn't fight him. Her hands rested calmly on his chest. It couldn't be wrong. Air puffed from her lips as he pulled aside the skirts that bunched up between them. He ground his cock hard against the crotch of her panties and her glare blinded him with a blaze too bright to be from fury alone.

He gripped her soft thighs and prayed she wanted him. He couldn't stop. Like an animal, he dry humped her pantied cunt, grunting and sweating. But it wasn't enough. His throbbing cock needed the slick squeeze of her pussy. He bunched the front of her panties in his fist and tugged the silk crotch aside.

"Bad doggie. No." She smacked his ass. "Down."

A growl rumbled in his throat. "I'm the master here."

Her smug smile argued otherwise and forged rage in his burning gut.