Outcast Among the Reeds

Chapter Seven

   She didn't understand. How had he done it? Never had she...she was incapable of...He had made her feel...pleasure. She had intentionally blocked his emotions from hers, determined to send him into a passionate stupor since her initial attack had failed. But he had turned it around on her, muddling her mind with...desire. She suppressed an involuntary shudder. He's an elf! Cunning, manipulative, he would take her away from her forest. He would take away everything she had ever known if she let him and she refused to do so; no matter what she had to do to stay.

   She took another clumsy swipe at him but he dodged, hissing as he pulled his own hair. She snarled as pain lanced through her arm and back, glaring at him for moving. Most of the strength that had possessed her upon realizing who her new captor was had already fled, leaving  her weak and winded. Heat radiated from her wound and from somewhere deeper, heightening the sensitivity of her tender skin. Stubbornly, she refused to let him see the adverse effects the tussle had caused her.

   Why can't he stay still and just let me kill him? If he's not going to fight back, he could at least stop delaying the inevitable.

   For the first time since she first saw him, his face darkened as he stared at her. Even when she had attacked him, he had only felt surprised and confused. She lowered her guard a tiny bit, expecting to have finally angered him, and almost grunted as she was bombarded with his annoyance, underlined with his clinging arousal.

   What is wrong with him? I'm trying to kill him and he won't get angry but still wants to bed me? Elven males are more foolish than humans, she decided, despising the fact that she shared a heritage with him. A small, buried part of her had mistakenly hoped that her own kind would resemble her. While he did have similar physical characteristics, their similarities ended there.

   He must enjoy almost dying. Why else would he not strike back when she clearly could not defend herself? Or, he's toying with her. That thought nearly made her growl again until he interrupted. The language he spoke teased her ears, smooth and graceful despite the demanding tone he attributed to it. It felt familiar, as though she should understand what the words meant but could simply not remember.

   What did he say? She wondered, flexing her hand on the hilt of the knife. He had clearly asked her something. She probably would not answer even if she knew, but she did not like the sensation of not understanding anything around her. His frown deepened and, if  not for the feeling the confusion through their tentative bond, she would have feared he would strike her.

   "What have I done to warrant such violence?" He demanded, though not as strongly as he had spoken before, as if testing something. Was it to see if she understood? She briefly pondered letting him think that she had not, but quickly decided against it. She had already responded to the other two, it would be pointless to feign ignorance at this point.

   Instead, she focused on his question and couldn't believe what he had asked. He had come to steal her away, why would she not attack him? Did he honestly think that she would just leave with him willingly? She narrowed her eyes, wondering what he was up to. He felt genuinely confused, as though he could figure out her motives no better than she could discern his. His gaze, blue as the afternoon sky above them, bore into her expectantly. She glanced away. Those eyes had drawn her in before; she would not allow them to lull her again.

   Rather, her eyes slid down his body, hovering over her with one hand planted beside her head, the other against her cloth-covered ribs. Soft material brushed against her arm, a surprisingly pleasant sensation to her sensitive skin. Beneath the leaf-green shirt, she had felt something unfamiliar covering his torso when he had lain upon her her. Hard, yet malleable, it clanged dully and rustled when he moved. Her hand itched to find out what it was but she reminded herself sternly that it was covering an elf. An elf that had long, leanly muscled limbs that had wrapped around her with impunity as though he thought they belonged there. She ignored the fact that she had thought the same thing at the time.