He knew that he needed to be open with her, but his first instinct was to protect her, to keep her from having to deal with dangerous things. He knew that if he attempted to cage his raven she would indeed peck his eyes out. He let out a deep breath before he answered her.

“Whatever grabbed me was something so evil, so vile, that I can still feel the residue of it on my skin,” he admitted and actually felt his mood lighten after the words were out.

Elora pulled back so she could look up at his face and he saw the concern in her eyes, concern for him. He reached a hand up and ran his fingers across her cheek, completely in awe of the creature before him who would worry for him.

“Do you think it’s Lorsan, or are you thinking there is someone else now joining the fray?” she asked.

“Whoever it was, they definitely are a player for Lorsan, but I don’t think it was Lorsan himself.”

“Why?”

He shrugged. “It didn’t feel male.”

She let out an un-ladylike snort. “Do I want to even know why you think that? Perhaps your hand landed on something.”

His finger landed across her lips silencing her as his eyes narrowed in warning. When he finally pulled his finger away she let out an exasperated huff.

“I say that it didn’t feel male because magic can have a masculine or an un-masculine quality to it. This was definitely un-masculine,” he explained.

“So how are we going to get back to Trik and Cassie?”

“I don’t know,” he finally admitted after several heartbeats of silence.

“I’m probably worrying for nothing,” she said as she snuggled back down against him. “They’ve probably smacked Lorsan to the curb and are having a party.”

“Weren’t we just standing in a castle?” Cassie asked as she looked around at the rubble surrounding her. She was trying not to look at Trik as though he had just deflected an explosion and kept all of their people safe while allowing the destruction to take its toll on the dark elves still in the vicinity. But frankly, that’s exactly what he had done, and bloody freaking hell, who has that kind of power, she thought as she stared at her husband.

Trik looked at her and in total Trik fashion, he winked. “Just think what I can do in the bedroom.”

Cassie rolled her eyes and turned her attention to the others around her. Syndra was talking to Tyndril and Tao, weird as that was. The two tigers were unharmed but seemed very agitated. Tamsin was checking on the other warriors and gathering up any of the dark elves who had lived through the blast.

“He knew his people would be killed and harmed, and still he blew up his own freaking home?” Cassie growled.

“Lorsan cares about power, Love; nothing else matters to him,” Trik told her.

“Yes but doesn’t he realize that if he kills off all his warriors he won’t be able to hold onto that power?”

Trik smiled at her. “He obviously doesn’t have a queen with wisdom such as yours to advise him.”

Cassie laughed. “If we weren’t in the middle of an exploded castle, I might think you were trying to earn some brownie points for some reason.”

“Always, beautiful Cassandra, always.” He took her hand and led her over to where Tamsin stood with the captives on their knees and hands bound behind their backs.

“Most of them didn’t even know you had returned to power,” Tamsin told Trik. “They were completely clueless. So either Lorsan doesn’t trust his own people or he had been planning on sacrificing them all along and didn’t want them to be aware of it.”

“Dude is sick,” Cassie muttered under her breath.

“And evil,” Syndra added as she came to stand next to them. “What are you going to do with them, Trik?” she asked.

Trik looked down at the dark elves kneeling before him. There were around twenty-five and they were all looking back at him, some in awe, some in confusion, but none of them looked hostile. These had been his fellow warriors for centuries, and yet standing before them now as their King, he felt as if he’d never met them.

“The Forest Lords have seen fit to restore me back as the rightful king over all the elves. You can pledge your loyalty to me and to my queen,” he motioned to Cassie, “and the Forest Lords, or you forfeit your life.” He figured that would make the choice pretty simple.

“May I speak,” a male with long dark hair and red eyes spoke up.

Trik nodded his head and answered, remembering the warrior’s name. “Leer, what say you?”

The dark elf stood and pulled his shoulders back as he narrowed his eyes at Trik. “We know you probably better than the light-elf king and queen. We know your reputation and have seen firsthand the death you have delivered over the centuries. Why should we follow you? Why should we pledge our loyalty to an assassin, one who worked so closely with Lorsan?” There was a rumble of agreement behind Leer as the other dark elves agreed with his questions.

Trik knew that these questions would come. He knew he couldn’t expect the light or dark elves to forget all of his past; they would be foolish to not question him. He didn’t want to be a leader of a race that could not think for themselves. He would never ask them to follow blindly and he would never lead haphazardly.

“You are right to question and I will answer you to the best of my ability.” He took a deep breath and looked down when he felt a small hand slip into his. Cassie was smiling up at him, her face the picture of innocence and truth—his truth. He drew on the confidence she gave him and turned back to the dark elves. “When I walked away from my crown so many centuries ago, the Forest Lords gave me a prophecy although I did not remember it until it started to unfold. They said that the choice would be laid before me to take my crown back when I found my Chosen. They said she would be a vessel of goodness and light, one so pure that she would conquer the darkness that I had allowed a foothold in my own soul. Cassandra is my Chosen. Why the Forest Lords have given me someone so gentle and kind I will never know. I do know that I may be many things, but I am not a fool and it would be foolish of me to reject the gift of my Chosen. She has restored the light in my life, she has helped me to see that our creators, the Forest Lords, have a purpose and plan for us, and it was never for us to be a divided nation.