OwnedbytheElf Read Free

still impossibly handsome,
despite the scar. She glared some more, just for good measure. There was no way
in all the hells she should notice how good-looking he was. He was midden scum.
Lower than midden scum. He was an elf. There was pond life out there that
should be higher up on her list of attractiveness.
    “Yeah? I’ll bet they were siblings, weren’t they?”
    She twisted her wrists experimentally. He’d retied her hands
in front of her, but any hope that he’d been sloppy died a quick death. The
bonds were just as tight as they’d been before. The knots were expertly tied
and designed to tighten if she struggled.
    Great, just fucking great.
    “Oh, low blow, little one. You’ve got a sharp tongue, haven’t
you?”
    He flicked his wrist and the dagger he’d been using to
whittle with buried itself up to the hilt in the dirt by his thigh, the small
figure he’d been working on disappearing into his pocket. Odd, she’d never
thought of elves as having hobbies.
    “How about you use it to tell me what you’re doing behind
the lines?”
    “Tamryn Isyrian. Sergeant. Queen’s Scout.”
    The sigh he gave was heavy. Tension crowded into the little
space around the small camp fire as if it were another person and watching them
with interest. It should have brought a snack, because if this was his idea of
interrogation, it was going to be a long night.
    “You are aware of the situation you’re in, aren’t you?” he
asked, as though concerned that she might have missed this vital point.
    She gave him a blank look and ignored his question. He was
the enemy and she didn’t talk to the enemy. Earlier had been an exception. The
hit from the spell-mine must have loosened her tongue enough to trade insults
with him.
    Now that she’d gotten her composure back, he had no chance
of getting any information out of her. Her mission had been routine. It was
just a quick slide behind the lines to check the numbers so that Queen Talitha
knew how many dragons to field tomorrow, but he didn’t need to know that. The
longer she kept him tied up, the longer there was one less elf out there to
hassle her people.
    “Tamryn Isyrian. Sergeant. Queen’s Scout.”
    “Are you always this stupid, sergeant, or are you making a
special effort today?”
    He flashed a grin she didn’t trust. It transformed his
features from simply cruelly handsome to devastating, but the darkness still
lurked in his eyes behind the amusement. Instinct and all she knew about elves
warned her not to trust that darkness. Her feminine side, however, wanted to
push just to see what happened. She was obviously out of her mind.
    They were predators…violent and argumentative…and possessive
as all hells. The few prisoners who’d escaped told tales of debauchery and
orgies. Males fighting to the death over the few females they had. Elves didn’t
love. They owned.
    A shiver crawled up her spine, dragging goose bumps along
her flesh. She had to find a way out of here and fast. Sure, he might be after
information now, but as soon as he got bored with her silence, then the rough
stuff would start. She knew better than to hope he’d kill her outright. Elves
were way more inventive than that.
    Humiliation, pain and degradation were just a few of the
things she could look forward to. Her legs started to shake, but she ignored
them as she called power from the earth beneath her. She wasn’t the most
powerful faery out there, but she could pull a goodly amount of power.
Certainly enough to unravel the rope he’d bound her with.
    Dumb elf.
    “Brains aren’t everything,” she shot back, desperate to keep
him from working out what she was doing. She had one shot at this, just one, and
once he worked it out, she had to hope all that muscle and mail slowed him down
a lot. “In fact, in your case they’re nothing.”
    “Brave, aren’t you? Or insane.” He chuckled and he leant
back against the trunk to study her with a keen eye. The blackened bark behind
him