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  Owned by the Elf

  Mina Carter

  She was ordered to spy on the enemy, but when Tamryn wakes behind enemy lines, tied up and a captive of the sexiest elf she’s ever seen, far more than military secrets are at stake. Elves and faeries don’t get along. He’s big, brutal and as sexy as the seven hells. Bane’s kisses sear her lips and his caresses ignite a fire in her heart that won’t be denied.

  Bane has never met a faery he didn’t want to rip limb from limb, but Tamryn is proving to be the exception. Instead of secrets, he steals kisses from her lips and finds a passion that makes him burn. Elves don’t love, they own—but Bane may have to give his heart in the process.

  Ellora’s Cave Publishing

  www.ellorascave.com

  Owned by the Elf

  ISBN 9781419939198

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

  Owned by the Elf Copyright © 2012 Mina Carter

  Edited by Briana St. James

  Cover design and photography by Syneca

  Model: Nick

  Electronic book publication March 2012

  The terms Romantica® and Quickies® are registered trademarks of Ellora’s Cave Publishing.

  With the exception of quotes used in reviews, this book may not be reproduced or used in whole or in part by any means existing without written permission from the publisher, Ellora’s Cave Publishing, Inc.® 1056 Home Avenue, Akron OH 44310-3502.

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  This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locales is purely coincidental. The characters are productions of the author’s imagination and used fictitiously.

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  Owned by the Elf

  Mina Carter

  Chapter One

  Something was wrong. The awareness of danger reached down through the layers of darkness and semi-consciousness to hammer on Tamryn’s skull as if it was a woodpecker at a favorite tree. Wariness slid its cold finger around her spine, all her instincts screaming at her to open her eyes, meet the danger head-on with her sword in hand. But experience told her to stay put, eyes closed and breathing deep, until she’d figured out what was going on.

  She’d never come out of sleep so slowly. A member of the Queen’s Scouts, she was one of the elite—the best of the best. The soldiers the rest of the faery army looked up to. And the elite didn’t wake up groggy, with a head so thick it felt as if she’d drunk the entire contents of the quartermaster’s liquor wagon last night. As least not without meaning to and a good head start on said quartermaster.

  Keeping her eyes shut, she moved slightly to test the waters. Pain shot though her arms, twisted behind her back, quickly accompanied by pins and needles. She bit back a groan. Her wrists were tied behind her back and she was face-down on something soft and warm.

  Great, just fucking great.

  Could have been worse, she could have been face-down in the mud, her breeches around her ankles as the entire elven army got busy. She bit her lip as her imagination went into a frenzy. Her mission had been behind enemy lines, so that last was still a likely probability.

  “I’m screwed.”

  “Not just yet, little one. But you will be if you don’t tell me what I want to know.”

  The deep male voice slid over her in a rough caress, making her shiver in response. The voice wasn’t that of a faery. No faery had that rough timbre, a rumble of granite with a hint of rich darkness thrown in for kicks and giggles. No faery should ever have a voice like that. It was a voice that spoke to the darkest places within her soul and opened the doors to her secret desires. Slamming up mental shields, she cracked an eyelid open and looked around.

  As expected, she was still in the middle of the wasted woods. The blackened, twisted skeletons of what once had been trees before they’d been blasted by centuries of magical fallout surrounded her, reaching out spindly fingers greedily. She suppressed a shudder. Some of those trees had dryads locked inside, creatures driven mad by magic and apt to seek the blood of anyone unwise enough to get within their clutches.

  The flickering light of a small fire kept them at bay, the creatures ever fearful of the damage flame could do to their barky hides. Within the circle she was safe, from the dryads at least. There were other nasties that lurked in the darkness out here. Her gaze wandered over the small blaze and she noted the tin kettle dangling from a makeshift tripod. The bitter, smoky smell of coffee reached her, teasing and tantalizing her senses.

  She smirked. Coffee or tea, every soldier’s staple requirement. They’d go into battle with the odds stacked against them and prewarned the situation was dire without batting an eyelid, but cut off the brew and you had a mutiny on your hands.

  She didn’t speak, her attention swept on to the figure behind the fire.

  Fuck me. Make that double screwed.

  An elf sat on the log opposite. Bigger and meaner than their faery cousins, elves were brutal and savage. They took pleasure in hunting down and slaughtering their enemies, in particular their former allies, the fay, in inventive and sadistic ways. Turnabout was fair play, though, since every faery warrior she knew held the same delight in tracking down and dispatching elves back into the arms of Mother Earth.

  The two races had been at war for years. An unending war that had started long before she’d been born and would likely carry on long after she’d met her fate. Which, given the circumstances, might be a little sooner than she expected.

  He was huge—the biggest damn elf she’d ever seen. He was clad in leather and mail, with a vicious scar running across one cheek and his hair shaved close to the scalp. She should have been pissing herself in terror just at the sight of him. Instead, she was caught by the color of his eyes. A beautiful moss green.

  Eyes widening, she ignored the pain in her shoulders and arms to roll to her side as fear did a jig down her spine in hobnail boots. It might not do her much good, but it meant she had her legs in front of her, so at least she could kick him before he slit her throat.

  Her head swam when she moved, the forest around her spinning as bile rose in her throat. Groaning, she rested her head down for a second, not caring that it put her in a position of weakness. He was an elf. If he’d wanted her dead, she would be already.

  Breathing through her nose, she opened her eyes again. A starburst of gold lines decorated her stomach and danced before her eyes. She sucked a breath in, recognizing them instantly. Spell impact. Shit. She’d walked into a spell-mine. Since she was still breathing and had all her limbs attached, it had obviously been designed to incapacitate. Elf ordnance was never designed as nonlethal. So why now?

  Her legs began to shake as the lone dancer on her spine was joined by a full team, this time with bells and sticks, to continue the dancing. Lifting her chin, she gave him a challenging look.

  “I’m telling you nothing, elf scum.”

  The last word slipped out on
a sneer before she could stop it. Way to go, Tam, she berated herself. Just antagonize the walking, talking, killing machine, why don’t you?

  He didn’t move, still sat with his forearms rested on his knees. A vicious broadsword crossed his back and a smaller, if no less lethal, curved dagger found its home at his lean waist. Leather and mail completed the look, the leather worked with elvish sigils as if to underline the fact that he was an elf. As if she could miss that.

  “Elf scum?” He lifted an eyebrow, amusement flitting across his expression. “Last of the original thinkers, aren’t you? Let me see…now I should threaten to rape and murder you, then defile your pretty little corpse, shouldn’t I?”

  He was laughing at her. Anger rolled through her and washed the fear away.

  “Defile? Just you touching me is enough, you bastard.”

  She struggled against her bonds, wriggling on the furs over the sparse grass. There had to be some give in them, a way for her to escape. Her life couldn’t end this way, tied and defenseless. But the knots were tight, no slack for her to use and wiggle free. Realizing she was just wearing herself out, she gave up and looked up at him, a small huff escaping her lips. Through it all he hadn’t moved, just watched her with interest.

  “Finished?”

  “Untie me and I’ll show you how finished I am.”

  He laughed, a rich roll of sound, and surged to his feet. Standing, he was huge. Intimidating. Her heart stalled as he loomed over her, then slammed against the inside of her rib cage in a rapid tattoo. The stories of how elves treated prisoners of war ran rampant through her mind.

  Torture, rape and death were the more pleasant options. This was it. He was going to kill her. Or worse. She flattened herself against the furs, trying to evade his grasp. If she could, she’d have made like an earthworm and burrowed into the dirt.

  His hands grabbed the front of her tunic to haul her upright. She bit her lip as pain shot through her arms. She wouldn’t show any weakness, not to her enemy.

  He hauled her up his solid body to eye level. She tried not to whimper. He was huge and solid, her softer, feminine body molded itself against rock-hard muscles. Her tunic lifted, allowing the heavy mail across his chest to bite into her bared stomach. Amusement warred with another, darker emotion as he looked into her eyes.

  Fear bit deep, a ravening beast that clawed at her as a gold circle appeared around his irises. The color of elvish magic, the last thing many a faery saw.

  “No!” she gasped, throwing herself back, anything to break the hold of his gaze. She wouldn’t die this way. Not so easily.

  “Sleep,” he commanded, and her world descended into darkness.

  She was a pretty little thing. Bane, Commander of Briac the Bloodthirsty’s Army, stood in the middle of the isolated little clearing just behind the front lines and looked down at the unconscious faery in his arms. The pull of attraction was surprising. Instantly he rejected the notion. She was a faery, and he couldn’t be attracted to a faery. No way, no how. He had some standards. Not many, admittedly, but some.

  The fay were distant, very much inferior cousins to the elves, and he’d killed so many over the years that he’d lost count. Men and women. He’d never once looked at one, and unless he needed information, never felt anything apart from an overwhelming desire to rend him, or her, limb from limb.

  He’d certainly never felt the need to check if a faery was breathing after he’d hit him with a spell. To be fair, there usually there wasn’t much left to check other than a wet, bloody smear on the battlefield, but this time he’d only used a sleep command. Just enough to put her under. He hoped.

  It was easy to make mistakes calculating how much force to use with a faery. They weren’t as robust as the average elf. Too little and you barely tickled them. Take it up a notch and their heads exploded. Some fought back, as she had. But without the aggressive magic of his race, she’d had no chance against the sort of power he could call.

  Carefully, he adjusted his hold and hefted her gently into his arms. The rise and fall of her chest under the green tunic made him release a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. She was okay, just deeply asleep. Asleep was good, even if he did miss the quick flash of fire in her eyes.

  Even half terrified, she’d challenged him. Him. Bane the Terrible. Bane the Destroyer. Bane the…bloody confused over why he was mooning over a mere slip of a faery girl.

  “I need my head checked.”

  Shaking his head, he laid his little captive gently on the spread furs of his bedroll and flipped her over. Her red hair spilled over the dark fur, sparkling like garnets in the light of the fire.

  He reached a hand out as though to touch it despite himself. Elves didn’t have hair the multitude of colors the fay had. They had shades of black, and that was it. Nothing even close to the rich, warm tone of her hair…like the red of autumn leaves. Autumn had been his favorite season as a child. The rich colors, the crisp bite of the approaching winter. That had been before he’d gone to war… Now any season was good for killing.

  He shouldn’t keep looking at her, but he did anyway. Her eyelashes were dark, fluttering against the pale skin of her cheeks and her lips. They fascinated him. Small and plump, with a full curve to the lower one he wanted to nibble on.

  She was his. His prisoner. He could do whatever he liked to her. Torture her to amuse himself until the battle in the morning. Kill her. Strip her naked, spread her out on his furs and take her.

  Heat raged through his body like wildfire, finding its home in his groin. His cock ached, hard and ready for action in a heartbeat. Gritting his teeth, he ignored the physical discomfort and stood up. She was a faery, his prisoner, and he needed just one thing out of her.

  Information.

  Stomping around the fire, he relit the dying embers with a flick of his wrist and a burst of power. The pit burst into bright green-tinged flame, drawing sustenance from the air and Bane’s own power. He snorted and ran his hand over his close cropped hair as he dropped onto the furs next to her. He’d like to see any faery do that.

  Pathetic creatures, they had no power resources of their own. Instead of building strength, they drew power from around them. Earth, Air, Fire, Water… Each faery had an affinity for one of the elements and used it to draw power for their magic. Alone, they’d never have held out against Briac’s army, but then those bastard dragons had thrown their lot in with the little winged freaks and they’d become a serious pain in the ass.

  He glared at the figure in a small heap on his furs. The green fabric of her tunic was unbroken over her back. No gaps for wings. But then, some wore their wings as tattoos on their skin. Hidden until they were needed. Some didn’t have any at all.

  Unable to resist, he reached over and pulled the fabric up slightly to check. Nothing, her skin was unmarked. He shuddered, thankful for that. As appealing as she was, the mere thought of wings made him shudder.

  As though she knew he was thinking about her, she fidgeted in her sleep. Her brow creased, her lips forming a small pout as though she didn’t like the content of her dreams.

  Bane smiled a cold smile.

  “Stay in dreamland as long as you can, little faery,” he advised softly. “Because when you wake up, you’re going to tell me anything I want to know.”

  “Fucking hells!” The next time Tamryn awoke, she burst out of sleep with all the fury she could muster. “Fucking elf bastard!”

  “Actually my parents were married. For seven hundred years. But I’ll agree on the second and I’m more than happy to go with the first.”

  Rolling to a seated position, she glared at the elf on the other side of the fire. He was still tall, and 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.