Read Online The Elven King by Lexi Johnson - Free Book Online

he had tried to resist the bond -- why he had tried to send her back through the gate before it closed.
    “I never intended to keep you here against your will,” he said.
    “But now we’ve got this soul-bond thing, right?” she said urgently. “And time is passing faster in my world than here? That’s what you said.”
    “Yes,” he explained, “but it’s not that simple. I don’t know how quickly time passes there. You might have a moon -- a year, even -- before it becomes too late.”
    “I might? Maybe?” Her hands had started shaking as she gripped her cup. “That’s not good enough,” she said. “I have to go back, somehow.”
    She looked at Aranion. “I’m not trying to leave you, but…” Her eyes were shining, and she bowed her head. “God—the cops—the blood. Charles – my brother… he’s going to think I’m dead! They’re going to think Michael took me somewhere and killed me! I can’t leave it like that. I can’t.”
    “I—“ Aranion could hardly breathe or think through the waves of pain, guilt and fear that Sade was projecting through their bond.
    He had never considered this complication. He had been prepared to leave everything he’d ever known; he had already come to terms with that. But when Sade had chosen to cross the gate, it had been without any understanding of the consequences. Of course, she must have family and friends among her own people. And now, minute by minute, they were growing farther and farther away.
    “How long before I’ve been here too long?” she said. “That gate opens when the moon is full…my aunt told me that.” She sat upright suddenly, as if struck by a thought. “Oh, God! I bet that’s what happened to her. She was here, wasn’t she? She wandered through, and she stayed too long!”
    “I don’t know,” Aranion said. Sade’s hands were still gripping the cup. He reached out to cup them in his own.
    “We’ve had mortals come through to our world before,” he told her. “If they end up in the hands of the Bane Sidhe, terrible things can happen to them. To be truthful, we Sidhe like to play our games with them as well, but…we don’t hold cruelty as our highest form of pleasure.”
    “I can’t leave my brother like that -- thinking I’m dead or worse. I just can’t,” Sade said. She met his eyes, her own full of determination. “You have to take me back to where we came through,” she said. “The gate comes every full moon, Nana said. I’ll just wait for it.”
    The thought of her leaving was agony. It was all Aranion could do to keep his thoughts focused, and his voice calm, as he tried to explain: “Wild gates don’t work that way. It could reappear at another place -- past the forest. Or in the Bane Sidhe lands, even.”
    “That’s it, then? No options? There has to be something we can do.” Sade had started to shake again.
    Sade’s emotions were consuming Aranion’s mind, making it almost impossible for the elf to think. He wanted to take her into his arms and dampen her pain. But the burden of carrying her distress and anxiety on top of his own was making it impossible for Aranion to do anything more than hold her hands in his – though he doubted that even that was helping much. Just as her fear and pain were heightening his, Aranion’s emotions must also be magnifying hers, amplifying them back to her in a loop.
    Thankfully, Meldigur still had a level head. He said: “The best thing for both of you is to return to the Sidhe court.” They turned to look at him.
    “There is a captured gate in the temple,” he went on. “You can speak with the priests -- they understand gates better than any of us. And…” He exchanged a meaningful glance with Aranion. “… since that’s where we have to go anyway, it’s really the only solution.”
    Sade looked at Meldigur, and then back at Aranion. “Is that right?” she asked.
    Aranion nodded. “The priests are the only ones who truly understand how the gates